D8B Booting Partially

[Y-my-R]

I do recall, that I had some trouble with writing a new boot sector to some of the CF cards I had created for the D8B and HDR.
I don't recall the details how I solved it, but remember that I had to take some pretty strong measures with at least one of them, to not just add a partition within a patition within a partition every time I tried to overwrite it with a new boot sector, but actually have it blow all those previous attempts away and format the card completely - including the boot sector on the CF card.

This is kind of a topic in itself, and I'm not sure if I fully understand it. But you might want to google something like

"cf card overwrite boot sector"

The AI overview I got when searching for this, pretty much recommended not to overwrite the boot sector on CF cards, since this could damange them and make them unusable... but this is DEFINITELY necessary for the Mackie OS to be able to boot from CF cards.

So, you'll need to find a way to fully erase those CF cards (or better find a way to restore a disk image that doesn't just write another boot sector next to the original boot sector, but actually replaces it).

I honestly don't remember what I did to get CF cards to work again that acted up... it might have been some command-line low level format via Linux (...when I'm stuck with Mac or Windows options, I usually try via Linux... it's not as restricted and lets you do a lot more "unsafe" things, like writing a boot sector that could "damage" something, haha).

In other words, I'd have to research this whole thing from scratch again myself, since it's been years since I had to do a sort of "brute force" CF card "full format incl. boot sector".

Most of the time I did this sort of thing, it just worked... it was just these couple of rare times, where I had to jump through a whole bunch of hoops to get a CF card working again.

...and I did kill one of them that I couldn't get back... but that just died during use, not when I tried to format it or something.

I'd recommend to do a little bit of your own research for caveats of trying to write a new boot sector to a CF card... I can try to help again when you also read up on it a bit (or try to clarify cryptic explanations you might find online)... but think that this was such an oddball thing to get working, so that I think it would be better to not just rely on the little bits I might be able to piece together if thinking really hard how I had solved this, but also try to read up on it "in general" a bit, first.

So, yeah... writing a new boot sector to a CF card, or even FULLY erasing it and writing brand new partitions, is not really what CF cards were designed for, I think. But it DOES work, when it's being done right... so, don't give up just yet

Best of luck in the meantime... but I'm happy to pick this back up... just don't have any specific recommendations for this readily available, sorry!

[csp]

Markd,

Apologies for my absence for a while --- had an unwxpected hospital visit and for the first time after all these years COVID --- a great way to spend the festive season !!!!!

Re the problems with the DSP card message, I think I suggested booting the desk and noting the three LED lights on the card as the desk booted and then posting the result. I will need to go back through my long post to be sure what the LEDs should be doing.

Although I haven't looked at the donated desk for a few months, I remember that if the LEDs were not correct or more likely they changed after booting, the desk would freeze, stop passing audio, etc. AND the problem I discovered was related to the J42 (from memory) power plug/socket/lead not connecting correctly for some reason.

David

[markd]

Thanks David. I will open up and check the DSP LEDs tomorrow.
Y-my-R - I have being researching and trying everything to get the CF card to boot my D8B. Can you please advise if there is an image of an installed D8B V3 files on the forum? I was sure I came across this some time ago, but having trouble locating them now. I am almost sure my HDD V3 installation is corrupt. If I cannot get a V3 image, I will try the V3 floppy files and use them to write a boot sector and install to a new CF card.
As previously advised, I am staying with D8B V3 for the time being. Once i get that working reliably, I will definitely try restoring arjepsen’s OS 5.1 image which I have downloaded.

[csp]

Markd,

I really have no definite knowledge of this, but others such as Y-my-R, Philc, etc could be more knowledged, BUT I wonder if the flash card system will not work with OS Ver 3, because all of us (I am sure) are using OS Ver 5.1 and have for many years and we have not had any problem swapping from the hard drive to the CF Card system --- even the donated desk that I have had all of the problems with worked perfectly when the card was correctly installed (stuffed the install the first time !!!) and when the desk decides to actually work !!!!! Will be pulling it out again in a couple of weeks to spend a bit more time on it ?????????

David

[markd]

David,
CF Implementation
Today I found a bent pin on the CF / IDE adapter after spending a couple of days trying to image/clone Mackie V3 from my D8B HDD to a number of CF cards. I also downloaded arjepsen’s OS 5.1 image from the link provided by Y-my-R on the forum and restored to a CF card after straightening the bent CF socket pin. The CF boots to the extent that the VGA screen gets to display "Application Frame Installed." and stops booting whilst displaying a flashing green cursor on the right hand side of the VGA screen. Btw, I did get V3 to boot on a CF card early on - once only. I have ordered another CF / IDE adapter as I do not trust this one after finding the bent pin and although I was able to carefully straighten it, I need to get another device to ensure I am not chasing fairies.

