New member hello/ D8B arriving

[csp]

Nick,

The BIOS set up is really quite easy, just go to the Database on this forum and look up the "Maintenance" topic and go to "BIOS SETTINGS" then scroll down to the settings for your particular motherboard (in your case I am sure that it will be the Old motherboard, then I would suggest that you print these off as a reference.

Then go into the BIOS settings on the desk (as shown in your first picture) and then go to each option and enter what you have printed off and finally save the settings as indicated on the settings screen (ie F10).

Re the not booting problem (and others might like to chime in here and advise if I am wrong) I am presumimg that the desk is not operating on OS 5.1, but possibly OS 5.0 or earlier. If you decide to re-install the OS, I would suggest that you install OS 5.1 (available on the Database somewhere), then Install Service Pak 3 (also on the database) and after that install the "HACK 2" programme (the forum has details about how to do that and my long topic has it also somewhere). Doing this will avoid the need to authorise the OS and effects cards.

If you remove the OS and fully re-install it, the desk will only operate for a short time period in "DEMO MODE" whereas the HACK 2 will solve that problem, BUT it will only work on OS 5.1.

It might also pay for you to go the full hog and replace the hard drive with a CF card reader (quite cheap on ebay) and installing a CF card (suggest 4gig max) --- again there are instructions for doing this on the forum and in my long topic --- Y-my-R and DOK are experts in doing this, so they might chime in if you are in any doubt. At least going the CF card route will remove any possible problem that there might be with the hard drive (remember that it is at least 20+yrs old). I was initially reluctant to do the change over on the desk I was having the problems with , but having done it the desk has not failed on booting (well not showing the error messages you are receiving, there were other unrelated booting problems).

Hope this helps a bit with getting the desk to work and that for the time being (at least) you do not have to flip the desk and do the ribbon cable clean --- some of the members might advocate doing this anyway.

Keep us informed on your progress.

David

[Nick Birkby]

Thanks so much for the replies.
Im going to try and get hold of a CF Card reader thias week and go that route, it seems a good opportunity to install one.

Ive seen a 40 pin CF to 3.5 adapter which says compatible to Windows 98/ XP ect so that looks promising.

[csp]

Nick,

Second attempt the first dissappeared while typing !!!!!

The CF card is definitely the way to go, but I am not sure about the adaptor that you have seen.

What you require is an adaptor that has the CF card input BUT has a 40 pin (could be 44 pin I have forgotten) IDE socket, because what you will be doing is removing the IDE cable that is currently plugged into the installed hard drive and connecting this to the adaptor unit. The one below is the unit that I have, except that I have placed it on top of the now non used hard drive --- hot glued a piece of plastic milk bottle to the hard drive case then hot glued the adaptor to the plastic thus giving a solid and insulated install. I did not want the card sticking out the rear of the rack unit in case it got damaged.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/37547225092 ... R6r-j-7_Yw

In the adaptor's photo you can also see the power supply socket, The current Molex power plug that connects to the hard drive will not fit as the socket on the adaptor is designed for the plug that fits into a 3.5" floppy drive. I had to buy male Molex plug and a small female Molex type socket and wire my own lead --- just be sure to look at the colours of the wires going to each plug by copying the CPU's hard drive and floppy drive plugs. You might also have to slightly file the sides of the small pkug to make it fit --- I had to do this and once connected I hot glued the plug so that it woud not move or fall out.

AND remember to download and install the OS 5.1 and Service Pak 3 programmes and then the HACK 2 OS. If you have problems finding the HACK 2 software or install process, let me know and I will try to find it on my long topic. Just remember that you will need to go through the image making process to install the OS onto the three floppies as the second disk is too large. How to do that is either in the Database, within my topic or someone will be able to supply the process. You are going to require either a computer with a floppy drive or an external floppy drive to USB unit (what I have), but I could not make it work on anything after Windows 8.

Hope all of the above helps somewhat.

Be sure the keep us informed.

David

[Nick Birkby]

Thanks so much for the advice. Im trying to locate a CF adapter locally without having to import one. It would seem that the drive is def not booting. The CF route seems like the most plug-and-play option in terms of pre-loading the OS. I may go the floppy route and try a reinstall, but CF is first prize.

