[rsbbmw]

upon start up this morning my eztrak said c: drive failure , i tried to boot from system disk and it doesnt recognize that a disk is in the a : drive , i replaced the hard drive a few years ago with a larger hard drive and the best i can remember i had to do something different because of the size of the drive , can anyone help ?also is there a way to boot from floppy so i can run this morning , until i get a new hard drive . like all problems it doesnt happen until i need the machine in a very bad way , lol

[rsbbmw]

now it tells me hdd controller failure

[NC Cams]

You have fallen victim to several malladies of this system that we spent quite a bit of $$$'s learning how to fix. Here goes:

First, the software can not deal with a H/D that has anything other than the same size/format that the OEM supplied with the machine.

If you install a larger HDD, eventually, the software puts stuff where it can't find it because it isn't capable of recognizing that it used a HDD larger than it (software) is expecting). Eventually, the thing gets lost and won't find the O/S and/or the HDD/FDD and god knows what else.

Several solutions:

First, replace the FDD control. Good luck finding one as these are no longer used. Jameco has them and they aren't cheap anymore. If this is going/gone, you might be in luck. We were, but ONLY FOR A WHILE...

Be prepared to replace motherboard. When we lost our HDD/FDD control, we shortly thereafter lost the motherboard. If you find a 486 that uses HDD/FDD card, it is plug and play (make sure LBA is NOT ON in bios of new machine).

If /when you have to replace M/B, you can't use faster than 133mhz for a replacment and finding a 133 or slower with ISA ain't easy. We "dumpster dove" for used PC's to get ours... BUT finding a 486 (which out machine had) ain't easy either... So, you figure on using a newer one with an onboard HDD/FDD control instead of separate card.

Alternate Solution once you go to an on board HDD/FDD control: Contact Brian and BPT Machine in Carol Stream Illinois and ask him to send you a pre-programmed DOM. This plugs into the cable plug that goes to HDD on our M/B (the replacment M/B has onboard HDD controller). It replaces HDD entirely.

The DOM (disk on module) is MUCH more robust than HDD as it is strictly chip based and no moving parts.

Once you pull the old HDD, you can reset jumpers to make it a slave. Then, if you're lucky, download the programs after plugging it into another DOS machine (set HDD on "reading machine" to "master" and the "Trak hdd to "slave" and download your programs to floppy or reading machine HDD.

That should get you back up and running for much, MUCH, M U C H less than we spent to learn the lesson on ours. If this works for you, please advise and I'll let you know where you can send a "contribution" to support our future adult education classes....8-) Seriously, however, we spent nearly $2500 in actual and supplemental to learn the above PLUS several weeks trouble shooting the SOB but we know a lot we didn't know then.

[machintek]

Don't forget the CMOS settings!

George