BPT EZTrak DX2 DOM Problem

[jmorris@mailmds]

I am looking for help with a DX2 that will not boot to the flash disk. This machine was built in 97 and I think it has a PCI flash disk. There is not a traditional HDD on the machine.

We can boot to a DOS floppy and then cannot find a "C:\" drive. The BIOS readout does not show a disk drive as a PCI resource during the boot sequence. We replaced the CMOS battery in 2005 and again today. It still cannot find the flash disk.
Does anyone know the correct settings in BIOS for the Primary Master Disk? Please see the attached photos.

Thank you in advance,
Jon

[machintek]

Both the M systems Flash card in a ISA slot and the Disk-On-A-Chip require that the C be set to none. Both of these devices require special software when setting them up.
Example: The special floppy for the flash card cannot be locked. The machine boots from it, loads software, writes to the floppy autoexec so the next boot it goes to step 2. So now it automatically reboots, executes step two (loading minimum DOS), does this all over again, and executes step 3. In this final step it writes to the floppy autoexec again and sets it back to step 1. Then machine software is loaded.
If a virus is contracted on one of these devices, it is toast.

George

[jmorris@mailmds]

Machintek,
Thanks for the help. We definately have the PCI card. Do you think that we need to reload the control software? Any suggestions where we can find that?
Does anyone else have a DX2 with the specific BIOS settings? That would be very helpful.

Thanks,

[jmorris@mailmds]

Machinetek, Thanks for the help. Any idea where I can find the appropriate software for my 1997 DX2 three axis machine? How do I get the BIOS to recognize the C drive?

Jon

[machintek]

The Bios/CMOS will not find a C drive unless you have a C drive such as a hard drive or DOM.
If set to none and it still does not boot from the Flash card then it is time to replace the flash card. This is old flash technology and had limited read/write cycles.
Ordering a preloaded DOM from EMI is the best advice I can give you. Less headaches and very reliable looking forward. But remember that you still have very old technology in your control.
Flash card software if still available would be from M-Systems web site.

George

[jmorris@mailmds]

If I can get the current motherboard to recognize a smaller IDE HDD, is there a software package that can be loaded and function? for example, EZTrak 6? Where might one source the software?

I am working with EMI right now. Total cost for me is ~ $2k. That is allright. But, I think I may be able to add much more functionality with a whole new control system for not much more $.

Any recommendations on a control retrofit kit? Our DX32 drives, motors and encoders are working fine. We would like to have engraving, CAD/CAM and networking.

[D-Money]

Originally Posted by machintek Both the M systems Flash card in a ISA slot and the Disk-On-A-Chip require that the C be set to none. Both of these devices require special software when setting them up.

I always thought the BIOS had to be set to hard drive Type 1. Guess not, heh.

Hmm..the OP needs to go to wiki and look up the differences between ISA and PCI cards. :P

[jmorris@mailmds]

D-Money you are right. The flash card is an 8MB ISA. It is what normally shows up as the C:\ drive. I am now trying to get the MB to recognize another media format as C:\ Hoping that I will then be able to reload the EZTrak SW. Any suggestions on where to get a copy of the EZ SW?

Jon

[D-Money]

We're only running v3.06 here.

[jmorris@mailmds]

Our 8Mb ISA flashdisk died last week. The two popular solutions are:

Option #1 is to buy an entire new PC that uses a passive backplane and single board computer (SBC). The SBC has a flase disk that becomes the "C:|" drive. Total cost ~$2,200.

Option #2 is to try to find a small (<1GB hard disk drive (HDD) The old mother boards will not recognize HDD much larger.

There is another type of DOM product we found that plugs right into the IDE connector. We have the original motherboard running right now with a 50Mb "C:\" drive. It is booting into DOS 6.22!

Now, all we need is a copy of the EZTrak software. Anyone able to share?

Jon

[dreammstr6]

I have EZ-TRAK 6.00. it will erase your drive and install everything needed.

[D-Money]

Originally Posted by jmorris@mailmds Option #2 is to try to find a small (<1GB hard disk drive (HDD) The old mother boards will not recognize HDD much larger.

Unfortunately, the HD size limit is nowhere near 1 GB, it's pretty much half of that. The old limit is usually in the neighborhood of 504MB, depending on the BIOS.

There are software packages that do let old systems run with bigger hard drives, but I have no idea how they'd react to EZ-Trak.