d8b Forum

That's odd...
my d8b (the old 166 MHz version) won't boot. It recognizes the hdd, all bios settings are checked (yes, LBA is off), but it just displays:

searching for boot record on IDE-0...ok
BOOT FAIL

I took the HDD out and hooked it to my PC at home. It works just fine, all files are there, including pme.sys.

Today, I tried to boot DOS 6.22 from floppy in order to check on the mbr using fdisk. Strangely it won't even boot from floppy. Have to try and find the OS floppy disks and see if that works.

Any other ideas...?

nicktight wrote:That's odd...
my d8b (the old 166 MHz version) won't boot. It recognizes the hdd, all bios settings are checked (yes, LBA is off), but it just displays:

searching for boot record on IDE-0...ok
BOOT FAIL

I took the HDD out and hooked it to my PC at home. It works just fine, all files are there, including pme.sys.

Today, I tried to boot DOS 6.22 from floppy in order to check on the mbr using fdisk. Strangely it won't even boot from floppy. Have to try and find the OS floppy disks and see if that works.

Any other ideas...?

First thought(s), at face value, and I'm making the assumption NOTHING has been physically changed in the operating environment and/or hardware:

Floppy disk drive, access error... or the actual drive itself (defective drive?). Or worst case scenario, (gulp) the onboard IDE controller (embedded on the mobo)... why? Due to the fact that nothing is getting past the POST (Power On Self-Test) routine when booting up... just because it 'recognized' the hard disk doesn't mean it's bootable (from the machines perspective)...

You're certainly performing the correct triage activities... I'd personally get things recognized by booting to the DOS 6.22 disk first. Once that process has been leveraged, at that point essentially the mobo SHOULD be capable of booting properly to any internal disk drive (CF Flash, HDD, SDD) or floppy image. If not, sadly you could potentially be staring at the very real possibility of a critical hardware failure on the motherboard, drive peripheral and/or something else in the boot chain (faulty RAM?)... This is where I'd 'start', from the BIOS settings on out... double & triple check EVERYTHING... measure 3x, and cut ONCE...

I made a LOT of assumptions here myself, but nothing out of the ordinary. When something like this occurs, I personally go back to Square One and work from there, verifying EVERYTHING along the Way...

Oh, and you KNEW it was coming, so here it is:
[Standard Mgmt Disclaimer] - "Your actual mileage may vary..."

Thanks a lot.
I'm on my way to the studio right now. I have a brand new DOS 6.22 Bootdisk and a replacement Floppy drive in my pocket
Hope that brings me to boot up at least from floppy.

Could there be a faulty part on the mobo (let's say the IDE Controller or so) that would prevent the CPU from booting no matter which drive (floppy or HDD)?

I triple checked on the BIOS settings already....
Where do I get a new MoBo in case it's broken?

Thanks again,

nicktight

When you boot this beast up, does the floppy drive seek light go green?

Ok... Looks bad.
Tried a new boot disk today, and finally the CPU booted DOS 6.22.
HDD was accessable so I ran fdisk. It showed to partitions on my HDD, the first one being active (A).
I then tried fdisk /mbr. Nothing was displayed. Is that the usual way fdisk /mbr behaves?

Anyway, the HDD still refused to boot. Always the same message:
searching for boot record on IDE-0...ok
BOOT FAIL

Looks like I have to replace the HDD, doesn't it? Really bad... When I bought my d8b the guy I bought it from didn't give me the OS disks... Will have to go back to 3.0, I assume.

I am not familiar with all the HDD stuff you doing so I can't answer that. Have you ever replaced the motherboard battery? If you haven't and it is dead, the minute you reboot the console it will lose the correct bios settings. So, you may be resetting them but it may not be holding them. What about the floppy question I asked you above??

When you boot this beast up, does the floppy drive seek light go green?

Oh yeah, it does. It even boots from floppy now.

Have you ever replaced the motherboard battery?

Yes, I did.It's brandnew, and the BIOS keeps it's correct settings.

I have a 70 year old computer savvy living right next door. He knows all that old PC stuff. He said he could check out the mbr on the disk with a hex editor. Hope that helps.

OK, I just wanted to make sure you weren't in some sort of odd bios setting losing circle jerk of doom. Sounds like you have good tech next store, hope you guys get it sorted out. I have had the motherboard die on one of the three that I have consoles that I have been around but it has been so long ago I can't remember what the failure looked like on the GUI. Bad RAM is another culprit of odd behavior on these animals. Just throwing out other things to think about besides the HD.

nicktight wrote:

When you boot this beast up, does the floppy drive seek light go green?

Oh yeah, it does. It even boots from floppy now.

Have you ever replaced the motherboard battery?

Yes, I did.It's brandnew, and the BIOS keeps it's correct settings.

I have a 70 year old computer savvy living right next door. He knows all that old PC stuff. He said he could check out the mbr on the disk with a hex editor. Hope that helps.

nicktight...

The MBR is the small executable that runs when the cpu boots up. It 'lives' on the 1st Sector of the hard disk; it begins the boot process by looking up the partition table to determine which partition to use for the purpose of booting the machine. Program control is then transferred to the boot sector of that partition, which continues the boot process. If that's screwed up, yeah, you're gonna most likely experience boot issues...

The command 'FDISK /mbr' will cause it to write the master boot record to the hard disk without altering the partition table information. But BE VERY CAREFUL... BACKUP EVERYTHING YOU CAN if you move forward using this route...

Also, IF you can mount the disk on another machine (even read-only), you can 'rescue' any file(s) from it - dunno if that does you any good or not. But it's looking more and more that your hard disk went Tits Up. My suggestion moving forward, boot to 4GB Flash Card - no heat or moving parts, and they're FAST. You'll most likely experience a lot less in terms of file corruption, which'll save you from having to reinstall. Not that it helps you now, but I'd highly recommend it moving forward.

Man, I'm sorry about you possibly losing that hard drive, Brutha... hardware; disk drives in particular, Shit Happens...

You knew it was coming, so here it is:
[Standard Mgmt Disclaimer] - "Your actual mileage may vary..."

Thanks, man.

I think I will just take the HDD out, rescue some files and keep the (possibly broken) drive.
You're right: that's probably a good time for putting a CF in the CPU instead of a new IDE HDD.
I believe there is a how-to-do-guide in the FAQ. Should I just follow that, download the 3.0 OS and see if that works?

Greetz from Berlin, Germany

nick