V2XT Boot Disk Needed.

[v488]

I bought a V2XT at a auction and now i'm trying to get it up and running. I am being told to " Run BOOT Disk " in A Drive. I don't have this disk to run. I'm shure i'll need to give more info. on what i have so if someone can help, let me know what info. you need and where I can locate it. Thank You! Mike

[Jaguar]

Make sure it has a hard drive. If not it is trying to boot from a floppy. It may be an old V2 with the FMDC board. George on the Board here will know.

TM

[v488]

It looks to me that there is a hard drive mounted in the bottom left corner of the cabinet. I need to know what " board " and where to look on it to see if it is the FMDC or BMDC.
Thanks Mike

[machintek]

The fastest way for me to help you is to have the machine serial number. That will give me a clue as to what is inside your machine.
In the electrical cabinet, toward the top, do you have a small board with 4 AA batteries? If yes, you have a machine with a FMDC board and as a general rule, you will need a boot floppy.
If you do not, I would reboot the machine, press the delete key to access CMOS and make sure they are correct, time, date, and especially the settings for the floppy and hard drive. You may have a dead CMOS battery. It may be a lithium battery about the size of a quater, or a nickel cadmium battery soldered to the mother board. If it is a Ni-Cad, it may be bad (look for white or blue fuzzy on it) and will need to be replaced before the guts of it leak out and destroy the mother board. Give us an update. With the correct CMOS settings, your machine may boot, if it is the DX (BMDC) type.

George

[v488]

George, Does XT-822 mean anything? It don't seem like a S/N but thats what it says. I did NOT see the 4 AA batteries in any area. But, i don't see a small battery eather. I'm not shure what board is the mother board. It could be in front of me and i don't see it!
When i first started the mill the CMOS came up and NOTHING is set. I did set the time/day/date. I have not restarted it to see if it has saved it.
None of the drives are set up. I'm not 100% sure what to enter in for them becaulse there are choices. Thanks Mike

[machintek]

You have a newer V2XT.About a 1995 or 6 vintage. It has the BMDC board. It did come with a hard drive. You have to get back into CMOS and again check time and date. This will tell you if the battery is good. If the machine has been off for a while, it may need to be charged. It is usually 3 Ni-Cad button cells ina heat shrink tube (brown, blue, or green) about 1/2 inch in diameter and about 5/8 inch long near the keyboard plug. Note that someone may have changed out the mother board already. On the left side of the cabinet there is a board with other boards plugged in by their edge. Thius is the mother board. Your Maintenance manual or parts manual will show all of this. Typically you have a video board, I/O board with ribbon cables going to the floppy and to the hard drive, and there is a very long board plugged in called the BMDC.
In CMOS, the floppy should be set to a 1.44 Meg, 3 and 1/2 inch and if you have a full size hard drive for that vintage CMOS, it should be set to user type 47, 16 heads, 63 sectors, and 1024 cylinders. No hard drive sold by Bridgeport ever exceeded this so it was backward compatable. Your hard drive may be smaller, then from CMOS you could do a Hard Drive seek. If it is larger, I hope it has been FDISKed at the setting mentioned. From where I sit I cannot tell what you have.
Try that and get back to us.

George

[v488]

I just turned it back on and it said A+B Drive Failed. CMOS used to come up automaticly, now it don't. How can i get into CMOS again to reset it up ?
thanks mike

[NEATman]

v488-
Just so you know, there is a group on Yahoo for us V2XT owners.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/v2xt

Once you have the boot disk for your machine, please share it with this group, or the one on Yahoo.

Regards,
Keith

[v488]

Keith, i just joined the group, thanks Mike

[machintek]

There is no "boot" disk per se for this machine. You would need a DOS boot disk (preferably 6.20) and the three DOS disks and the software backup disk. This to do a restroration of the hard drive.
As the mother board boots, it should tell you to either press delete to get to the set up screen or a F key. Watch it carefully.
If the CMOS are set up correctly, you may still get a failure. You may need a I/O board. I usually pull this board and clean the edge connector with a soft eraser and plug it back in. I would also check the ribbon connectors to make sure the red stripe was to pin one on both sides, and that the power connector was attached to both devices as well. Someone may have messed with the machine.

George

[v488]

Here is as far as i can get, when the screen comes up it says C + D Drives Failed. Than it says " Run Setup Utility " , " Press < F1 > to Resume.
When i press F1 it changes to the next screen and say " Run Boot Disk in A Drive ".
This is as far as i can get. I don't have any of the Disks.
I was playing around with the set up in CMOS when it came up yesterday. It came up automaticly. I need to know how to get it back up again. Maybe i can set it correct if i try it again.
I will try to clean the I/O Board like you say.
Now i guess i need to get the Hard Drive Restore Disks in hand. I have NONE of this or manuals.
I greatly appreciate yours and everybodys help. thanks mike

[machintek]

Mike,
Get DOS 6.20 disks on EBAY with the license. Thats how I got mine. Machine manuals from machinemanuals.net which come on CDROM. There is no machine boot disk. I carry a DOS boot disk that allows me to at least get to DOS and see what is going on. I suggest my old bible, DOS for DUMMIES as another very worthwhile manual. I will see what is on file at the Yahoo V2XT group. Your machine may still work if you can set CMOS. Hold down CONTROL, ALT, and DELETE and your motherboard should reboot. Then at the appropriate time press the delete key. This should get you to the CMOS. This works with 90% of the PCs out there. You may have something different.

George