Compaq Armada 1700 - FULL Factory Recovery!! We did it!!

Thanks to YOU... In this Compaq Armada 1700 Finale we showcase the full Factory Recovery of this beautiful machine from 1998! It took a lot of teamwork from our viewers to locate the original software and documentation to make this possible!!
#retropc #nostalgia #compaq #armada #retro #vintage #pcrepair #pentium #windows95 #windows #pc #recovery #restoration
Documentation (contained in the images):
archive.org/details/armada-1700
Hard Drive Image (from full restoration):
archive.org/details/compaq-ar...
Armada 1700 Windows 95 Restoration CD
archive.org/details/armada-1700
Majenko Technologies Link
/ majenkotechnologies

[@plasmar1]

I had a Armada 1750 that my dad bought through a news paper ad(oldschool facebook marketplace:P), unfortunately ended up realizing it had a damaged display cable and so the screen would stop working often.... what I recall was that it had really good sound

[@miregoji2959]

You could've used an external monitor

[@TheRetroRecall]

The sounds isn't 'terrible', however where the speakers are located is odd - right where you rest your hands lol.

[@TheMarinemonkey]

I'm glad i could help. I did mention before that if you set the bios to defaults it will fix the video expansion in dos although when in the bios setup program it doesn't expand the video unless booted from the setup floppy. I found that the bios ram corrupts if both the bios and laptop battery are dead then you need to reset the bios to defaults to correct the video as there are no settings for it in the bios. there is a program that can also work with the chips 65555 i think its called vexp.

[@EslamNawito]

Hopefully you can clone image your harddisk for safe keepings~ this entire thing is a hassle

[@TheMarinemonkey]

@@EslamNawito I already uploaded a copy of the restore disc and an image of the hard disk to archive.

[@EslamNawito]

@@TheMarinemonkey I hereby dub thee "The Captain of the Armada" Quite fitting for a Marine Monkey to own a warship fleet 😋

[@TheRetroRecall]

I second this!!! The Marine Monkey is amazing!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Found out that if you use FN+T it works!

[@maxtornogood]

It's nice having a reliable retro community that can give you the right advice & codes!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes!!!! Very thankful for all of the support.

[@zemmel63]

Thank you for bringing this machine back on the road again.

[@TheRetroRecall]

No problem! Nice to see it working 100% again!

[@J_Erik]

I miss Compaq. Very nostalgic.

[@TheRetroRecall]

It is!

[@UCs6ktlulE5BEeb3vBBOu6DQ]

I lost a lost of stuff from the 90's but on a zip drive I found files for my Armada 1700 not too long ago.. I loved it very much. (a winrar archive last modified 2000-09-12 by 21yo me)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!!! Do you still have the machine?

[@UCs6ktlulE5BEeb3vBBOu6DQ]

@@TheRetroRecall Nah, I had a rough start in life. But I had it all before, Armada, zip drives, 8086, TRS80, 3dfx, etc. That stuff kept me alive.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Well I hope the retro community is providing great memories for you.

[@CecilTheDarkKnight234]

Oh I was hoping to see this laptop make a full factory recovery/reset and I'm glad you found software/means of doing it. I didn't get the software/means of fully recovering my Sony Vaio Sony Vaio PCG-F630, until the recovery CDs where uploaded on the Internet Archive.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, thanks to the amazing viewers of the channel! The files have now been uploaded to archive which is great for future restorations :)

[@VintageLizard486]

What a nice little machine! ❤

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!

[@VintageLizard486]

@@TheRetroRecall What do you plan on doing with it?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Not too sure yet. I'll place it with the inventory and it may make another appearance in the future.

[@VintageLizard486]

@@TheRetroRecall Sounds like a good plan.

[@user-vc1ib9hs3c]

It just goes to show when you are determined enough you will succeed at getting it done, no matter how long it takes. Diligence & patience go a long way when dealing with this incredible retro hardware. Excellent video...I would be very satisfied if I could find a working Compaq Armada 1700 with Windows 95. It's a classic.😊

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you and agreed! It took a lot of determination and help from the community. Now it has been saved and the materials uploaded to archive.org!

[@billoverson2263]

Great detective work - and great community! 👍👍

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%!!!!

[@the_kombinator]

Not really, these things just work. Fodder.

[@PiercedJedi]

nice that you were able to get this system restored to Factory settings :) I really like that you're preserving these systems, just wish I could do the same but I can't seem to find older equipment that still works :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

I always try to make these systems go juts a little while longer. Lots more planned, stay tuned!

