[tpmx57]

I am having a problem with getting a MB and hardrive working on my TC-22.
I have a used 486 motherboard for the machine and a used harddrive
I have the system setup out of the machine where I can work with it.
I have formated the drive and fixdisked it to 503 mb.
Made a dos partition and made it active .
I loaded dos 6.0 with no problems,all three disks loaded fine but the system
will hang on bootup at:
384 K Shadow Ram
Starting MS DOS
I can change the boot order to a then c and boot from a dos bootdisk then go back and forth from a: to c: and even c:dos .
If I do a ver: it shows 6.0.
I can do a directory of c:dos and see all files so I know dos is loaded to the c drive.
I seem to be missing maybe boot files on c: or something to the that effect.
There must be a reason that the c drive wont boot.
Not sure what files I may need to add or move to the root directory of c to get it to boot.
This is about all I know of dos so stuck here.
Should there be a boot sector with boot files on c:?
Sledge hammer is next step.
Also will a 386 mother board work in a TC-22?
I have a motherboard and hardrive from a vx2t that I know is good I could use.
I know I am close with the 486 board once I solve my boot problem.
I have a backup of my original hardrive that i can copy the dx32 files from
to the new harddrive once I solve this problem
This is probably a issue several have been threw before.
Thanks to all

[D-Money]

Boot it off of the floppy and try entering:

SYS A: C:

That'll copy the required boot-up files from the floppy to the hard drive.

Typically, the files needed are MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM

You usually won't see MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS on the directory listing because they are flagged "hidden" and "system"

[tpmx57]

I had tryd that after posting
I went a:>sys c:
it did copy the boot files over to c:
It will boot to c now but not start the dx32 software.
If I type run the dx32 screen will load but there is a bunch of other random characters that start displaying with the data that showed before.
Executive load does come up and finally a error comes up saying
could not load a:bmdc.bin
then the c:> comes up.
I don,t understand why its looking to the a drive for this file.
I have the boot order set to c: then a:
Something is telling it to look for this file in the wrong drive.

[D-Money]

I don,t understand why its looking to the a drive for this file.
I have the boot order set to c: then a:
Something is telling it to look for this file in the wrong drive.

It's probably one of the batch files calling a:\bmdc.bin instead of c:\bmdc.bin

Looking at the old boot-floppy here, a1.bat contains the line:
call c:\ezload.exe c:\bmdc.bin

The floppy is set to copy quite a few files onto the hard drive.

If you PM me with your email address, I'll pk-zip a copy of this floppy and email it to you.

[tpmx57]

Tonight i started over.
I fdisked the hardrive,deleted partions,created a new partition at 490mb and set it active.
I then formatted it with a:> format c:/s.
I did a scandisk on it and all checks good.
It will now boot to the c drive.
I copied all my files from old harddrive to this drive.
When i boot the machine up it will only go the the c:>
I type run and it stills gives me the data running on the screen with the messages
loaded dos/font to block 0
loading user interface
then finally back to the c:>
There are others but offhand I dont recall them
All the messages that used to come up as the machine loaded before.
The copy of my software was from my machine when it ran well.
Everything on the hard drive now looks like the original.
Something just not right but cant put my finger on it
I just thought of something and dont know if it matters but I used a dos 6.0 boot disk to get to an a:> from where i fdisked the drive and formatted it.
Should i have used 6.2 instead.

[machintek]

You cannot just copy the files. That is why there is a install.bat file on the floppy.

George

[tpmx57]

Yep I finally figured that out.
I am going to start over this morning after i clean the shop.
I am going to redo the harddrive as before
Then use makedisk from a copy of my harddrive when it worked fine.
I did try the install from the c:> when I seen the install.bat file and it ran fine but said it was missing 3 files.
I using a copy of my original software that I put on a floppy but was missing some files that didnt fit on a floppy,that is were I messed up.
I tryed to find a list of the files it needed to transfer but never did,hopefully makedisk will have all that are needed.
Thanks

[D-Money]

using a copy of my original software that I put on a floppy but was missing some files that didnt fit on a floppy,that is were I messed up.

