d8b Forum

Hi everyone,

*** Edit *** just save a ton of reading and go to the last page where we learn that SP3 is not needed on V5.1***

New to the forum here. I purchased my d8b from another member. I am an electrical design engineer in Tulsa, OK who designs consumer electronics, lays out PCBs and so on. I am pretty computer savvy having done this kind of work for over 30 years.

I hope I can be of service in the future.

I can tell you this has been an uphill battle from a few mistakes I have made. This platform is cranky and quirky to say the least.

But status is that this CPU was already working on a 4GB CF drive when I got it. But after reading the forum and understanding what dangerous waters I was in, I purchased another CF and startech adapter so I could clone it in case anything went wrong. It did.

No problem... Ralph - munkustrap (thanks) cracked the 5.1 OS issue and I was able to upgrade to 5.1, crack it and access a few of the plugins. This was done by creating the 3 floppies to install the 5.1 OS. That went fine. I realized that some of the plugins aren't there until you upload Service Pack 3. The whole rig appears to function as normal except that some of the plugins either aren't there or are older versions.

NOW the problem begins.

I downloaded the SP3 zip file and unzipped it. Next I transferred these 3 self extracting files to another computer that had a 3.5" Floppy. Then I clicked on them 1 at a time and extracted them to an A drive floppy.

Start with floppy 1 stick it in the d8b CPU and turn on. Everything looks normal. It asks for disk 2 then 3 as it should. Then it asks do I want to install SP3. Click continue on the console and you can see all the files screaming across the display. Everything looks fine and then WHAMMO at the end. "memory extraction error, contact tech support". I saw surprisingly little mention of it in the forum or database, but maybe I missed something.

I have tried burning multiple floppies, multiple 3.5" drives since I have 5 dead desktops in the house and same result EVERY time.

I have 3 different RAM sticks I have tried. I have had all 3 RAM stick populated and memory tested fine. No change.

I have even redownloaded the zip file and gone through the whole process 3 times.

I have the newer motherboard, 2 MFX and 2 UFX cards although the cards and the console itself shouldn't matter for this problem. This should be a CPU only problem.

Any ideas out there?

Thanks for any help you can provide.
Rex Turner

I had that error message a long time ago, if I remember right it was something to do with the way the files are extracted for them to load in.....there's a certain way to do it?

Does your file look like this:-





Phil

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the response. Yes my icons look like that on the PC when I CREATE the floppies.
Steps:
1. Download d8b_Service_Pack_3.zip
2. I unzipped the original d8b_Service_Pack_3.zip file on my computer. It creates 3 icons like that.
3. You click on each one of those 3 files so that WinImage can create floppy disk images 1,2 & 3.
4. You take your 3 floppies to the d8b and put disk 1 in the drive and turn power on.
5. It will grind and give you messages on the d8b display to advance to the next disk.
6. Press the button below the "continue" message on the d8b
7. Repeat until all 3 disks are loaded.
8. It asks you if you want to load Service Pack 3.
9. Press the button below "OK"
10. All the different plugins and effects and extracted and messages go flying by for each one on the d8b
11. Looks like everything went fine but greeted by the "Memory extraction error" message. YAY!

It gives you a "not a system disk" error if you try to put the unextracted file on the floppy and boot off it on the d8b. So it won't go through the loading process (I wouldn't think) unless the disks were extracted properly.

But since I can't get it to work, what do I know.

Rex

Memory coming back...I remember everything loading until the end of the last disk, then the error message, it was something to do with the extraction but I can't remember how I got around it.

Have you tried the "Unblock" in properties (General)

Do you know anyone with disks that work?

Phil

I'm at work now but will look at it when I get home.

"Unblock" ... Not even sure what that is. But I installed the Operating system with no problem.

No, I am new here & know of no one personally that has any disks.

Thanks for helping.

OK, I am using a Windows XP computer that I hung a 3.5" floppy on. And I am the administrator. It doesn't have the file "blocked". If it did then it would give an error when I clicked on it to extract. But it gives no error creating the floppies. It only does during the install process on the Mackie CPU.

BUT it did make me double check the files on the XP machine. I right clicked on the file > Run As > and found a tick box to remove "protection" during running the program. Rebuilt all 3 floppies AGAIN...

Sadly no joy. Same EXACT result. It looks like it works...it just doesn't.

I *assume* that it is calculating a hash or checksum after it extracts it and the thing doesn't match. What to do with that, I have no idea.

REEEEALLY frustrating. I know I am close. But in programming I have spent a week looking for a missing h to identify HEX before in the assembler. So I could be one electron away and still take a month to fix it. Fun huh?

Still looking for ideas. Thanks though Phil I appreciate any and all ideas.

Rex

I just started looking at the hex code in the MackieOS.exe file and found a few instances of Memory Extraction Error. So at least now I know where the error comes from.

Now if I can figure out which once of those Memory extraction errors is getting tripped.
Looks like my choices are:
1. Address 630A0 - Memory write error.
2. Address 630D0 - Couldn't read the size of the file on D: drive or didn't match the file size listed in the text file on floppy 1
3. Address 63120 - not sure about this one yet

Software for PC is certainly not my specialty. I have programmed a number of embeded projects with one chip micro controllers but I am a hardware designer for the most part. But I have a software friend at work that might be able to give me some hints.

Still would like someone to tell me that if I eat a chocolate chip cookie and say "there's no place like home" that it would fix this. OR maybe a shot of bourbon... nope... that didn't work. Tried that.

Good luck Rex, sorry I couldn't help, but I find, three or four glasses of red can make you forget all about it...for a while

Phil

Hi,
Have you tried changing out the 3.5" drive in the D8B? I once had problems with memory extraction error and it was the floppy drive that was the problem. Since then I've had similar issues on HDR's. I might be way off base, but it might be worth a try. Hope you get it sorted out.

Have a blessed day in Christ,
Mike W.

I'm assuming that v3 works for you, if it does, copy a project to a floppy, that way you will know if the drive's ok?

Just a thought

Phil