[@Mani-aX]

To enable screen resolution scaling for DOS try hitting the FN+t key and it should use the full screen display. Great video, I recently went down this rabbit hole with an Armada 7800.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes you are correct! It's a nice laptop :)

[@drPeidos]

Thank you for this.

[@TheRetroRecall]

You are welcome!

[@simonlathwell]

Thank you for the great content this year. Look forward to seeing even more great content in 2024. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

[@TheRetroRecall]

You are more than welcome, and thank you to YOU for being a part of the journey! Merry Christmas to you and yours as well and a prosperous New Year!!

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

Man, I just discovered your channel. And I live channels such as Action Retro and the other Retro tech channels! Definitely hitting subscribe and seeing what you have next!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks, and welcome aboard!!! Stay tuned :)

[@jdaracena]

Thank you very much

[@TheRetroRecall]

No problem!

[@fra4455]

Merry Christmas

[@TheRetroRecall]

To you as well!

[@fra4455]

@@TheRetroRecall thanks

[@MixShadowlight]

It's funny you mentioned about how outrageous it is for compaq to put the bios on a hidden partition of the laptop's harddrive considering Apple is now doing it on their macbooks... except they went one step further and have the SSD soldered to the motherboard now.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha oh my. To be honest, I had no idea that MAC did this as well, let alone soldering the SSD!

[@MixShadowlight]

@@TheRetroRecall to be specific, it's the T2 firmware that is on soldered on NAND. They started doing this after the A1708.

[@Otakunopodcast]

If memory serves, the Armada was a business-class machine, so I am not surprised that the Windows install it originally came with is relatively "clean." Business class machines (which are generally sold in corporate arrangements ,e.g. purchase orders and whatnot, rather than off-the-shelf in a store) generally don't come with anywhere near the amount of shovelware that ones sold to average (non-business) consumers did.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Great perspective and probably correct!

[@TheaEllie]

The Armada line was indeed the business class laptops from Compaq, as the Presario was for home use, and the Evo replaced the Armada. And to go full screen (scale up), it may be Fn key +F4 (as it is on my Armada E500).

[@TheRetroRecall]

It turns out it was FN/T on this model. Thanks to the viewers of the channel helping out on this one!!

[@MsIwan70]

thank you very much

[@TheRetroRecall]

You're welcome, glad you enjoyed!

[@lumanenti]

Boa Noite! Muito bons seus vídeos. Goodnight! Your videos are very good.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Boa Noite! Thank you!!!

[@MaskedGEEK]

I've never used an Armada before, but back in the days I've worked on Deskpro EN and EP series of Compaqs and was amazed how their restore CDs could take a stanard Win9X CD and alter it's files during install to create a Compaq branded modified version of Windows. Today its far more easier but back then, yeah it was amazing imaging drives with Compaq restore CDs for quick deployment on multiple machines.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for sharing this!!! Yes I agree, just so nice to let the computer and restoration process just do its thing haha.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

I was actually just a hair away from buying this exact laptop about 2 weeks ago but I am sadly enough so broke right now I could not afford the 20 bucks it sold for. But to be true about Compaq branding in overall they always been very weirdly designed both in hardware and software. So I am not at all surprised that they store the bios on the hard drive in this way here like at all. I been working a lot troubleshooting Compaq in the past and you will not find more backward and strange computers out there. in retrospect I though think this is what could make them more interesting now because you never know what you find getting one but you can also expect things not to run smoothly when you try getting them to work, especially if you encounter broken parts that is often Compaq specific for those computers and you won´t be able to replace with a different standard part either. in all their right Compaq is as quirky and unique as you many times can get. but I always wondered why they went this road to begin and if there is some actual reason they did so. what do you think?

