Restoring an old workstation - harddrive failure

[mavenblueprint]

I upgrade several Dos system.
I install Linux 2.32V from Virtual PC on the compact Disk and put all parameters manually .
But need to know your PC support Linux or not.
Also I use existing installer standard servo1 +rtk2 PLC file .
In your case look like an extra PLC not sure standard will work or not
But as Marc said allin1dc is the best option .u will check your motor specs if less 15amps allin1dc is good solution.

Thanks for looking and responding.
I think you are asking for details on the type of computer this is? The closest I can give to details is

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MB-4DUVC/UV V5.1
Intel 80486DX2 CPU at 80MHz

And it has 3 ISA VLB slots and 4 unpopulated ISA slots. Could you provide more info as to the type of info you are looking for?

[mavenblueprint]

For anyone reading this in the future, here's a the combo that finally worked for installing DOS on a CF card:

Western Digital SSD-C12MI-4610 Silicon Drive II 128 MB PATA ( eBay )
-> inserted into ->
StarTech.com 3.5in Drive Bay IDE to Single CF SSD Adapter Card Reader (35BAYCF2IDE)
-> connected with ->
GODSHARK 2.5" Inch IDE to SATA Adapter, Convert Laptop 44 Pin Male IDE PATA
-> connected to the internal SATA and power cables ->
HPE 515t Desktop (i5)

Once above was done + BIOS of the HPE 515t did have to be changed to boot via IDE instead of RAID ( randomly found while looking at every BIOS option ). The Compact Flash card was finally recognized and was bootable and usable for installing MS-DOS 6.2

I was then able to connect a USB Floppy Drive/Reader -> connected to the HPE 515t and booted from a MS-DOS install floppy drive.

Using macOS you can prepare the SD card via

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diskutil list

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#

diskutil partitiondisk /dev/disk# 1 MBR "MS-DOS FAT16" "CNCDOS" 0B

diskutil info /Volumes/CNCDOS/

[cnckeith]

i'd toss and Allin1DC on it with a new computer and it would be good to go for another ten years.

https://shopcentroidcnc.com/allin1dc-cnc-controller/

https://amzn.to/3OWZ0wR


OR

new Clearpath axis motors and a new Acorn Controller.
https://shopcentroidcnc.com/acorn-cnc-controller/

[mavenblueprint]

Finally got a bootable CompactFlash card working in the machine. Everything in above posts might work ( and good to know for gathering CHS parameters of the CF card) depending on your PC/workstation.

We ended up buying/installing Lo-tech ISA XT CF Adapter rev. 3 from https://texelec.com/product/isa-compactflash-adapter

This PC/computer has both ISA (8-bit) and ISA-VLB (16-bit) slots on the mother board. Only the ISA (8-bit) were free so the ISA XT CF Adapter would be the one I went with. There are other options even to flash a Ethernet/NIC (ISA) from an old computer with XT-IDE software. The Lo-tech adapter was already flashed with the XT-IDE so it made the process easier.

1) Install LoTech ISA XT CF Adapter (I'll call it "XTIDE-adapter" from now on) into a free ISA (8-bit) slot
2) Insert a MS-DOS 6.22 boot floppy ( you can buy them on eBay easily these days or ask me for detailed steps for flashing from a modern computer ).
2) Plug IDE cable from XTIDE-adapter to CF adapter ( e.g StarTech.com 3.5in Drive Bay IDE to Single CF SSD Adapter Card Reader (35BAYCF2IDE) )
* since the CompactFlash card compatibility in these XTIDE-adapter is *much* higher/wider than the existing BIOS they can handle non-fixed CompactFlash cards too and even beyond the 504/528MB CF card limits ( not that one might need that )
3) Boot the PC and remove any CHS/user drives. This is critical to avoid confusing the XTIDE-adapter BIOS since it'll do it's own CF card/drive management.
4) Boot into the native BIOS and you'll likely have to press F1 to skip/continue to the XT-IDE BIOS ( this is being loaded into memory from the XTIDE-adapter, press + hold A on keyboard to skip booting from C: and boot from A: floppy instead.
5) Type in: fdisk
6) Select option 4 to view the partition and make note of what's on it.
7) Select option 3 to delete the partition you have
8) Select option 1 to create a new partion
9) Select option 2 to make the first partition active
10) Reboot
11) Continue to the XT-IDE BIOS and hold A (again) to boot from floppy
12) Type in fdisk /mbr
13) Reboot


14) This should boot into C: by default and you should be on a clean bootable PC/machine once more.

