New member hello/ D8B arriving

[Nick Birkby]

Made some small progress today in that I got my G3 up and running and can make floppy discs now.

I have extracted the Mac hqx files and created disc images of the three floppies that have .img at the end. After a LOT of trial and error I seem to be able to create a floppy with these. The earlier attempts did not work, drag and drop isnt the way. . The desk is at work so will take the new discs tomorrow, its nreaby. Will upload some pics.

[csp]

Nick,

I am not a Mac user so I do not really understand what you have stated, but if you have been able to correctly make the three disks as required for the OS, then I wish you all the best of luck tommorrow (possibly now today where you live !!!)

David

[Nick Birkby]

Thanks David!
Some fairly steady progress.

The floppy discs are all made: 3 OS discs, 3 Service Pack discs and the 1 Patch disc.

The CPU is recognizing the first disc: OS loader V3.0 loading... but it appears it will need the "format on" written into the disc, which I will do today. It gets no further.

*The disc loads and the drive makes all the right noises, BUT Im not getting a prompt to load the next disc.
-It goes to a flashing green asterisk far right and even if I load a new disc, press enter etc it doesnt continue booting.

One question: do these discs need to be formatted before loading the disc image or does the disc image process take care of that? The mac has an option (elsewhere not the disc writer) to format to DOS or DOS Pro. Im assuming its fine as its now recognising the disc/s as boot discs.

Thanks again for all the help. I will post again soon.



Slightly hampered by the desk being in one place and computer another.

[Nick Birkby]

For posterity here is the Mac disc with the new command:

format on.jpeg (Array KiB) Viewed 798 times

[Nick Birkby]

Its not booting from the disc with the updated code. Im unsure if there should have been a command (the square thing at the start of the line) but i put it in anyway as it looked right. Any advice? Its an Apple specific thing and I am uncertain.

Unless Im missing some step, im wondering if maybe the hard drive needs to be changed? The floppy drive sounds healthy enough and the discs appear to be done pretty much right.

[Y-my-R]

Great that you got to this point!

I haven't done the floppy installation in a long time, so I figured I'd pop the first floppy disk into my D8B rack-unit based Windows 98 computer (my actual D8B system doesn't have a floppy drive installed - it's got a CF card I can access externally, so I normally just copy files onto it that way, or clone from a Windows computer if I need to reinstall... which hasn't happened in years).

I'm getting exactly what you're getting... first a line "Mackie OS Loader v3.0... Loading... Please Wait" and then at the next screen, I only get a blinking asterisk on the right side.

What I'm thinking (but don't remember) is, that there would be a message shown on the D8B's built-in display, and that you'd have to press a button on the D8B console from there.

I did install from floppy before, but always had the console there when I did, and don't recall if there was something like that. But there most likely was. Otherwise, I couldn't explain why I'm seeing the same thing you do...

What I said earlier about that you should be able to boot at least to the graphical D8B splash screen, was for when the OS is already installed on the internal harddrive, and you attempt to boot without the console connected. But yeah... it seems like you probably have to have the console connected to get past the point with that flashing asterisk when starting from the first installation floppy.

From what you describe, I think you did everything else the right way. Time to bring the console home, I think

[Nick Birkby]

Hi Y-my-R. Thanks for checking that. I did have the console plugged in but it was covered with a drop sheet at the time so I wasnt paying it any attention. I will check that tomorrow, it seems likely there should be something.

Will report back soon. Cheers

[Nick Birkby]

So some more steady progress but not quite there yet.

So, yes the loading of discs requires prompts from the D8B mixer side, you insert a new disc and press a button on a prompt to continue. After a corrupt floppy issue I loaded all three (phew), but Im not sure the "format on" command is working, as Im getting a "volume not boot patched" error at the end. Other than that its looking workable.

Just to be crystal clear its only the first disc that needs this extra "format:on" line written in? Thats how I understood it.

The other good news of sorts is that the db25 cable must be working ok (touch wood) to get the on-screeen prompts.

A friend has what looks like a IDE to flash card (or what he calls mini ssd) bridge adapter, which Im getting later. It may be the another workaround if I cant load via the floppies.

[Nick Birkby]

I tried again today with a minor change to the code line, but no luck. IAs a last resort m going to try a space between format and on eg "format: on"

Ive ordered a CF card to IDE adapter and am going to go that route, as it seems the most prudent at this point, especially with loading all the extra files. Ive also got a cf card writer and can do the disc image restore.

I will be in touch again in a few days.

[csp]

Nick,

Definitely no space between ":" and "on" === format:on

Are you 100% positive that you have made the three disks correctly, because any mistake will stop them from loading correctly. Also it is only on the first disk.

It is a while since I uploaded the OS. but from memory I thought that after loading the first disk a message came ion ther LCD screen saying something like "Insert Disk 2" and on removing disk 1 and inserting disk 2 it started to self load, I don't remember having to press any key/button to make disk 2 load.

When disk 2 finished loading the same message appeared to insert Disk 3.

After loading all three disks, from memory it said something like "now starting OS xxx"

I could be completely wrong in all of the above because of the time since I did it last and it could be different if using disks that were made in a Mac computer.

Hopefully others will chime in and confirm me or correct my mistakes.

David