ADTPro not seeing disk drives

[BurritoBeans]

'ello

I've been playing with my Apple II+ a lot since I don't have a working PSU for my Laser 128s at the moment. I decided to try ADTPro 2.0.1, but I get an issue - it won't see either of my drives. I've been doing it with Audio as I have no Serial card, and just follow the prompts that it gives me. When I get to formatting disks or receiving files, it comes up with nothing.

When I run it through MECC System Inspector, it detects all of the cards I have in it at the moment, and I have the 64K of RAM.

 

Slot---Device

0 Language Card (Microtek BAM-16)

1 -

2 -

3 80-column card (Videx VideoTerm + Soft Video Switch)

4 Unknown (Micromodem II)

5 -

6 Disk II Interface card

7 -

 

Thanks for any help,

BurritoBeans

Edited July 26, 2015 by BurritoBeans

[Caterpiggle]

Ask David Schmidt , he will instructing you how to do so. He is the author of ADTPro Software.

[david__schmidt]

I decided to try ADTPro 2.0.1, but I get an issue - it won't see either of my drives. I've been doing it with Audio as I have no Serial card, and just follow the prompts that it gives me. When I get to formatting disks or receiving files, it comes up with nothing.

Do you have a blank disk inserted in the disk drive when you go to format it?

 

I can also imagine a scenario where you've loaded ADTPro on top of plain old DOS rather than following the bootstrapping steps from the very beginning - that could cause a situation where the program would run, but it wouldn't know how to operate your disk drive... i.e.

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/bootstrapaudio.html#Starting_from_bare_metal

paying particular attention to step 2.

Edited July 27, 2015 by david__schmidt

[BurritoBeans]

Yes, I do have a blank disk in my drive. I think I tried the "Bare Metal" approach a few times, but got the same error. I guess I'll try that again, and see what happens.

 

EDIT: I tried it twice, making sure to do a ctrl-reset when the thing started to boot up. I can get ADTPro onto the computer, but when it comes to the format screen it comes up with nothing but blank lines.

Edited July 28, 2015 by BurritoBeans

[david__schmidt]

Does the disk drive get accessed when ADTPro starts up? It should be probing the disk drives available at that time.

[BurritoBeans]

Yes, it does. Both drives light up and look for disks when I start ADTPro, when I go to the Format menu, etc.

[david__schmidt]

Ok, it sounds like you have a good install running since it's able to manipulate the drives on startup. Do you have any idea if the drives actually work or not with other disks?

[BurritoBeans]

The drives work fine for me. The only issues I ever get are with ProDOS discs, as it says "RELOCATION / CONFIGURATION ERROR" whenever I try to boot in a ProDOS disk.

[david__schmidt]

Well, that's a clue for sure... do you only have 48k of memory in that II+ of yours?

[BurritoBeans]

The base is 48K but I have a 16K card acting as a language card in Slot 0. Would that be the issue, or would the language card RAM work too? I can run the few disks that say 64K on them that I have.

[david__schmidt]

If ProDOS says "RELOCATION / CONFIGURATION ERROR" that means ProDOS is not able to load itself into the upper 16k of RAM - which would also be a problem for ADTPro. So there is a possibility there is trouble with that upper 16k of memory.

[Caterpiggle]

Hello David,

 

Yes, I do remember that I saw once "Relocation/ Configuration Error" on my Apple IIe Platinum but I do not remember it was memory problems on my Apple IIe ? I wish I knew what was the problem when I saw first time "Relocation" issue. I know it is long long time ago when I used have that problems when I used on ADTPro very FIRST time.

[BurritoBeans]

Following this ( http://www.applefritter.com/content/apple-ii-bad-memoryrom#comment-61119) I end up getting something wrong.

The bottom row of characters on the bottom starts off as question marks, then switches to black @ symbols in solid green. Based off of that post, I'll assume that whatever the first part checks is bad while the second part is fine. Should I have took the language card out? I do not know where the actual RAM chip went, as this is how I got the system.

 

Also, by checking the RAM with MECC Computer Inspector, I get this:

"NEEDS REPAIR

ERROR 40 AT 00D104"

 

I will assume that I have a RAM issue at this point, but I have no idea if it is the language card or the system. It does detect the 64K RAM when I do the Machine Identification though.

