Disk boot failure

[Ol Rattler]

Cable error pic is just prior to brick wall. The first time at the wall. I clicked on help. That's when I was prompted for a password. The locked up pic window popped up when I pressed enter, as per your instruction.

Leds are all plugged in and all appears to be well

I can only see a tiny piece of the sound card in your photograph. More to the point, I am not sure WHY you are showing me a picture of a sound card for?

It would have been more useful to me to post a photograph of the screen asking you for a password!

Dave

.
I showed you a close up of CT 2800 just to indicate that there was not a cable attached.

The brick wall pic is when I pressed enter. The locked up window appeared.

 

[Ol Rattler]

The REQUESTER error is possibly because you haven't got the ETHERNET cable connected to a network?

I have no idea regarding the brick wall. It is clearly not a BIOS password.

What have you done since it last booted OK?

Dave

I may have connected that little three wire to the soundblaster. The same one that Brian advised me to connect cd-rom. I haven't connected it to cd-rom, yet. Powered system up and it booted back to the cable error window that's prior to the brick wall. I pressed enter and instead of going to the wall, A shredder settings window popped up. I closed the window then pressed enter again. shredder settings reappeared. computer would not let me off that cycle, so I opened another file behind the settings window and able to navigate to the Flight simulator and it worked just as before. We also have sound from the computer speaker as well as external.

 

[daver2]

>>> The 2 wire cable plugged into your sound card should plug into the back of the CD Rom if I remember correctly.

If you mean this cable - it is so you can play a music CD in the CD-ROM drive and the audio will come out of the soundblaster speakers.

I still have no idea what is causing the brick wall. There is obviously a piece of software getting upset somewhere.

Dave

 

[Brian Todd]

>>> The 2 wire cable plugged into your sound card should plug into the back of the CD Rom if I remember correctly.

If you mean this cable - it is so you can play a music CD in the CD-ROM drive and the audio will come out of the soundblaster speakers.

I still have no idea what is causing the brick wall. There is obviously a piece of software getting upset somewhere.

Dave

It may be worth removing the network card again just to see if that makes any difference … it could be something to do with the request error. Worth a shot at any rate!

 

[Brian Todd]

Update: Having done some googling, I came accross this article which refers to the same error Patrick has:

Creating and Using a Legacy IBM OS/2 Virtual Machine

If you look under the section "Tweaking OS/2" you will see he got exactly the same error, but instead of pressing an key he left it four a couple of minutes ... would be interesting to see if your "brick" screen does not appear if you don't press a key. Again, as Dave says it seems to be a network error so see what happens if you remove the network card.

 

[Ol Rattler]

>>> The 2 wire cable plugged into your sound card should plug into the back of the CD Rom if I remember correctly.

If you mean this cable - it is so you can play a music CD in the CD-ROM drive and the audio will come out of the sound blaster speakers.

I still have no idea what is causing the brick wall. There is obviously a piece of software getting upset somewhere.

Dave

Perhaps the software, considering it's age, is suffering from its form of dementia.

 

[daver2]

Perhaps the software, considering it's age, is suffering from its form of dementia.

More likely it is some form of copy protection that has been inadvertently activated by our messing about. Sometimes, copy protection identify devices that are on the system. Any change to the configuration results in activation of the copy protection - as the software 'thinks' it has been installed on a 'new' or 'different' machine.

If we sort out the devices again - it may go away...

It may also be some software that is in the OS/2 start-up scripts that are not required by your flight simulator application. In this case, and we can identify it, we can comment it out of the start-up scripts and it should go away.

Dave

 

[Ol Rattler]

Update: Having done some googling, I came accross this article which refers to the same error Patrick has:

Creating and Using a Legacy IBM OS/2 Virtual Machine

If you look under the section "Tweaking OS/2" you will see he got exactly the same error, but instead of pressing an key he left it four a couple of minutes ... would be interesting to see if your "brick" screen does not appear if you don't press a key. Again, as Dave says it seems to be a network error so see what happens if you remove the network card.

Wow! I disconnected the network card, waited, then reconnected. The computer boots up, perfectly. Absolutely no errors.

 

[Ol Rattler]

More likely it is some form of copy protection that has been inadvertently activated by our messing about. Sometimes, copy protection identify devices that are on the system. Any change to the configuration results in activation of the copy protection - as the software 'thinks' it has been installed on a 'new' or 'different' machine.

If we sort out the devices again - it may go away...

It may also be some software that is in the OS/2 start-up scripts that are not required by your flight simulator application. In this case, and we can identify it, we can comment it out of the start-up scripts and it should go away.

Dave

Whatever you think is best, but for some reason and after a few startups ago and with all of the accompanying errors, the brick wall has not appeared. Instead, the shredder settings window appeared. I should also tell you that the suggestion for me to disconnect the network card made no change in the boot up. However, upon reconnecting same card, the system booted up perfectly, twice with no errors whatsoever. I'm sure you guys can explain that one in a second, while leaving me to scratch my head in confusion. The issue only issue, now, presenting itself are some contrasting problems with the flt sim itself. It isn't a monitor issue because I've gone through a few monitors over the years.

