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In need of Program Disk for DWC-90C

eTekTool

Aluminum
Joined
Mar 13, 2010
Location
Cedarburg, WI
I have a bad system program disk for my Mitsubishi DWC 90C and looking for a replacement disk.

When I called Mitsubishi with the part number on the disk BRD-W39W000-A0, they said no problem takes about 2 weeks and the cost is $98.00.
I told them great lets get it coming.....Then it was the "oh wait your machine is not registered with us"
I should have known that this was going to happen.... I was warned about this AFTER I bought the machine.

That is the reason why I have not bought another Mitsubishi machine and never will. Since then I have bought 2 Charmilles Sinkers and Other 2 EDM drills. Charmilles has been great the 2 times I needed to call about parts.

Mitsubishi wanting $1500 just to buy something from them, even when I gave them the part number and he looked it up without a problem. I have no problem paying for tech support, I have done that in the past with other companies. Time is money, I know that. But to order a part? With a part number, that is wrong.

Any other manufactures play this game? Would love to know so I can stay away from their used machines.


If anyone has any resources on software disks please let me know. I have no problem paying for the disk. Just not paying MC Machinery $1600 to buy from them.


Done venting..

Thanks, Chris
 
This is definitly a draw back of buying a used Mits.. I could understand maybe $500 to register, but there $1600 fee is ridiculous, and I own several of their EDM's..
 
Yes, I'd be interested to see if they can do anything with the disk too!

Those of us that don't have our machines registered need someone that can order parts for us! Anyone want to step up to the plate to help us out? :)
 
I will let you guys know next week. He should get the disk by Monday. He told me it should be no problem he has done many of these disk before. I still have my fingers crossed though. :)
 
Any software that's on a floppy can be imaged and that image burned to CD as backup if the floppy can be read in the first place. dd in Linux is a useful tool.

The first thing I'd do with any new floppy is IMAGE IT. Find older computer forums for info on your particular situation. There no reason you couldn't have a complete archive of all the disks for these EDMs with a group effort.

This may help someone. I'm not familiar with CP-M but I ran into this stuff over the years:

http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm

http://www.retrotechnology.com/dri/howto_cpm.html#point

Setting up a PC with a Catweasel controller could be well worth it. You could copy your disk images to hard disk with a primary partition of 2GB, then image that drive and save the image as the boot image of a bootable DVD so you can replicate that drive elsewhere if needed.

http://compgroups.net/comp.os.cpm/fun-with-catweasel/946427

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Computers_Catweasel

http://www.jschoenfeld.com/products/catweasel_e.htm

Again, I know squat about CP-M, but a little about older PCs. Good luck!
 
Any software that's on a floppy can be imaged and that image burned to CD as backup if the floppy can be read in the first place. dd in Linux is a useful tool.

The first thing I'd do with any new floppy is IMAGE IT. Find older computer forums for info on your particular situation. There no reason you couldn't have a complete archive of all the disks for these EDMs with a group effort.

This may help someone. I'm not familiar with CP-M but I ran into this stuff over the years:

http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm

http://www.retrotechnology.com/dri/howto_cpm.html#point

Setting up a PC with a Catweasel controller could be well worth it. You could copy your disk images to hard disk with a primary partition of 2GB, then image that drive and save the image as the boot image of a bootable DVD so you can replicate that drive elsewhere if needed.

http://compgroups.net/comp.os.cpm/fun-with-catweasel/946427

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Computers_Catweasel

http://www.jschoenfeld.com/products/catweasel_e.htm

Again, I know squat about CP-M, but a little about older PCs. Good luck!



The CP/M format proved to be more work than I imagined. I tried every flopy disk utility out there on various older dos-based computers with NO luck. Not even the disk image utilities could read the Mitsubishi disk. I am by no means a computer expert, but sure tried my hardest. Even used my Linux box with no luck.
 
I even tried MaxiDisk http://www.herne.com/mdisk1.htm and bought an old computer to run it on. Thats when I gave up trying myself.


I was looking for a seriously old computer myself lol.. One thing that has me wondering, althought I was told the disks are cpm format, when I place the disk into the Mits controller, in the I/O page, the FORMAT says MS-DOS, and when I select cpm, it jumps back to MS-DOS.. This would lead me to believe the disks are in MS-DOS format??

Also, I didnt think you could have directories in a cpm format disk, but again the software disks have a SYS directory on them.. hmmm...
 
The machine is back up and running thanks to Sydex ! Sydex, Inc. - Your Source for Diskette Handling and Data Conversion

They made me a copy of the system software disk, but that did not solve the problem. Still had a loading error. I sent my disk drive out to them to check it out. It was bad! They were able to source another replacement drive and modify it to work on the Mitsubishi. Plugged the new drive in and popped in the new disk and up and running again!
 
They made me a couple copies of the disk. His business making copies and data recovery I don't think he will tell you how to do it. No clue what he modified, all I know is it works.
 
Thats a fantastic deal. Thanks for the update. Any worries about mailing the disk to therm or were they local?
 
They were able to source another replacement drive and modify it to work on the Mitsubishi. Plugged the new drive in and popped in the new disk and up and running again!

My understanding of this is that there are some jumpers on the drive that need to be moved.
(I've been researching this for the last few days myself)
 
"My understanding of this is that there are some jumpers on the drive that need to be moved.
(I've been researching this for the last few days myself) "


I looked into that also, the original drive had no jumpers. He was very fair to find me a replacement drive and a spare. I am starting to learn somethings are just not worth learning about or spending too much time on.
 
Hi everyone,
I have been having problems recently with my DWC-90C as well. Everytime I try doing a system load using the floppy discs, I get a "System Loading Error" that flashes on the screen. Is this the problem you were experiencing as well, eTekTool?

I have two copies of the system disc, and both give the same problem. I've been trying to figure out what has been causing this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 








 
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