BP Discovery 308 w/DX32 Backup

[jthornton]

I have a BP Discovery 308 with a DX32 control. It has a solid state hard drive. It runs in DOS 6.22. I used the DOS backup to make a back up of the hard drive. Is there anything else I need to do to save settings and or be able to install a new hard drive when this one fails.

Thanks
John

[machintek]

Not sure what that backs up. Better to do a disk image.
I carry DOS disks and install disks. Usually because I have to start from scratch. The DX software typically has a make back up batch file. This will not back up DOS but should back up the machine software and parameters.

George

[Big47mike]

Speaking of the dx-32 software i recently picked up a discovery 300, Someone before me removed the hard drive (gone stolen) Now i have a couple ton paper wieght Does anyone have a copy of the operating software they could send via email? or disk if to large for e-mail. Any other advice for getting this machine going would be apretiated I don't want to go about removing boards and retrofiting. -Mike

I have copies of the operating manuel i could trade a hard copy for a copy of the software

[jthornton]

You might look on a daughter card to see if you have a solid state drive (they are tiny) plugged into the ISA plug. It will have a red and black (typ) power wires going to the power supply.

I wonder if the 308 software is the same? Mine runs on DOS 6.22. I'm still in the process of making a disk image of mine.

Does yours boot up at all? Do you have power on the 120v rail?

If you get a chance take a photo of your motherboard and I'll see if it is like mine.

John

[Porscheman912]

I am not sure what file is suppose to be the one to run the DX32. I just replaced my motherboard, and for some reason, I cannot get it to load back up, or, it will show the DX32, and just start running numbers. I have a discovery308, but I am running dos 7.1. I had the system up and running, computer is setup as stand alone, and is not hooked up to the machine, due to running a UPS with it, plus I can start it without the machine. I have all of the manuals for this, but trying to see if anyone might have an idea of why it would not load up to the main DX32 windows screen. I can get you the files you need, because the are on disk, I am just trying to figure out if something is not hooked up right with my machine. Any ideas, and I will help with anything I can.

[jthornton]

Did you plug all the daughter boards back into the motherboard?

John

[Porscheman912]

I plugged everything that I can see back in. I just reloaded everything back in, and it will autostart, but just runs numbers and does not come up to the main screen. I did see 2 wires, blue and purple, that look like jumper wires, but I do not think they were ever hooked up, I could be wrong. For awhile, I had both red lights on, on the control card in the ISA slot, and now just the bottom one is on. If you know where those 2 wires go, it would be nice to know. I have never ran my machine, due to a bad drive and servo. I just got those replaced, and was hoping to check out the computer before starting the machine. I hope my control card did not go, or maybe I did not type the right command after loading the files back in. I did find out that I had to replace the autoexec.bat file for to OS from my disk, but I cannot remember if I copied other system files to get it up to the main screen. Any help would be great, and if you need the files, I have them, and all of the manuals.

[jthornton]

Can you take a photo of your board so I can compare it with mine?

Also I hang out on the #emc IRC channel on freenode. If you don't have a clue what IRC is just go to linuxcnc.org and pick the community tab and then the embedded java client. Just say I'm looking for the guy with the Discovery 308 and if I'm anywhere around I'll see you.

John

[jorber]

Originally Posted by jthornton You might look on a daughter card to see if you have a solid state drive (they are tiny) plugged into the ISA plug. It will have a red and black (typ) power wires going to the power supply. I wonder if the 308 software is the same? Mine runs on DOS 6.22. I'm still in the process of making a disk image of mine. Does yours boot up at all? Do you have power on the 120v rail? If you get a chance take a photo of your motherboard and I'll see if it is like mine. John

I have a TC-30 with dx-32 i think with solid state drive, because nothing is on ide ports, but now is not booting and appear as no disk system, do you think that can be installed a disk on the ide port? or what else can solve my problem?
attached is my cards picture

[jthornton]

Here is where my drive is on my 308... on the smaller board not the long one.

John

[jorber]

Originally Posted by jthornton Here is where my drive is on my 308... on the smaller board not the long one. John

what type of bmdc is that? mine is BMDC3S
could you take a picture where can be seen complete

[machintek]

The first time Bridgeport used a solid state drive was with the TC30. It was a flash card that plugged into a ISA slot. It only worked with 2 motherboards. It was then used with some EZTRAKS. Later, EZTRAKS used a Cutler Hammer control. It had a half size mother board with a daughter board that was a solid state drive (8MB). As technology progressed, the daughter board was replaced by a 8MB disk on a chip. All these required that the C drive was set to NONE.
It is a recent development that a DOM (disk on a module) can be purchased and used. This device requires that the C drive be set to the DOM parameters as it uses the IDE port and emulates a hard drive.
300 and 308 software had versions for different versions of DOS and for the different machine versions (FMDC vs BMDC, Bridgeport drives VS Siemens).

George