I will update shortly. Thank you all again.

[csp]

Nick,

Definitely keep us informed so that we can assist if necessary.

David

[Y-my-R]

The pictures of the boot-up screen with the "remove disk and press OK" message, shows that the BIOS settings still have not been set correctly.

For example, you need to turn the Parallel port off, but it's on. The USB controller is off by default, but also on... don't turn that on, unless you installed a USB header/breakout to be able to use a USB cable. Seems like there's also something wrong about the video card config (probably if it looks for a PCI or IDE video card, first)

Before diving any deeper into this, please set ALL the BIOS settings according to the instructions in the Database, first.

When that's done, though... just so you're aware - you can't just format an Harddrive or CF card to FAT/FAT32 and copy the files over from the old drive, since the D8B installer writes a custom boot sector that needs to be in place, for the Mackie OS to boot successfully. When formatting via Windows or MacOS, the boot sector will be wrong, and the D8B will not be able to boot the Mackie OS from a drive that was formatted that way.

So, you either need to:

1. Install from the floppy disks, while adding the line "format:on" (no spaces, no parenthesis) as a last new line to the Tools.ini file that should exist on the first floppy disk (you'll need to use another computer to do this... or if you have a DOS startup floppy and know how to do this, you could also boot the D8B computer into DOS, switch out the floppy disk for the first D8B floppy, and make the edit in DOS mode).

..or...

2. Clone the original disk with an app that allows to clone including the boot sector... or if that disc doesn't work anymore. I think somewhere on here or in the Database, there's also a disc image of an installed Mackie OS 5.1 (including the needed boot sector), for an app called "Macrium Reflect" that offers a free trial. You'd use a Windows computer to write that downloaded disc image to your new (or existing, if it still works) harddrive or CF card, via Macrium Reflect. The steps for this were also covered somewhere in this forum and maybe in the database (not sure).

But anyway... correct those wrong BIOS settings first. Then make sure you don't have a floppy disc in the drive when starting to boot up. If the floppy drive is activated in the BIOS and the boot order is set so the BIOS looks for the Floppy as the first boot drive (which is default) it would also give that error.

Anyway... correct the BIOS settings first, then re-install via floppy and "format:on" or install the Macrium Reflect clone that is available on this page (a quick search should bring it up).

Best of luck!

[Nick Birkby]

Thank you so much Y-my-R and David for your help and encouragement!

I have been back through the BIOS and reset as per the settings list. I realised I had not done it all the way through. I checked for a floppy- none in drive. Im going to check which the boot order is again.

As per the install of 5.1, I have downloaded the instructions for doing a CF card backup restore using the Aomeaitech (in the Tips section I think) backerupper software which I have downloaded. Y-my-R is this a similiar program to Macrium Reflect?

My main issue at time of writing is that ordering a CF to IDE adapeter will likely take three weeks, its not off the shelf in South Africa, and my attemots to find one used have not met any with success yet. Soo, the nearest solution is to try and locate a similiar era drive, put it in a PC, and try and load it using the backup restore to clone the drive with the new 5.1 ( plus the extras) software.

Im assuming -possibly incorrectly- that the if the target drive was a CF or IDE it wouldnt make a difference. I could then put the new drive in and , in theory, boot up. Might this be my best option?
Thanks again, Nick

[Y-my-R]

Sure, you can use any disc-cloning software, as long as it also includes the boot sector in the clone (not all of them do that... but if the database says that that app works, then it should).

However, if your current harddrive doesn't boot (aka if there's a problem with either the installation of the OS or the drive itself... it could still just be wrong BIOS settings if it doesn't boot, so you'll want to be certain that the harddrive itself actually has an issue, or you'll have the same issue again, when the CF card adapter+card arrive), then it won't help you if you clone your "bad drive" and put the image on a new drive.

"arjepsen" here on this forum did a super-awesome thing, and cloned his D8B harddrive (Mackie OS 5.1) with Macrium Reflect, and shared the image here:

https://d8bforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1634&p=14186&hilit=macrium+reflect#p14186.

So, if you download that, and a trial version of Macrium Reflect (don't install until you're ready to use it, since it will time out fairly quickly... just to give you as much time as possible with the trial, while trying to get this working), you'd have everything needed to "restore" arjepsen's drive image to your own drive.

