[Tbkahuna]

I have tried and tried to get the upgrade disc to boot but no luck. The BIOS shows a boot order of cd/dvd, hard drive, floppy, Ethernet. However, it does not boot from the CD/DVD. I have tried manually using F10 to pick the DVD drive to boot, but all I get is a "Boot Failure" message in what looks like a DOS environment (black screen, text message).

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong or what the problem is? Is it possible to do the full upgrade from a download using a different disc or a USB drive? I am assuming the upgrade disc I received from Tormach contains the Linux OS and the PathPilot software, but if I download the latest version I only get the PathPilot software.

Thanks for the help.

[tmarks11]

I bet you got a bad CD. Somebody else on this board had the same problem back when PP first came out; Tormach sent him another and everything was good.

The upgrade disc from Tormach does have everything you need, and it should boot directly of the CD for installation.

[Tbkahuna]

That is what I was thinking, but hoping it was something I didn't do correctly. My disc from Tormach has 20 files plus one named "desktop" that I think said it was a configuration settings file. Is that what is supposed to be on it? It had a status of "ready to be written to the disc". The only contents of that file was:

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell 32.dll,-21815

I am going to try to create a new disc and try booting from it.

Thanks for the input.

[wtopace]

I believe the solution to the other user's problem was to use a tool like ImgBurn to ISO the CD and burn the image to fresh blank media. Good luck!

[Gerry Sweetland]

I believe the solution to the other user's problem was to use a tool like ImgBurn to ISO the CD and burn the image to fresh blank media. Good luck!

I had the same problem, Tormach said I could try burning an image of their disk to a DVD+R blank disk (not DVD-RW). That worked for me. If it didn't work they said they had another disk they would send me.
Gerry

[Tbkahuna]

I tried the new disk both with and without that desktop file. I only had a DVD-R disk, though. I burned it as a windows mastered copy. I had to chose between two types. It still will not work. I will try again with another program and see if I can find a +R disc. Do you have 21 files on your disc ? I cannot see the .ini file in a list, but it is in the count when looking at properties or selecting all. With it I have 21. Thanks.

[Gerry Sweetland]

I tried the new disk both with and without that desktop file. I only had a DVD-R disk, though. I burned it as a windows mastered copy. I had to chose between two types. It still will not work. I will try again with another program and see if I can find a +R disc. Do you have 21 files on your disc ? I cannot see the .ini file in a list, but it is in the count when looking at properties or selecting all. With it I have 21. Thanks.

You need to make the Tormach disk an ISO image file on your hard drive then burn that as an image file to the new blank DVD. Not sure what a "windows mastered copy" is. Sounds like you are just copying the disk.
Here is a screen cap of file explorer showing the contents of my newly burned disk...
Attachment 285704
I can't find the email from Tormach, not in my trash? But any way I am pretty sure they said something about the type of blank DVD to use and I believe it was DVD+R and that is what I had in my stash of blank DVD's and that is what I burned the image on to and it worked.
Gerry

[Tbkahuna]

Thanks, Gerry... The file list matches my disk. I did burn a bunch of .iso images to the hard disk and then to DVD-R. I didn't have any +R, though. I tried every option I could access (RAW, UDF, autorun, etc.) and none of them produced a bootable disc. I am giving up for now. If I can get it working I will post the result here for what finally worked to help others that may run into this.

[kstrauss]

Others have reported that some Tormach controllers will boot off of a DVD+R disk but not a DVD-R disk. I had no problems with the disk that Tormach supplied.

[Gerry Sweetland]

Others have reported that some Tormach controllers will boot off of a DVD+R disk but not a DVD-R disk. I had no problems with the disk that Tormach supplied.

Yes, it was my Tormach controller that had the issue with booting to the PP disk. Tormach said that with my controller part #31520 some customers were having issues.

Thanks, Gerry... The file list matches my disk. I did burn a bunch of .iso images to the hard disk and then to DVD-R. I didn't have any +R, though. I tried every option I could access (RAW, UDF, autorun, etc.) and none of them produced a bootable disc. I am giving up for now. If I can get it working I will post the result here for what finally worked to help others that may run into this.

Your welcome.
I think your problem would be solved if you just went to Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot or even Wally World and bought a DVD+R blank DVD.
Gerry

[mountaindew]

I think your problem would be solved if you just went to Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot or even Wally World and bought a DVD+R blank DVD.
Gerry

This is what I had to do and not just on controller.
Maybe its me but I find it hard to keep any computer optical devices "cd,dvd.." working for long. I guess my house gets some sort of dust that causes failures.
I pop in a disk if it gives me any problems its off to best buy for a new cd/dvd player. Happens so often here over the years im use to it!
I have done everything, clean, blow dust you name it, sometimes it worked most times it didn't. And time spent adds up after a while for something they sell for 20$ at store.