[@TheRetroRecall]

To be honest, a cost cutting measure in my opinion. Putting it on the hard disk VS a dedicated ROM chip would make the difference of pennies but in mass manufacturing, cost savings.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

@@The_Rebel934 yes it is a fair point for sure. As you say it sure was hard for the average user to repair or troubleshoot these with ease to begin. It may actually be some kind of ecosystem method involved with it, as when they work they often did. When checking out computers like this it seems like they always went the multimedia path. With integrated speakers, extra powerful on board sound cards and stuff. But pretty much never gaming. I guess it was mostly meant for office applications where most users did not know squat about the internal components and how they worked

[@Pulverrostmannen]

@@TheRetroRecall It could potentially be a cost cutting measure but as the Rebel here said it could also be to make it less user serviceable too keep income for repairs at a specialized workshop. In my experience it would seem to cost more to produce custom power supplies, audio cards and motherboards especially for this brand than using off the shelf AT/ATX power supplies etc. my thought on placing and reading a bios of a hard drive must surely involve a boot rom somewhere to initialize the motherboard and access the IDE controller to read and execute the bios itself. I don’t think you can do this without an actual basic bios on board. So I think they actually have two bios on this laptop. One to access controllers and floppy drives and motherboard. And this in turn go to grab the information on the drive. I don’t think this would actually save much money in the end other than making it harder to execute. I think I actually agree with the Rebel Compaq wanted to make their products a certain way to keep their customers coming back for both service and repairs rather than saving a dime on the design

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think you and Mr. Rebel (long time supporter of the channel!!) are correct. I misread your original comment.

[@Ventrux]

All Windows 95 could reboot in Dos Mode, I can't remember exactly but I think the trick was to press Shift + Click on the shutdown button, something like that.

[@kennethwilson1140]

I think Compaq did that silly BIOS on the hard drive thing with all of their computers until they merged with HP, I got free Compaq desktop and had the same problem but could never get a hold of the files to restore the BIOS bits back to the hard drive. Last Compaq I ever touched.

[@doctahjonez]

Not all of them it seems, I have a Deskpro from like 2000 that does have a regular bios. Wouldn't trust any computer that does have this nonsense though.

[@the_kombinator]

Untrue, that era BIOS are built in.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, it was definitely a challenge. I can only imagine how hard it would be for others as well that are like this.

[@kennethwilson1140]

@@doctahjonez I know they switched to being more conventional but don't really remember when, it was free and not my daily driver computer so after a reasonable effort I moved on. The majority of my experience is with IBM/Lenovo products.

[@RetroTechChris]

Glad you got things working. I've hunted down drivers to get Win3.11 running on my 1750, the 1700 is pretty similar. If you ever have questions about LTEs or Armadas, feel free to reach out!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you so much, I definitely will :)

[@RestorationPortal]

You got a like from me

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you, glad you enjoyed!

[@miraakthuri]

funny how they put 95B but still included the IE4 shell wich is the only addition of 95C

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahah yes!

[@jdaracena]

May you do a video doing a deep maintenance please. I have a one of them and I would do maintenance too but I wouldn't damage it

[@TheRetroRecall]

I do plan on taking it apart to check on the coincell battery and to upgrade the ram. Stay tuned!

[@stevenchristenson2428]

With regards to the bios on the drive its not actually the bios that is there. The setup utility along with any diagnostic utilities are on the drive, including the one you need to interface with to make changes. The actual bios routines and data is still located on a EPROM chip. For really old machines this was not uncommon to do and I think even the original 5150 did this to an extent. It might have been due to the bios chip being a ROM chip only and not able to save any settings so changes were saved somewhere on the HDD, but I could be remembering wrong.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Appreciate the clarity!

[@branscombe_]

oh my goodness, one of my clients had like five of these that we threw away to e-cycle last year :-(

[@TheRetroRecall]

😭😭😭😭

[@dh2032]

the missing screen upscaling function most laptops, there's function keyboard [KEY], most of the time on the bottom row of keys, and pressing that key changes what the [F1] to F12] keys do somthing ? there pictogram images, on the keys to sometimes, I would suggest looking for one that looks like a old stile standalones CRT/VDU desktop screen, giving a press and see what happens, most of the laptop I've used, it a multi function key, so each time it's pressed, changes the out screen some way, there is also normally one of the pictogram images, on the keys on the fly changes the VDU display out from the Laptop internal screen to the VGA cable connector, once more it a multi function key, so each time it's pressed your get different option if your lucky you maybe able get the laptop and an external VGA screen going at the same time, and the option all sorts of options, mirror to screens, or running the two as just on big display screen?

[@TheRetroRecall]

We got it working! It's FN+T of all things. Nothing to show on the keyboard at all haha. Thanks for your help, much appreciated!!!

