Hey guys-

I am trying to help someone get a bridgeport EZ-trak SX up and running. The hard drive went out in it, so I bought 3 identical hard drives on eBay to reload the mill software on. Right now I have DOS 6.22 loaded along with the bridgport EX-trak software. What do I need to do now as far as putting this hard drive in the mill and setting it up? I am a newb at mills, but I am a computer technician...

Any help would be great!

Does the machine have the original mother board?
What size did you partition the hard drive?
The original SX did not have a hard drive. The DX did.
Set the CMOS?
Try booting?
Set the machine travel, backlash, pitch error, etc.

Ready to go.

George

Does the machine have the original mother board?
What size did you partition the hard drive?
The original SX did not have a hard drive. The DX did.
Set the CMOS?
Try booting?
Set the machine travel, backlash, pitch error, etc.

Ready to go.

George

I am pretty sure it has the original motherboard in it- He didnt tell me that was ever replaced. It is a 1.5g HDD, and I just made one partition on it.

You say the SX didnt ever have a hard drive?? Thats strange I will have to make sure his is not the DX then..

Where do you set the machine travel, backlash, ETC? Will it prompt me to enter that? I have never messed with anything like this before..

thanks for the help so far!

Im not sure whats going on, I replied to your post, but I didnt show up- If this is a double post I apologize!

It might be the DX then, but the book does say SX. As far as he knows the motherboard has never been replaced. The only problems he has had with it, is it eats hard drives. I know how to setup everything in CMOS, but we are confused where to input the travel, backlash, etc.

We havent attempted to install the HDD yet, but we just want to make sure we have all the info on how to do it when the time comes. The shop doesnt have internet access!

Thanks!

How are the hard drives mounted into the cabinet?
The original mount had rubber isolators. Bridgeport found out that this did not work so they mounted the hard drives in a frame that suspended the hard drives on springs. Thus longer HD life.
The original BIOS did not support anything greater than 528 MB. That is why I asked how you fdisk/partitioned the hard drive.
There is a LOT written about all of this if you only search the posts.
At the main screen, press the * key. A box will come up and ask for the code which is 11235. Press ENTER twice and the machine travel parameters come up.

George

Thanks for the help! I will search and see what I come up with.

Originally it had an IBM 528mb HDD, but when it went out the guy had a bridgeport technician come out and reinstall a new one. He used a WD 1.5g HDD, so I got the same exact HDD's of eBay.

Yes, but how did he Fdisk it and partition it?
Show me where to buy a 528MB hard drive right now. You have to buy a bigger one an fdisk it so the older mother board can use it correctly.

George

Well, I didnt partition it. I didnt know about that until you mentioned it yesterday. I just saw that the HDD that was in the machine at the time was a 1.5g. I knew that has HUGE for that motherboard, but I thought since it was working at one time that it must support it. I looked in all the manuals he had for limitations on the motherboard, and it didnt saw anything about the HDD.

So it sounds like I will have to take the HDD's and reformat them to 528mb, set the parameters of the machine, and we should be good to go.

We might even look into getting a DOM, I wish I would have found this forum before we started messing with it!!

Also, I have been searching the boards to see if you have use a more modern motherboard- I know MOBO's with ISA slots are impossible to find, but why is it important to stay below 133mhz? I know ISA slots made their way onto some P3 boards, and they will all have built-in IDE controllers...