This is why the files on the floppy are compressed. The installation batch file copies them onto your hard drive, and then uses "expand.exe" to expand them back to their full size.

For instance, bmdc.bi_ is expanded to bmdc.bin

If you had unzipped the EZ-Trak floppy ZIP file I sent and booted off of it, it is set to automatically search for the needed EZ-Trak files, and if they aren't on the hard drive, it'll copy them over and expand them.

[tpmx57]

D-Money.
i hadn't had a chance to try the software you sent.
I do appreciate you sending it.
I came across a copy of dos 6.2 and the dx32 software and did install it tonight.
Everything loaded fine and I did see on screen as it loaded the software when it
expanded the files.
My machine software is now back to normal but the BMDC board will not load.
Dont know if it is a motherboard address problem or if the board itself is bad.

[machintek]

See if you have B3T.exe on your hard drive. That is a BMDC test piece of software.

George

[tpmx57]

George,
I ran it last night when the bmdc wouldn,t load and it gave me alot of memory errors.
Didn,t right them down.
Only thing I seen was it said BMDC 4 and mine is a BMDC 3 ver a.
Looks like the board is out.
The machine must of taken an electrical hit or spike.
It was fine when I shut it down than a month later the powersupply,motherboard,harddrive and now bmdc board are out of it.
If it didn,t have a tool changer I would retrofit it to something else.
Any one repair these?
i was told it was most likely the 4 memory chips that are surface mounted on the board.
Thank You Once Again

[dreammstr6]

Not to butt in but the cheapest place i have found to repair the bmdc and axis cards is plccenter.com Radwell International. Great place to deal with and alot cheaper then EMI. they have fixed a bmdc and i bought a refurbished axis card from them high quality looks like new. Almost forgot. they do free estimates where EMI charges 300 to test.

[tpmx57]

Your not butting in at all.
I appreciate your response and i will check them out.
i was told that the 4 memory chips on the board are most likely the problem.
Not all four but possibly one of the four.
Its a shame they werent socket mount so they could be changed if needed.

[dreammstr6]

what error did you get with b3t.exe? mine showed a main memory failure at 0800. the 4 ram chips is the dualport memory i changed those on mine didn't help.. i have smd rework stations. looks like the main memory is in one of the latice chips which is programed and can't replace without the program

[tpmx57]

I would have to run it again because I didnt right anything down.
It was something like memory at address a05 should be 55 is 0.
just an example not correct.
I sent the card off to a guy to have it checked.
It went out today so I ll wait to see what he finds .
Mine had two leds at bottom corner on until the software should of loaded
then both leds go out.No others on.
Accourding to the manual it failed to load software.

[dreammstr6]

that sounds like the same thing that was wrong with a machine i'm fixing for a local company. it wasn't the 4 ram chips or the processor. i had to ship it to plccenter. the estimate on a surface mount bmdc was like $461. the card i shipped was socketed version so it was cheaper to have fixed. maybe you will luck out and it be the ram chips. they are available on ebay. i bought 10 surface mount chips for my personal card but didn't help my situation. the axis amps are easier to repair. less propiertary chips.

[machintek]

That is good to know. When there is more than one source, the price may drop.
EMI was the only source but they were reliable. It would be nice to hear from others as they use plccenter.com

George

[tpmx57]

The person i sent my board to to check said that the high memory and low memory fails the test.
I am going to contact plc and see about sending the board to them.
I just can,t justify $1500-$1800 for a used replacement,my machine is just a hobby machine .
If I made lots of cash with it it would be different.

[dreammstr6]

i agree that was my delima also. sending to plc center is easy. just go to their website and search for your boards part number. should be the asm number on the board. then click print rga. follow it and ship to them. easy as can be.