[@laurencejohnson4106]

Congratulations on your successful research!👍👍 What type of ram., does that laptop use?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think SDRAM, it can take another 128mb module. Thanks, much appreciated! It took quite a bit of help from. The channels' valued supporters:)

[@laurencejohnson4106]

@@TheRetroRecall Yes, it's a good example of cooperation!👍👍 I checked online and it uses PC 100 SDRAM and I have also checked my stock of laptop ram., but none of it is compatible.

[@TheRetroRecall]

No problem at all. I think I have some :)

[@timschonherr7674]

I do own a few Compaq Armada devices, the 1700 Series is not amongst my collection. How ever i do own 2 devices out of the 1500 Series. There the keyboard combination of „Fn+T“ allows to toggle the screen size. And yes there is a BIOS partition on the Harddrive, however basic BIOS functions such as detecting system changes are all possible without the HDD and the partition. It will auto-detect and prompt for actions. Furthermore i dont think this BIOS is a limitation, as it is very user-friendly when working and allows simple mouse input. Simple point and click on a picture. If you need any Compaq Softpacks let me know, i might have them.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you and yes, another viewer commented the FN T function, it worked, so thanks to you as well! I just tested it and soooo much better. I'll reach out if there's anything I'm looking for. As an aside, anything you have would be great if you could archive them on archive.org. There's so many people out there trying to restore these old systems and they don't have the resources available and it's because of amazing people like yourself that makes it possible. :)

[@timschonherr7674]

@@TheRetroRecall The files are sadly no use to you, if you don’t know what you are looking for, as they only carry a number not a label or description. However i managed to copy up until SP40000 from the FTP before they (HP) removed it. Still no use as there is no catalogue with descriptions.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ok. Thanks for this clarity. I will look into this and let you know. Thanks again for your help!!! I love this community.

[@HamburgerAmy]

i can never not read it as "Compaq Amanda" at first glance.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Lol!

[@MartinaD]

Screen Expansion can be toggled with [Fn]-[T]

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ok, if that works I'll be very pleased!! I'm going to try and report back, thank you!

[@TheRetroRecall]

You solved the mystery!!!!!!! Thank you so much, you are amazing!

[@menotyou8369]

Fn+T gets you full screen scaling.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes thank you!

[@MidoseitoAkage]

No more Silence Doom II. Hurray!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahha yes!!!!

[@doctahjonez]

Jeez a bios partition on the hard drive?! Guess this is where Apple got that from.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahha yes. It is something that just blows my mind.

[@gentuxable]

To be fair, the first IBM PC didn't have a BIOS setup on board either. You had to boot a floppy if I remember correctly and all PCs are supposed to be clones of the IBM PC, so on the hard drive is actually a bit better than having to search for that floppy. Having to run a DOS program to change BIOS settings wasn't uncommon either.

[@BRBTechTalk]

6:11 OMG that is just as bad as HP's feature bit that a big pain in the butt to deal with when changing a motherboard.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Or in this case, just a hard disk.

[@byrd203]

I'm curious do you know about the game Compaq included in Windows 95 Echo Lake please get a copy of it. Echo Lake memories from my childhood on a Compaq computer please do a video on Echo Lake try the tools menu from the computer setup echo Lake so much fun

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'll check it out!

[@abcd1239me]

So my 3500 has a Pentium 2 @ 266 and the same chips and tech video with 2megs.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!! It's a great machine.

[@djhpdell]

I had a presario 2266 and I had replaced the HD and never gave me a problem when entering the serial number

[@TheRetroRecall]

I guess it all depends on the model and how it was configured by Compaq. I was happy to get the original software and documentation with the generic code for it to work again - restoring this PC back to the original setup.

[@NguyenHoang-pv2xd]

Did you test upgrade to Windows 2000 ?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I did not :). Trying to keep it as original as I could

[@christopherdecorte1599]

I been fighting with a compaq 5695 with a pentium 3 500 for about 2 weeks now the original hdd is dying . In it I some what got the restore to load to a cf 4g card but need to run plop boot loader to force it to boot and the computer hates my old hard drives I have laying around. I'm pretty sure this is the last compaq pc I'm gonna work on. They shipped the pc with the worst possible hdd a quantum Bigfoot 20g the slowest cheapest hdd possible at the time. I'm trying to use an 80g baricuda 7200rpm since I have 3 of them unused.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yikes, it sounds frustrating. At least you have the recovery software. Keep at it, you will get it going!

