BIOS Problem on my 386 mother board

[Mikefromlondon]

what a struggle, but finally got hold of an IDE 80GB HD from a friends old Compac PC running on Win XP. I took out its HD, and reformatted, loaded Dos 6.2 via a start up disc, that then allowed the C drive to be formatted and partitioned, and then I copied the rescued software from the bad HD and got my machine going, not as before but for now I can get it going with several lines of commands, which I will have to combine in the bios, and autoexec files, later on, for now I am too scared to let something happen and I have lost it all again.

( I could not load windows 3.11 which I rescued from the crashed disc as for some reason it has gone to 167Gb and exceeds the drive capacity of my reformatted HD which is only 80Gb, I am sure this must be some sort of corruption as no way windows 3.11 can take up so much memory, so i tried to load win 3.11 manually disc by disc, but comes unstuck half way with an error 214 and won't proceed any further, escape to root directory by pressing F3)

so for now I don't need windows 3.11 to run my machine, but only need it when designing jobs using another software that runs on windows called Scanvec, which then exports plate files for engraving machine that runs on Dos.

So for now I can switch on my computer which boots up in DOS, shows C prompt, mouse is not loaded and nor the software for engraving machine, these needs to be entered manually by typing about 4 command lines.

Cd/mouse
type Mouse, which loads up mouse driver
Cd/newcip , which loads up engraving machine software
type newcip and opens up the software from which I can load job files and run my machine, but i can see some corruption, these i can amend manually and get going for now. Once I clear my backlog of work, I can reload windows and streamline command into one click or one line as before.

I would still require a back up system as a major lesson have been learned. So I will still be interested in 386 mother board with Pentium 1 or 2 chip, and ISA slots, as well as another IDE HD of about 80 to 160Gb.

Thanks

 

[empip]

Does the IDE to USB kit also have a power cable ? Will 5V from the USB socket alone be enough ? My IDE / ATA to USB adapter has 12V / 5V power supply brick plus cable plus the flat data cable.

Should you not partition the hdd using fat16 into 2 GB partitions. Then try installing your software ? There may also be a limit to the total hdd usable capacity ??

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/159631-testing-ms-dos-limitations/ see - Hard disk size limitations in MS-DOS 2.x to MS-DOS 6.22-

Far more to learn IMHO. Best of luck.

-0-

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Yes my adaptor kit came with a power supply (+12 and +5v) for the IDE HD, and it also has facility to connect SATA drive without the external power.
I think you are right about partitioning the HD using fat16, into 2Gb partitions, I formatted it using my laptop via the adaptor connection into Fat32, that is where the likely problem can be as win3.11 failed to load.
However, I will have a go at it after backlog of work is done, and by then I may even try formatting another HD rather than risk what I have now which works somehow, and get me out of trouble, only that I can't do any new designs as designing new engraving jobs requires this Caswin package that runs on 3.11, I have not tried it to see if it might run on Win98, if it does I have a win98 disk, and try that on another hard drive i have ordered from ebay. You also deserve a proper authentic thanks.

(TBH, I am an end user of a product (Engraving Machine) that uses a computer, and when things go wrong, we are forced to learn how to solve problems for ourselves, as there are not many who knows much about old computers now, whereas before I used to be able to call someone clever in computers to my rescue, but now I have to google for information and try and absorb so much technical information which can cause overload of information, in the end the problem never gets sorted and or you have stick for the second best)

Shame technology can be good for efficiency, but bad when it goes wrong and you are stranded. Our forefathers could only use a chisel and a hammer to engrave! ha ha at times like this, a hammer would be an ideal solution to a non responding HD...bang-smash-boom¬!

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Does the IDE to USB kit also have a power cable ? Will 5V from the USB socket alone be enough ? My IDE / ATA to USB adapter has 12V / 5V power supply brick plus cable plus the flat data cable.

Should you not partition the hdd using fat16 into 2 GB partitions. Then try installing your software ? There may also be a limit to the total hdd usable capacity ??

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/159631-testing-ms-dos-limitations/ see - Hard disk size limitations in MS-DOS 2.x to MS-DOS 6.22-

Far more to learn IMHO. Best of luck.

-0-

For some reason I have no idea how, or why the new HD which has a capacity of 80GB seems to have only been formatted to only 80Mb! that is like very little memory, Christ!
But for now I need my machine working so that I can deal with back log of work.

 

[Doggit]

Mike, This is getting hard work using this site. I've tried sending you my email address, but the moderators have blocked it.

If you can chat to them, or find a way round the problem, then we can talk on the phone, and I'll dig out what I don't want any longer for you.

 

[TheVictorian]

As an alternatove, have you considered virtualising a Windows 3.11 environment on a modern computer using something like virtualbox? You wouldn't need to worry about trying to keep ancient hardware running then:

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=51190

 

[TheVictorian]

Only other question would be how does the engraving machine connect to the pc? If it is serial or parallel port based then you should be able to pass these straight to the virtual machine using a USB serial or parallel adapter.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Mike, This is getting hard work using this site. I've tried sending you my email address, but the moderators have blocked it.