LEDs
Today I put the D8B console upside down on the lift and checked the LEDs when booting up from the original HDD into V3 as per your advice.
The following was observed:
DSP Card - All LEDs flash once after power on and then the GREEN LED stays on. Near the end of the boot sequence All LEDS flash once and the GREEN LED stays on for about 10 secs and then the GREEN LED flashes constantly at a moderate rate.

BRAIN Card - All LEDs flash once after power on and the GREEN LED stays on. Near the end of the boot sequence All LEDS flash once and the GREEN LED stays on for about 8 secs, goes off and then the RED LED flashes very fast constantly. After 3 seconds the GREEN LED starts flashing at a moderate speed while the RED LED continues to flash very fast (at the same time).

Thanks to all especially David and Y-my-R for your continued assistance.

[csp]

Markd,

I will have to go back through my long post as I definitely have all the details there and I will search through the service manual (I think from memory that there is a copy of it on the Database) to check what all the LED mean (ie what LEDs should be on and when), BUT the green LED on the DSP board is definitely what I was expecting you to find as this indicates a fault and results in no sound, on full booting you should have a red LED although apparently some boards will also have the green LED showing. The Brain Board I will definitely have to look up to check (will do so during the day if the "dragon lady" gives me a spare half hour !!!!!). I will post what I find, unless you find it first.

Buying the new adaptor board could be a good move and I hope that with the bent pin it has not damaged the CF card. Let us know the results.

David

[markd]

Thanks David. What is the title of your "long post"? I will read it and download the service manual today.

[csp]

Markd,

When I set it up I meant to type "Not quite the end of the saga" but made a typo that I didn't see until it was too late, so it finished up being "Not quitet the end Of the saga" there are 60 pages of info and something like 15mil views (but I question the number). The system stopped allowing access at the 60 pages, so I started a second (ie ongoing) topic called "The saga Part 2" and it has about 5 pages. The last post on the main topic was on about the 15th April 2024 and on my computer it is about half way down d8b Forum Page 2 and I forgot to look at the last posting date for the Part 2 topic.

Although 60 pages is a BIT long (!!!), there is an enormous amount of information (AND FRUSTRATION) contained within those pages and an emormous amout of assistance from the various forum members without whose help I would have been basically stuck, as I am definitely no computer geek/nerd !!!!!!!

David

[Y-my-R]

I just checked if any of the IDE drives I have lying around, that were used in D8Bs before, has OS3 on it... but unfortunately not (all of mine have a "System5" folder - I think on drives with OS3 on them, there's a "System3" folder, instead... but I'm not sure).
I also checked my D8B drive backups on my NAS, but they're also all OS5.1, unfortunately, sorry.

If anyone else on here has a drive with OS3 on it (aka anyone with a running D8B that has OS3 installed), it would be enough to copy all the files to another folder (or from the D8B to your computer via FTP), zip the folder and then share here via WeTransfer or something...

When copying those files to a small enough harddrive or CF card that was prepared for the D8B by either restoring that Macrium Reflect Mackie OS5.1 image (then deleting the OS5.1 files off of it), or by formatting via the first D8B installation floppy disk (i.e. by having "format:on" on the last line of the the relevant .ini file on the first floppy disk) - and after that, copying the OS3 files onto that drive/CF card, it should work like the OS3 D8B this came from.

Too bad I don't have an OS3 drive left myself... but I remember setting a drive aside to have a working OS3 install, but then urgently needed another drive and ended up formatting it without making a clone of it first. There wasn't really a "true" practical reason for me to keep OS3 around, since I have enough memory to run OS5.1, sorry.

But IMO the only tricky thing about the floppy installation, is to add the "format:on" line if it's not there, to make sure there will be a format prompt. Otherwise, this should be pretty straight forward.

...oh, and I don't see any reason why OS3 wouldn't work from a CF drive. If the hardware recognizes the drive and can read from it, then there shouldn't be a difference if OS5.1 files can be read from it or OS3 files... there is no principal difference in hardware access between the two OS versions that I'm aware of (or could imagine causing OS3-only issues).

Again, best of luck!