[@christopherdecorte1599]

The recovery software is on the damaged hdd it's a nightmare there isn't any recovery cds for this model that I can find. I kind of regret picking the pc up from the curb of a neighbor 😅 it had no ram or video card. So I bought 512 ram about 30usd and a diamond viper 700 tnt2 card to play unreal tournament plan to network this pc with my 2005 emac and 3 server systems in my closet eventually for the good old net play.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha sorry I misunderstood. I'll keep an eye out for you for the software as I know how frustrating it can be. Once you have the recovery software, you should be able to replace the drive and the software will do the rest (including fixing the boot issue, and being able to access the system setup options). Again, stay with it... In the end it will be a great machine!

[@christopherdecorte1599]

It is a overall good looking system only the metal case is a bit ugly but once software is solved I plan to sticker bomb the metal and clear coat the stickers think it will be unique once done then I'll continue with my other pc projects I got 5 old pc I'm working on and 3 semi modern core 2 duo's. The only computer computer I need to aququire after that will be a decent 486dx and I'll be pretty satisfied since I grew up on 386s and 486s I miss my ast desktop system.

[@christopherdecorte1599]

When I worked in gaming for igt there was a big push to increase profits. The way they wanted to do it was by selling services to increase profits by 30% I believe that is why pc manufacturers went out of their way to make pcs this way. I called hp customer service in the past and they charged quite a bit for troubleshooting especially if you weren't under warranty and they definitely wanted to sell you more of their products to keep you returning a good example is those illusive restoration cds I think they ran about 30 to 50usd but 20yrs later it's truly a pain to get drivers and such. But that's the cost of wanted to not be dependent on the internet every time I boot a pc windows 10 started to take it so far with being connected just miss playing games without everyone knowing in online.

[@Jorje15gaming]

How can I upload my Compaq windows Vista recovery discs to the archive? Does anyone have a recovery image for HP g7 laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium x64 bit?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hey there! I use a free application called 'anyburn' that you can use to 'image' your software. Once you have that you can then upload them to archive.org. Thanks for your willingness to do this! I hope someone sees this comment and can help you out! We have a great Retro community forming here.

[@TheRetroRecall]

It's pretty awesome!

[@Hadisabetghadam]

Fn+F8 For Full Screen Maybe

[@TheRetroRecall]

We have figured it out... It was FN + T

[@Hadisabetghadam]

You Can Get Good Scaling On Full Screen MS-Dos? Becuase Lot Of Laptop specific IBM Mid-90 Laptop Have Bad Scaling If You Turned Full Screen On MS-DOS@@TheRetroRecall

[@TheRetroRecall]

We did get it working in the end :). Much better than what we had before that's for sure.

[@mikwilseb]

Fn / F4

[@mikwilseb]

owned a armada 7800 and this worked

[@TheRetroRecall]

Figured it out!! FN / T of all things haha.

[@mikwilseb]

if u ever come across a 7800, let me know. miss that system@@TheRetroRecall

[@TheRetroRecall]

Sounds good!!

[@the_kombinator]

I have two of these - absolutely stout units,took one to Korea last year and played HOMM II on it on the way there. Absolutely NO need to restore these, both of mine have working 1 hr batteries off charge. This is very different to my 4/25 LTE which DOES have the BIOS on the hard disk. These just work, and they have a proper BIOS. No need even for an overlay. Why did you even go through this process?

[@TheRetroRecall]

As I do with most of the systems I get on the channel, I try to restore / preserve them back to the original. If you saw in the first video I did on this machine, I just installed Windows 98 and most of it worked but had a few issues. This restore fixed those issues quite easily. Also, in this case the BIOS setup was on the hard disk and the disk stopped working which eliminated access to the computer setup and diagnostics. And finally, why wouldn't I? I'm hoping others who have this machine that want to do the restoration can now easily obtain the resources to do so. Not everyone has the same view :)

[@the_kombinator]

@@TheRetroRecall I was able to clone my drive before the Hitachi Deathstar clicked itself out of existence. I have a pile of spares with the images, only thing I had to do was install some softpaqs. Great machines, watch the plastic release clips tho.

[@TommyBeingaDik]

Nice video mate. Can you tell me which program you used in order to make bootable cd to work for this laptop?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks! I used the program called AnyBurn for writing the ISO. :)

[@TommyBeingaDik]

@@TheRetroRecall thanks a lot dude. I used different programs like MagicIso, IMG burn. I also bought 1-4x cds. Anyway, it worked with Anyburn so i appreciate it and have a mice day.

[@TheRetroRecall]

You too!