Mazak VCN-510C M64 Windows alarm at shut down

Hi all,
I am getting a windows alarm on my 510C when we shut down the machine. The alarm is, "M64atmain. This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down". We have 7 Mazaks both turning and Milling and have had this several times before.
Mazak service answer is you need a new hard drive and HR113 board. At the sum of around $3-$5K depending on the machine. All they will tell me is that likely there is a currupt file. The hard drive is a $100.00 laptop hard drive. The machine still functions fine and we run it every day. But I guess it could crash or not start at all some day.

Has anyone figured out how to fix?
Thanks,
Chris at STAR.

Have 4 510C mills. Had something similar on our newest machine 1 week before it was out of warranty. It was a hard drive going south, We were very lucky.

Does the drive have a Max Star lable on it? I found out the hard way that that drive was re named Death Star. That was the drive in my laptop. Mazak replaced the drive in my VTC shortly after I bought it. They just came in and did it, guessing they knew they got some bad drives. No idea of what was changed out.

Don't jump to the conclusion that the hard drive is bad. There are other possibilities. It could be as simple as the power supply in the control going bad. A bad power supply can make it seem like a software problem or a virus. If you have several Mazaks, you might try swapping the power supply to see if the problem goes away.

You might also want to defrag the hard drive. You should find defrag within accessories on the start menu.

M64atmain is the Mazatrol software. Think of it as an application that runs on top of Windows just like Word and Excel do. Your hard drive may or may not be going bad. It may simply be that this piece of software is corrupted some how. Part of the software is on the hard drive and part is on the HR113 board. Mazak replaces them as a set. Before you shut the machine down, press MF1 and the letter O simultaneously. This brings up the Windows task manager. It is the same as pressing Cntrl-Alt-Delete on a desk top computer. When the list of programs pops up, left click on M64atmain then end task. This will turn off the Mazatrol application and all you have running is Windows. If Windows runs OK, then I don't think that you have a hard drive problem.

If you have machines of the same model and close in age, then maybe you could delete M64atmain and then copy it from another machine and load it in.

I would check the power supply first. It would be the cheapest and easiest thing to swap out.

You can reload the mazatrol software for fusion/nexus machines by going to ncbackup=>disk1=>setup that will run install wizard to reload the software. Sometimes it fixes the problem...

Justin Terry

I'm pretty sure dinosaur is on the right track with the defrag option, at least to try first. I'm confident that it's not a power supply problem because your problem would be more like the thing keeps shutting off for no reason. I use an USB to external hard drive reader that you can get on newegg or tigersdirect for about $20. I can't speak to window 7 or 8 but on the older OS you can defrag without a hitch. I would not recommend loading the software at all. It's possible that the version of the software that you are running is not saved on the hard drive due to an oversight on installation. Plus you'd want to know how to load everything back in properly, you'll get data renewal not allowed alarms and other issues.