d8b Forum

Hey guys,
I'm trying to load the 5.1 OS on my d8b CPU...I followd the instructions here:

http://www.mackie.com/products/d8b_v5/d ... c_v51.html

I used a USB to floppy drive to create the 3 disks as described. I put the first disk into the floppy on the CPU and turn it on, it starts to boot from the floppy, but after about a minute the green light on the floppy drive goes out and all I have onscreen is a flashing * asterisk in the upper right hand corner. I never got a prompt to load the second disk. I've tried several times with the same result.

I found a post awhile back that suggested to take the floppy drive out of the D8B cpu and put it in the PC used to make the 3 disks. This way the same floppy drive will be used to create the disks as well as install them...is this correct?

Any help would be appreciated...thanks...

Brian

Brian,
Check this section out:

Upgrading To OS V 5.1: Definitive Answers on this page:

http://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/maintenance.html

make sure you add format:on line to tools.ini as instructed

Hope it works for you.

Bruce Brody

Thanks for the reply, but, I don't think I'm comfortable formatting the hard drive when I can't even load the software. If I format the drive and it fails to read a disk then my whole desk is useless...In the instructions it doesn't say you need to format the hard drive first...it's supposed to just update to 5.1...

I'm assuming that the floppy drive isn't able to read the information on the disks because they were made on a different floppy drive...

I don't know what to do here...

Brian,

I reread your original post. I would try installing the D8B's floppy drive in your PC to create the OS 5.1 install floppies.

Good Luck

Ok, I got it to work...I booted up the D8B and went into the "desktop" and clicked on the floppy drive symbol. This opened the floppy drive so I could see if the CPU was able to read the disk. It wasn't able to read one of them so I re-formatted and re-imaged that disk and everything worked ok! 5.1 is installed! Thanks for the help!

Brian

Great News!

It wasn't able to read one of them so I re-formatted and re-imaged that disk and everything worked ok!

I read this thread late last night and was going to suggest this before attempting a floppy drive swap....but I was too tired....and decided to do a post this morning.

I was going to say (and I will, now) is that when I worked in Mackie's Digital Dept., we bumped into this problem constantly. Trying to get 3 working install disks was a hit and miss process. Success rate was something like 60%. I went through about 10 disks before I got a working set for my present installation.

So this advice goes out to anyone who encounters this problem: If you create 3 install floppies and one or more fail, start with a brand new formatted disk and recut it. Reformatting the previously failed disk sometimes works...most times not. YMMV.

You got lucky, Brian. But I'm glad you're running now. Enjoy 5.1...it's so much better than v3.

As an aside, I'd HIGHLY recommend backing up the 'tools.ini' file located in the '/system/' directory; it's HIGHLY susceptible to corruption during this process if for some unknown reason something doesn't 'work right'... I backed up the tools.ini file for the D8B 5.1 OS - Disk 1, the file on Service Pack 3 - Disk #1 AND the file on the HDR 1.4 OS - Disk 1... Trail & Error... got burnt too many times...

And FWIW, I can vouch for FrankH about the floppy creation endeavor; I went thru TWO (2), that's right 2, BRAND NEW boxes of floppies (Verbatim, not generic garbage) just to get the disks cut for the D8B OS 5.1, Service Pack 3 & HDR OS 1.4 installers. Testing them was a real Motherf*cker too, NOT fun at all - but I got it all worked out. I'm gonna get the images for the hard disks cut over to compact flash cards and have the D8B & HDR units boot from those, w/ the external disks on the HDR converted to SATA II SSD's. THAT should protect against any operating system and/or file system corruption, eliminating the periodic re-installation efforts...

Anyone else notice that if you install more than 256MB of RAM on the mobo, you loose keyboard & mouse comm? IIRC, I could only get the installer to work properly with 128MB or 256MB - was a real bite in the Ass @ 1am...

Next up, gonna get an ATI Radeon 7000 64MB PCI cards to update the video - plenty of inexpensive cards available on eBay...