[Tbkahuna]

I haven't heard back from my message left with Tormach right before the holiday or my call early this morning. I did get some +R discs to try tonight as well. I just don't have free time on my side right now.

Thanks for all of the input. I am hoping after this gets working that I won't have any trouble loading the latest version.

[Tbkahuna]

I burned the same image I created yesterday (and saved to my desktop harddrive) to a DVD+R disk. I got it to boot, load the kernel, and the software!

So, for anyone that cannot get the Tormach PathPilot disc part number 35246 to boot in their model 31520 (I'll double check that number) Tormach controller with PCI slot, you can try the following:

Create an ISO image of the Tormach PathPilot DVD disc on your hard drive. I used Roxio Easy CD and DVD burner software because it was already on my machine. You cannot just copy the files. You must have an ISO image.
Burn the image to a new, DVD+R DVD. Using a DVD-R would not create a bootable disc even using the exact same image from the hard drive. It must be a +R DVD.

Go back and follow the Tormach instructions with your new disc.

Like others, I could not get the DVD to eject once the process started. The instructions tell you to eject it or you will go back to the same process to load the system. I used a paper clip in the emergency eject hole to eject it.
At one point it seemed to freeze on a blank screen. I waited and waited, saw no drive lights, and powered the controller down. It came back up and went to the setup screen as shown in the instructions.
The rest of it went according to the instructions.

Thanks for the suggestions and solution! Now I will try the update to the latest version.

I did hear from Tormach this afternoon. They said they could send a new disc. After trying that disc, if it didn't work, they also suggested I should try to find a replacement DVD drive. After that it is a new controller.

[tmarks11]

Glad to hear you could get it up and working!

If you didn't end up with version 1.8.2 on your machine, than you will want to load the updated version onto a USB drive and update it. That update is painless (unlike what you just went through).

[Tbkahuna]

The update was easy and only took a few minutes. I also got it setup for wireless access as well. That was pretty simple, too. Now I can just drag files to the controller.

I already like PathPilot. The soft limits and the tool path area are both great.

I have a few things to figure out like why the tool change M998 appears to go to the soft limit position, and a couple of warnings or errors that came up about G81 and G83. I am already glad I did the upgrade, even with the boot problems I encountered.

[Gerry Sweetland]

The update was easy and only took a few minutes. I also got it setup for wireless access as well. That was pretty simple, too. Now I can just drag files to the controller.

I already like PathPilot. The soft limits and the tool path area are both great.

I have a few things to figure out like why the tool change M998 appears to go to the soft limit position, and a couple of warnings or errors that came up about G81 and G83. I am already glad I did the upgrade, even with the boot problems I encountered.

Glad you got ti working.
Reading about the eject problem when done installing the OS I went into the bios (F2 IRCC) and that gave me time to eject the disk normally then reboot again.
I need to read up on it but there is a "set G30 position" button in the offsets screen. I guess G30 works similar to and replaces M998 and there is something I read here or someplace about setting where you want the tool change position to take place on your mill.
I need to dig into it more cuz I can't open the spindle door all the way at the Z soft limit position as it hit's my shower curtain bar, if I would of just made the shower curtain assembly 1-1/2" taller
Gerry

[popspipes]

Glad you got ti working.
Reading about the eject problem when done installing the OS I went into the bios (F2 IRCC) and that gave me time to eject the disk normally then reboot again.
I need to read up on it but there is a "set G30 position" button in the offsets screen. I guess G30 works similar to and replaces M998 and there is something I read here or someplace about setting where you want the tool change position to take place on your mill.
I need to dig into it more cuz I can't open the spindle door all the way at the Z soft limit position as it hit's my shower curtain bar, if I would of just made the shower curtain assembly 1-1/2" taller
Gerry

Gerry,
Set the Z height you want manually, the go to the offsets screen and hit the G30 button, the Z height is now G30.

I just set mine today, works fine and retains the setting thru power down/up.

[tmarks11]

One thing I have noticed is that it is easy to get an "arc length too small" error if you command too much of a z-move during a G02 or G03 arc cut.

[Gerry Sweetland]

Gerry,
Set the Z height you want manually, the go to the offsets screen and hit the G30 button, the Z height is now G30.

I just set mine today, works fine and retains the setting thru power down/up.

Thanks Mike!,
Gerry