He said in the linked post, that he's not sure if he installed the necessary hack for unlocking the Mackie OS and all the plug-ins before creating the disc image... but unless you find an image that definitely has the hack installed, already, you'd have to do that, anyway (unless you have all the original unlock codes for your D8B, for the OS and all the plug-ins... but most people didn't buy ALL of the plug-ins, so the hack would still give you more than an original install with unlock codes).
The easiest hack, is to replace the file "MackieOS.exe" that exists on an original D8B harddrive, with the version that can be found in the zip file in this post:

https://d8bforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1634&hilit=crack&start=150

You might as well want to "restore" the drive, and swap out that .exe file, anyway. Then the Mackie OS will be unlocked for sure, when you put a cloned drive back into the D8B.

Here's the CF card adapter I have installed in my "main" D8B - maybe that's available in South Africa?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001J ... =UTF8&th=1

As for the CF card itself, make sure to order one that isn't too large. The D8B OS only needs a couple of Megabytes, so, a CF card with a big capacity would be a waste of space, BUT above a certain size, the D8B's BIOS will not recognize it, at all.

I think it "should" detect up to 16 GB, but I'm not sure. I'm using a 32 GB CF card, but "restored" it via a cloned image, and I think it wrote a smaller capacity to the card... so, there might be a workaround to still be able to use a CF card as large as 32 GB, but you wouldn't want to invite the extra hassle. If you can find one that is only 2 GB or 4 GB, etc., that's PLENTY of space for everything you'd ever need with the D8B (it only stores session files, presets and automation data etc. on that drive... no audio).

So, if I was you, I'd probably first try to see if your current harddrive still works (that the BIOS detects it is a good sign), and if you might even be able to get it to boot.

If it's still detected in the BIOS but doesn't boot, the next easiest step would be to take the (spinning) drive out of the D8B and connect it to a PC, for example via a IDE-to-USB adapter. Then, do NOT format the drive (because the hope here is, that the boot sector is still intact and the way the D8B wants it), but copy all the files from another "working" D8B drive (or an "unpacked" version of that Macrium Reflect image above... not sure if that can be unpacked without cloning though... but maybe you can find another image or a set of files, somewhere) to that harddrive via a PC.
...the idea with that is, to retain the boot sector on the drive, since the rest of the files on the D8B drive could simply be copied over. The boot sector is the reason why you usually have to install from the floppies (with "format:on") or clone incl. that boot sector.
So, if you can keep your boot sector (if it still works), then a simple copy operation would restore the drive to bootable status... as long as you have a set of D8B files somewhere/somehow that you could copy over.

If that still doesn't work, THEN I'd "restore" a clone of the D8B drive (incl. the boot sector), like from the image arjepsen shared, above.
(If you have cloned/restored drives before and know how that works, you might as well go straight for cloning/restoring, but some new users on this forum struggled with that).

Generally, the cloning process and the installation of the hack is the same on a spinning harddrive and a CF card, yes. So, if you have the time, you could as well "practice" with the spinning harddrive and see if you can get that to work... and then when the CF card arrives, do it all over again (or clone your -by then- working spinning drive and restore it to the CF card).

I hope this helps!

[Nick Birkby]

Thaks Y-my-R, thats very solid information- much appreciated. Im going to go over the BIOS settings today again with a fine tooth comb and also listen to the drive, which hopefully is spinning. Thank you as well for the links.

I can getorder an IDE to SATA adapter fairly easily here so thats my next step. I have an old XP machine but its all smaller sata cables. Its actually not easy finding older PCs these days. I have old Mac G4s with IDE but Im not sure they would have disc restore software of the right type. Anyway thats a seperate subject.

Thank you all again, I will report back later.

[csp]

Nick,

I had the same problem trying to find a computer (that worked) with a 3' floppy drive but thankfully I had an external drive with USB. Possibly you might be able to find one or borrow one. I did find however that any computer later than Windows 8 would either not accept/recognise the external drive or if it did it didn't like the floppies and what was on them or what I had to do to make the disk image.

I trust that you get the desk working soon as it is VEY frustrating having a desk but not being able to get it to work. That was my situation with the donated desk for 2yrs.

David