 

[daver2]

So are all of the original cards back in the computer now?

I assume the only thing not working is still the floppy drive?

Have you tried the CD-ROM drive out?

Dave

 

[Brian Todd]

Whatever you think is best, but for some reason and after a few startups ago and with all of the accompanying errors, the brick wall has not appeared. Instead, the shredder settings window appeared. I should also tell you that the suggestion for me to disconnect the network card made no change in the boot up. However, upon reconnecting same card, the system booted up perfectly, twice with no errors whatsoever. I'm sure you guys can explain that one in a second, while leaving me to scratch my head in confusion. The issue only issue, now, presenting itself are some contrasting problems with the flt sim itself. It isn't a monitor issue because I've gone through a few monitors over the years.

Ah well .. what's the expression ... if it ain't broke don't fix it! No clue why this would happen other than the card may not have been seated properly the first time...

 

[Ol Rattler]

So are all of the original cards back in the computer now?

I assume the only thing not working is still the floppy drive?

Have you tried the CD-ROM drive out?

Dave

All cards, in.

floppy drive still not working and Power and signal cables, still disconnected.

cd-rom plays an audio cd just fine. Imaging of the cd file is unclear. Same issue in my flt sim.

 

[daver2]

>>> Imaging of the cd file is unclear. Same issue in my flt sim.

I am not sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate please?

Can you list the files on a CD-ROM via the equivalent of OS/2s File Manager or not?

Dave

 

[Ol Rattler]

>>> Imaging of the cd file is unclear. Same issue in my flt sim.

I am not sure what you mean by this. Can you elaborate please?

Can you list the files on a CD-ROM via the equivalent of OS/2s File Manager or not?

Dave

If you look at the CD functions window, besides the playback buttons, why is the rest of the little window not clear.

 

[daver2]

No idea, unless the RAM on the video card is feeling its age...

Dave

 

[Ol Rattler]

If you look at the CD functions window, besides the playback buttons, why is the rest of the little window not clear. When the dashboard first appeares, all of the files are there. When I highlight any of the files, the looks like someone is shunning a very bright flashlight on them. The rest of the screen looks normal. Any highlighted file appears too bright on the dashboard.

If you look at the CD functions window, besides the playback buttons, why is the rest of the little window not clear.

I don't know how to navigate to the files on a cd-rom.

 

[Brian Todd]

No idea, unless the RAM on the video card is feeling its age...

Dave

Coud it be that the resolution is too low for the LCD screen? I have no experience with os/2 warp.

Patrick - maybe you should make a new post in the software section on the clarity and navigation topics as I'm sure there are other folks who can help you.

If I undestand correctly all you need to do now is to connect up the power and signal cables, and get a new floppy drive, and you have a fully functioning system again! It was an interesting journey, and I really hope that you learned a lot about your PC during it!

 

[daver2]

Actually, a mismatch between the video card resolution and the monitor resolution could be to blame.

I had some 1-pixel lines on a computer system that I knew were there (I ran it on a high resolution monitor fine). But, when I fed the signal into an LCD projector that supported downscaling of the video signal for a lower resolution native LCD screen, it did so by throwing away some of the video lines. When it did this, I lost some of my lines!

Exactly what video card and monitor are you using? I would have thought that a flight simulator would have a higher-than-normal graphics resolution.

As to opening the CD-ROM and navigating the files, read the OS/2 Warp manuals...

Dave

 

[Ol Rattler]

Could it be that the resolution is too low for the LCD screen? I have no experience with os/2 warp.

Patrick - maybe you should make a new post in the software section on the clarity and navigation topics as I'm sure there are other folks who can help you.

If I understand correctly all you need to do now is to connect up the power and signal cables, and get a new floppy drive, and you have a fully functioning system again! It was an interesting journey, and I really hope that you learned a lot about your PC during it!

Thank you, Brian. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate all of the effort and expertease that you have contributed in helping me to resolve my PC issue. And yes, I have learned much about basic troubleshooting. I could go on, but that'll take me all day to express how much it has meant to me to reestablish full function(-the floppy drive) to the flight simulator. Although I don't fly everyday, to me, it's a great decompression tool for the occasional stress relief. You give up on me. Good health to you and the happiness.

 

[Ol Rattler]

Actually, a mismatch between the video card resolution and the monitor resolution could be to blame.

I had some 1-pixel lines on a computer system that I knew were there (I ran it on a high resolution monitor fine). But, when I fed the signal into an LCD projector that supported downscaling of the video signal for a lower resolution native LCD screen, it did so by throwing away some of the video lines. When it did this, I lost some of my lines!

Exactly what video card and monitor are you using? I would have thought that a flight simulator would have a higher-than-normal graphics resolution.

As to opening the CD-ROM and navigating the files, read the OS/2 Warp manuals...

Dave

Graphics card: ET4000AX

Flt. Sim.: I'll continue to search this forum for individual(s) that have experienced the same contrasting issues.

Nav. files: Haven't consulted the OS/2 manual yet. Sound advice.