[mavenblueprint]

i'd toss and Allin1DC on it with a new computer and it would be good to go for another ten years.

https://shopcentroidcnc.com/allin1dc-cnc-controller/

https://amzn.to/3OWZ0wR


OR

new Clearpath axis motors and a new Acorn Controller.
https://shopcentroidcnc.com/acorn-cnc-controller/

Thanks for the info and links! Yes, I think that's the better way going forward. I'm not sure the CNC machine is operating yet so I wanted to have a baseline working with existing components and we might finally be getting there. Once we get more operational then upgrading would definitely be the next phase.

Is there an online manual/website for installing CNC7 v4 and PROCAD-CAM v12 ( I have 2 floppy disks ) to the C: drive?

[cncsnw]

Is there an online manual/website for installing CNC7 v4 and PROCAD-CAM v12 ( I have 2 floppy disks ) to the C: drive?

Almost certainly not.

Supposing you have a CNC7 v4.xx installation floppy disk, you could probably get most of the way there by:
1) Creating the following directories (MKDIR):
C:\CNC7
C:\CNC7\NCFILES
C:\INTERCON
C:\PLC
2) Running A:\INSTALL.BAT
3) If v4.xx includes the CNC7CONV utility (I think it does, but I am not 100% certain) then running:
CNC7CONV -CC

If you do not have a CNC7 v4.xx install floppy, or if you do not have a compelling reason to use that version, I would install at least v5.27, and preferably v7.17. Generally, I would expect a computer than can run v4.xx to be able to run anything up to v7.17.

Attached are ZIP files of the CNC7 v5.27 and CNC7 v7.17 install diskettes.

[mavenblueprint]

Is there an online manual/website for installing CNC7 v4 and PROCAD-CAM v12 ( I have 2 floppy disks ) to the C: drive?

Almost certainly not.

Supposing you have a CNC7 v4.xx installation floppy disk, you could probably get most of the way there by:
1) Creating the following directories (MKDIR):
C:\CNC7
C:\CNC7\NCFILES
C:\INTERCON
C:\PLC
2) Running A:\INSTALL.BAT
3) If v4.xx includes the CNC7CONV utility (I think it does, but I am not 100% certain) then running:
CNC7CONV -CC

If you do not have a CNC7 v4.xx install floppy, or if you do not have a compelling reason to use that version, I would install at least v5.27, and preferably v7.17. Generally, I would expect a computer than can run v4.xx to be able to run anything up to v7.17.

Attached are ZIP files of the CNC7 v5.27 and CNC7 v7.17 install diskettes.

Contents of the CNC7 v4.0 floppy are as follows and appears to be missing an INSTALL.BAT

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Dec 16  1994 AUTOEXEC.BAT
Mar 21  1996 CNC7
Nov  3  1995 CONFIG.SYS
Mar 21  1996 PLC
May 31  1994 WINA20.386

To try to move one step forward I attempted to use the CNC v5.27.zip instead:
1. copied the contents to a floppy disk
2. inserted floppy into the x486DX2 pc
3. executed "A:\INSTALL.BAT"

This resulted in a possibly partial install due to a "Please insert the MILLWRITE disk in the floppy drive." prompt at the end of install.

Is this OK to skip? What's the expected next step?

I tried ignoring and rebooted after exiting the prompt.

There is installed data but it seems the AUTOEXEC.BAT isn't overwritten to autolaunch CNC7 software on boot so I'm not sure if this is the correct path yet. Any help on how to proceed would be appreciated

[cncsnw]

You can ignore the prompt for MillWrite disks.

Your AUTOEXEC.BAT should end with:

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CD \CNC7
CNC7M4

[mavenblueprint]

You can ignore the prompt for MillWrite disks.

Your AUTOEXEC.BAT should end with:

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CD \CNC7
CNC7M4

Thanks for the info!

Modified the AUTOEXEC.BAT but I get an error and CNC7 doesn't launch.

Next I tried launching CNC7M4.BAT myself and get this error:

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(OPEN) Error loading setup information!
Return code 65
CNC7.CFG file error.
Please do not modify your CNC7.CFG file until you
have notified your dealer.

Is there documentation or something you can provide guidance on ?

[cncsnw]

Did you run the command

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CNC7CONV -CC

in the C:\CNC7 directory?