If you can chat to them, or find a way round the problem, then we can talk on the phone, and I'll dig out what I don't want any longer for you.

Did you send me a PM? or I will try and send you my email via PM, PMs are personal and should not be seen by others not invited.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

As an alternatove, have you considered virtualising a Windows 3.11 environment on a modern computer using something like virtualbox? You wouldn't need to worry about trying to keep ancient hardware running then:

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=51190

It connects to an edge connector on the card that plugs into ISA slot, and uses a flat ribbon cable, that then terminates on to a parallel port on the machine controller, via a D25 pin connector, this box contains all the relevant buttons for manual control as well as final execution and has an abort button,

The PC opens the main programe file, called Newcip, displays it on its screen, and you can enter variables on this screen, e.g. if you wanted to change dimensions, font style and import any irregular shapes that you designed on another package (Scanvec) that runs under windows 3.11, and is exported to this Newcip package, here you can also increase or decrease font heights widths, italicisation, and omit or add lines of words. once done you send the proceed command to the controller, the control then waits for you to send the final command to the machine that starts engraving.

I use this machine both for engraving and machining other work, as a mini CNC machine using flat cutters, mostly on plastic (ABS). Once my backlog of work clears I will look into everything and start planning its future, I came so close to loosing tons of work files, and it would have crippled me, some of the design work would have taken many many hours, as these machines ran of software which wasn't very advanced, as you had to calculate everything and if you designed something around a 2.5mm cutter width, and the software does not allow things to adjust to a different size cutter, so for example if after a few sharpenings of the cutter, it gets down to 2mm wide, all your dimensions will change as the cutter is now narrow, outside dimensions will increase, inside dimensions will decrease, so it has limits, all modern software can adjust to different blade widths, except if you wanted something engraved 2mm wide, you will naturally have to use a blade no wider than 2mm across., but if you had a 1mm wide blade, the modern software would accomodate this by engraving twice to make up for the larger width.

I used to outsource my work, then this engraving company was not doing too well and the directors decided to shut down business and offered me this machine used for 5 grand, I bought it and have never regretted and it has served me exceptionally well, last year the z axis worm drive shaft broke right from the shoulder of the stepper motor whilst in the middle of a crucial job, I took it to some engineering places as parts for this machine were no longer available, the engineering companies ruled out welding as it broke right where it emerged out of ball bearing, and they refused to even attempt, so I was left to my own resources, out came my Mig Welder, and I managed to weld it to the broken shaft and bit to the inner race of the ball bearing, one of the blobs from the mig welding landed inside the bearings and got welded to it, got my mini grinding wheel and ground that blob off, and so till now that shaft is working brilliant, hasn't broken again, touch wood, even though my welding is pretty dodgy and clumsy but it did the job effectively.

 

[TheVictorian]

Hmm, it all sounds very interesting and I wish I had the time to come up with a proper solution for this (I used to do a lot with old PC hardware and now do work with virtualisation and this mixes the two nicely!).

You can get USB to ISA adapters which in theory would allow you to use that card on a more modern machine, but you still have the complexity of making everything talk to each other and there is a risk that it just wouldn't.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

I forgot to tell you that it also needs two security license keys piggy backed on top of one another and plugged into the computers parallel port and yet still allows you to connect another gadget such as a printer to the parallel port, the so called dongles are hardware based with a hidden files without which the software does not function, so now imagine if these dongles suddenly become damaged or blow out, I have then had it for sure. I am not even going to contemplate opening these dongles to see what chip do they use inside that contains hidden files, and whether they can be extracted some how, it would be good if I could do that, otherwise it would mean having to acquire new engraving machine software, which may not run on old machine due to different drivers, so yes if this machine can continue to work for another 3 to 5 years, in that time I will probably retire, and sell it on if it is still working, let someone else deal with it!

Other than this, this machine was made by an Australian company, a very well designed and robust, even that spiral shaft that broke (sheared) was most likely caused by my excessive tapping in cutters when they don't go in easy, i used to tap them in with a small hammer, this would stress the shaft as the weight of the whole z axis rests on this shaft.

At first I bought it to just engraving, later on I could see its worth in many other tasks, so every time I needed small boxes or enclosures made, I used it to cut sides and covers and glue them together, make dedicated cases, front panels, sensing pads for RFID tags, infact this machine had been very versatile, it has a 350mm long by 250mm wide table, but I have managed to do even bigger jobs by making jigs that will take larger pieces and do half first and then rotate the piece and do the other half, jig allows a perfect alignment, such that it looks as if its been machined in one go on a larger machine. I love this machine, but the next size was a huge 600mm x 2400 mm tabled machine, at £15K new, and would need more room than i have.