Thread: Cincinnati Arrow-How to Restore From Disk?

New to me Cincy arrow, I'm trying to get going, but I'm running into problems. The hard drive (which has been converted to a flash drive) seems to have got corrupted, so I switched to the spare flash drive, worked great, authorized the options from the paper work that I have, no problem there. But when I go to load the "Machine Data" I can't seem to get it to read from the floppies I have. Got the original from Cincinnati, and one the former owner made. When you go to view the files on the disk, it brings the files up in the file manager. Go to load it, has an hour glass for about 30 seconds, and the floppy drive light is on, then it goes back to the service screen. Power down then back up and its still not in the right configuration (namely with it saying the 4th axis isn't homed/clamped,etc.) I've tried loading the machine data with E-stop on and off, homing the machine, etc, and none of it seems to make a difference. I'm in the service password mode. Any tricks I might be missing?

Thanks so much!!!
Eric

I think I got it figured out, but not sure what I did to get it to load! Seems to be working okay right now...

Now I need to figure out how to make a backup of the flash drive, it wouldn't be good if this one happens to stop working!!!

Eric

Eric,

You may be able to recover the corrupted flash disk using chkdsk /f or preferably scandisk utility.

Reinstall the corrupt flash drive and get to a DOS prompt or Windows screen either through a shell out from the control or using a bootable floppy.

If your machine came with a DOS boot floppy then you can put this in the floppy drive and turn on the control. The system should boot to the floppy and leave you at the A:\ prompt. Once you get to DOS prompt you can type scandisk c: to run that utility or if not found try chkdsk /f

You can also install the drive into another PC as a second hard drive if you have an IDE interface (I assume it is an IDI drive), however, you may need to know the drives structure (Cylinders, heads, sectors etc.) if your BIOS does not have a autodetect selection for the hard drive.

Once the drive is setup and recognized by the PC then you can run scandisk as mentioned above.

Is the flash drive a Simpletech drive?

Originally Posted by Machinery_E

I think I got it figured out, but not sure what I did to get it to load! Seems to be working okay right now...

Now I need to figure out how to make a backup of the flash drive, it wouldn't be good if this one happens to stop working!!!

Eric

Good day Eric

i went through backing up my A2100 just before Christmas
i don't know how the moderators feel about sending you to other machining sites but i feel that knowledge is something we all need to share in the North American markets. this will give you pretty much all the info you need to make a backup and there are a couple of other links inside with tech data from other sites - the siemens tech sheet was the most helpful.

http://www.*******.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89733

i used Norton Ghost 2003 on a bootable floppy - unhooked the hard drive from an old computer that wasn't being used (DO NOT LET A MODERN OS TOUCH YOUR ORIGINAL OR IT WILL BE POOCHED)- changed the Bios to boot from disc - hooked the original Cincy HD to EIDE 1 and the new drive to EIDE 2 - boot up and followed the instuctions in Ghost

took about 30 minutes or so

hope this helps you out

mac

I have successfully imaged drives with dos based ghost. don't use a windows based software - you'll corrupt both the one you are copying and the one you are trying to copy to.

It depends on what you are trying to backup the procedure.

Thanks guys, the link to the info on the "zone" looks to be very helpful! Trying to get a copy of NT4.0 working right now. Accorinding to the info in the Siemens tech bulletin its okay. I believe its got 4.01 on the Flash drives which would mean it would be okay to use XP to copy it, but I don't want to take any chances. The original HD I have looks to be running 3.something so that would definately be a no-no to open in XP.

Pipes, I don't recall seeing a name on the flash drive, other than on the cards themselves, but I haven't looked at it really close...Its got an IDE adapter on it, and power connector is just the same as a HD, pretty slick for a conversion as everything matches up...

Wille, trying to make an exact copy of the flash drive so I can have a spare if the one in it now decides to bite the dust...

Eric

I still have 1 machine running NT 3.51.... the last 3.51 image I have. 1 thing you don't do when you have a reliable stable NT setup- don't change a single thing.......

This is an old thread I know, but I wanted to update it that I finally got my drive clone done successfully. I have found no detailed instructions anywhere. So this is Machinery_E's gift to you, at least maybe you won't have aged several years trying to figure out like I have.

1. You need Norton Ghost 2003. I believe any newer won't work, older should work, but my instructions may not work for that.
Tip-if you can find a copy of Ghost 9.0 it may come with the 2003 disk. Double check to make sure.
2. Keep everything away from Windows XP and newer.
3. Did I mention to keep everything far away from Windows XP and newer?
4. Get needed spare hard drive. I am running a "Transcend TS1GCF100I 1GB Industrial Compact Flash Card" on the machine. You simply need an adapter from IDE to compact flash card. Might be something to think about to convert your machine from a rotating harddrive to solid state flash for better reliability. I can say get the Transcend industrial compact flash card, my machine when I got it had a cheapie compact flash in it and it didn't take long at all before it died. So far the Transcend (which was the spare that came with it) has been running for 2+ years with no problem.
5. I have read that you can ghost on the Arrow itself...but it sure looked like a nightmare to me to get to the IDE ports...it looks like the entire control box would have to be torn apart. So I used a Windows 98 computer.
6. Install Ghost on the Win 98 computer.
7. After installing, make a boot disk. This is under "Utilities" "Boot Disk" "Standard Boot Disk" I selected PC-Dos. Make sure you have a floppy that will format okay. Instructions are pretty straight forward, other than what to look for which I have in quotes above.
8. After this the disk is completed, turn off your Win 98 computer. Disconnect the Win 98 computer hard drive and connect your Cincinnati hard drive to the IDE cable.
9. Connect your destination hard drive to the other IDE cable (such as the one going to the CD-ROM drive)
10. You will also need to supply power to both of the hard drives. Such in my case, if you are using two IDE to compact flash adapter cards, there is only one extra small power plug in the computer. I just got another computer and used the power supply to power my second IDE to compact flash adapter.
11. Jumpers for slave/master, you shouldn't need them using two IDE cables, I took the jumpers off my drive.
12. Place boot floppy in the Win 98 computer and then start it up.
13.You are likely going to need to change the BIOS settings...first it must be set to detect A drive first. Then you might have to change the settings so that it will detect the two drives for cloning. I had to on mine. It would be helpful to record what your original BIOS settings are so you can change it back when you are done.
14. The Norton Utility should start up.
15. You may have a nag screen about marking the drives. Hit cancel.
16. Now for cloning...you will want "Local" and "Disk" and "To Disk"
17. This is very important-if you don't follow this you will be in a WORLD of trouble-you DO NOT want to clone your new empty drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
18. This is easiest determined by the size of the drive. If the newer drive is larger, you will pick that as the "destination" drive and the smaller one as the "source" drive.
19. If in my case you are cloning two drives that are the same size, you can tell by what it says on the "destination drive details" page. This page is before you start cloning. There was a warning prompt before cloning started on seat of Ghost. At least on my drive off the Cincinnati, it was copying two sectors, with a total of about 312 MB. If you only have one sector and little or no data shown in the destination drive details page, you are likely going to make a copy of your new empty drive, to your old one off the machine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
20. "destination drive details" page is how the new hard drive you are cloning will look after you are done cloning.

Use these instructions at your own risk-verify I haven't made a mistake BEFORE you do something-think for yourself! Again, it is really easy to mess things up bad, be careful!!!!!!!!!