Edited July 29, 2015 by BurritoBeans

[david__schmidt]

Yep, there is an issue somewhere along the line with memory that is invisible to some 64k programs, but it prevents ProDOS from working correctly.

[carlsson]

If 00D104 is a memory address for the 6502, it equals decimal 53508 which is a larger number than 48 * 1024 = 49152, ergo I would believe it is within the extra 16K, or perhaps Apple ][ memory map isn't as straightforward? If it is within the language card, you might even be able to tell which chip it is.

[trash_44fr]

I'm not 100% sure the MECC Computer Inspector test the RAM card.

For an accurate RAM troubleshooting, I'm using the Apple II+ Confidence test disk

[BurritoBeans]

Thanks for the disk image trash_44fr. So I decided to mess with my Apple II+ some more, and I decided to see if it was the mobo or language card giving some issues. I took a RAM IC off the language card (Socketed so it's easy enough), put it into the motherboard on the one white socket where the language card plugs into, and tried the same tests I did earlier, just not the Computer Inspector. By doing ? FRE(0) it returned with -18435, and by doing the thing from Applefritter it had the same question marks and then @ symbols on the bottom, then gave the message "0034- 65". I don't know what this means, but I'm assuming it's something on the motherboard or that RAM chip I pulled from the language card was the bad one.

Edited September 15, 2015 by BurritoBeans

[trash_44fr]

Since then, I've checked that the MECC inspector does test the RAM card.

 

The "0034- 65" message shows a bad RAM. But it is not consistent.

First, it is missing a part.

The complete message looks like this : ABCD-01 (02) where ABCD is the faulty address, 01 is the value read from the adresse and 02 is the value compared to the read value.

If the RAM is good, values are identical.

Second, since the RAM test uses the address range from 0265 to BFFE, it is impossible to obtain a bad address at 0034 which is not part of the test.

 

Can you try again, please ?

[BurritoBeans]

Sorry for the late response.

 

Doing the test again, with a different RAM IC in the slot, it all worked out! MECC Computer Inspector started up and said my RAM is OK and the Applefritter test ran for ten minutes before I decided to stop it, as it was going fine. No error codes!

 

At this point, I'm thinking of just getting some new RAM ICs to replace the bad ones on the language card. If that fixes it, woohoo. If not, at least I'll have some extra RAM and maybe have solved half an issue.

 

Here's some pictures (The uploader would crash my browser so just Tinypic)

 

 

[The Usotsuki]

Man, what I wouldn't do to be able to *afford* a monitor ///. *_*

[BurritoBeans]

Well, I think I found the bad chip. I tested all of the other seven and they did the same thing that the one from above did, but this one is different as it returns errors on both tests. Also, the message that the Applefritter test came out with is full this time, being "8103-00 (01)".

 

More pictures:

 

 

Edited November 20, 2015 by BurritoBeans

[trash_44fr]

Congrats ! I think you've found the culprit.

[oryan_dunn]

I just wanted to chime in and say thank you for this thread. I have a IIe that I've been trying to get back to a working state. I've got 3 disk drives and probably close to 150 floppy disks and I've not been able to get any software to successfully load. I've cleaned the drives, but they still don't load. I tried ADT via the cassette port and have the same issue as the OP, no drives are shown in the format screen, and my ProDOS disk gives the same error.

 

So, I ran the RAM test as given in one of the linked threads. And sure enough, I get printouts for bad RAM. I've ordered some new RAM, so hopefully that solves my issues.

 

And as a result of that cryptic RAM test code, I just had to dive into my IIe reference manual and figure out how that monitor program actually works (I'm a software engineer for my day job, but the IIe and Atari 8-bits I have predate any sort of understanding or desire to code, so it's fun to learn when you're so close to the hardware).

[Keatah]

Love that MicroModem!

[Keatah]

And as a result of that cryptic RAM test code, I just had to dive into my IIe reference manual and figure out how that monitor program actually works (I'm a software engineer for my day job, but the IIe and Atari 8-bits I have predate any sort of understanding or desire to code, so it's fun to learn when you're so close to the hardware).

 

Yes. The Apple II (and to lesser extents the Atari 400/800, Vic-20, and C-64) are so bare metal they almost feel mechanical in a sense. Pressing a key on the Apple doesn't invoke this huge chain of events like in a modern OS. The display felt crisp and clean. Not sloshy or muddy.