[QuadList] OT - ACE 25 booting

[C. Park Seward]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the email.

I think all six drives are fine. It would be usual for all the drives to be bad.

The disks are good. I can read the MS-DOS format on my Mac through a USB 3.5" drive.

I don't have anything on my screen. Don has a good suggestion on trying to get to the BIOS menu. The battery backup is long dead and it does seem that the machine is dumb and doesn't know what to do.

The instructions in the user guide say to simply put the software disk in drive "A" and turn it on. That's it.

Resetting the BIOS may work.

All three systems exhibit the same problem. So I'd suggest there is something in common with the systems.

Best,
Park

C. Park Seward
Cell: 818-535-2747
Home: 541-476-6657
2" Quad and 1" "C" transfers
The Transfer Lab at Video Park
Visit us: http://www.videopark.com



On Aug 22, 2011, at 10:09 PM, Scott Thomas wrote:

> I would first try swapping the two drives, taking note of any jumper settings on each that may determine which is A or B. Alternatively there is something called Cable Select where the ribbon is notched and one connector is always A and the other B. If the behavior doesn't change, than I would look at the cable.
> 
> If you have another floppy cable around, that should be a simple swap unless it *was* a Cable Select cable.
> 
> If the actual controller on the board is bad, you can probably find one in an old PC... perhaps even an old ISA card might work, provided you can disable the motherboard controller.
> 
> Speaking of the motherboard, is there a BIOS setting screen where you can see what devices are connected? Is there a way to reset the BIOS? Sometimes it's done with a jumper near the BIOS chip itself.
> 
> There is also a repository for DOS disks online:
> http://www.bootdisk.com/
> 
> If you have a PC with a 3.5" drive, you can make another boot disk to make sure the Ampex disk isn't bad.
> 
> Hope this helps, but sorry if I'm misunderstanding the question.
> 
> 
> Scott Thomas
> 
> On Aug 22, 2011, at 8:38 PM, C. Park Seward wrote:
> 
>> Hi Gary,
>> 
>> No, 3.5" DOS format.
>> 
>> It hits on the drive and then plays dumb! Nothing.
>> 
>> Best,
>> Park
>> 
>> C. Park Seward
>> Cell: 818-535-2747
>> Home: 541-476-6657
>> 2" Quad and 1" "C" transfers
>> The Transfer Lab at Video Park
>> Visit us: http://www.videopark.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Aug 22, 2011, at 8:12 AM, Gary Adams wrote:
>> 
>>> Park.  Were those 8” floppys?  I don’t have any experience with it but I do know DOS.  I don’t remember any 8” DOS systems though.
>>>  
>>> Gary
>>>  
>>> From: quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com [mailto:quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com] On Behalf Of C. Park Seward
>>> Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 12:56 PM
>>> To: Quad List
>>> Subject: [QuadList] OT - ACE 25 booting
>>>  
>>> Gentlemen,
>>>  
>>> I am having trouble booting with my ACE 25s. All react the same way when trying to boot.  The A drive with the software gets hit for about one second and then the B drive gets a hit and then nothing. I have tried all the different disks, made sure the keyboard and reference is connected and still nothing. 
>>>  
>>> Anyone remember their DOS? I did disconnect the dead backup battery just to make sure that wasn't causing problems.
>>>  
>>> Thanks for any insight.
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> Park
>>>  
>>> C. Park Seward
>>> Cell: 818-535-2747
>>> Home: 541-476-6657
>>> 2" Quad and 1" "C" transfers
>>> The Transfer Lab at Video Park
>>> Visit us: http://www.videopark.com
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Please trim posts to relevant info when replying!
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>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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> 
> _______________________________________________
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