bport/romi ez-path won't boot up

[MIKE JEFFERS]

"NTLDR missing"
anyone know whats amiss



mike

[MIKE JEFFERS]

bump

[machintek]

You were not specific as to which control you have.
The older control used a hard drive. Either it is bad, the software corrupt, or the CMOS corrupt. Those are the first things to look at.
If this is the later control, it may have a flash card or disk on a chip. This media may have gone bad or the software corrupted.
Never saw the error you have above.

George

[One of Many]

Seems to me I have seen it before, but off hand don't recall what method I used to resolve it. More than likely CMOS settings corrupted by a failed CMOS battery. I'd guess it depends on where in the boot process the error pops up. If you can get into the CMOS settings and see if it has or capable of auto setting for the hard drive type, then see if it boots normal. Once it is up, record all of the CMOS settings for later comparison with other issues in the future.

DC

[NC Cams]

You do have the CMOS settings, don't you? If not, hit DEL while booting and see what CMOS settings are - NOW is as good a time as any to learn/figure out how to read and reset them.

If the CMOS settings got corrupted, you'll need to do some "figuring" (trial and error) to get the machine to run/work - this could take 20 mins or days...

If, by chance, someone "fixed" the machine and added a bigger/newer HDD, they may have not formatted it properly - the BMDC controller based devices are especially intolerant of HDD's that are not properly sized or formatted for the operating system and/or software. If this is the case, plan on a TOTAL redo/reload of HDD with FDISK and a TOTAL system reload.

The HDD can probably be autodetected by the CMOS - again, this is easy IF it is properly formatted and sized. The rest or the CMOS is/should be easy to figure out. Make sure LBA is OFF and "write to cache before or at exit" is ENABLED.

Make sure your back-up battery on the M/B is not dead or leaking as a dead CMOS battery will only lose/corrupt the CMOS settings whenever you turn off the machine power.

When you finally do get the CMOS right/figured out and working, WRITE IT DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Take this opportunity to back up your software as well, especially if you boot from a floppy. Why? floppys do NOT last forever and can go bad from just sitting.

[MIKE JEFFERS]

found it some nugget put a floppy in the drive
been on holiday returned to find it not working (but no one touched it....)
nc cams your right need to learn a bit more about reviving this thing
when it does go tu

thanks
mike

[One of Many]

Now that you mention it, I think that was my experience also( ). I went into the CMOS settings and changed the boot process so the machine does not boot off a floppy. If I need that function, I would rather go back into CMOS and change it back.

That is also a good way to transfer a virus too. Years ago, I was doing a control upgrade to a customers machine and stored all his programs on my laptop HD. Later at the hotel, I used a floppy from our office that (ehehemmm) had a virus stored in its boot sector, just waiting for opportunity and a victim. The next morning I was ready to reload his programs back to the control and forgot to remove the infected floppy from my laptop. It booted from the floppy and locked up everything. I was sweating bullets until I found a fix the next night to rid my laptop HD of the boot problems so I could restore the customers programs to the control. Luckily all the data on the laptop hard drive was still there. Phew!, What a relief that was!


DC