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Author Topic: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive  (Read 41011 times)

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DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #40 on: September 09, 2016, 02:14:29 pm »
It's impossible to know from the files if it boots or not. If you just formatted the cf card in windows, it won't boot.

In early dos days, you booted from floppy and ran the fdisk command to create partitions on your disk (cf card in this case) You had to make 1 partition active that became the boot partition.

Next, you had to format the partition.

Third, you needed to run sys c: which transferred the 2 hidden sys files and the commmand.com to the harddisk. If I remember well, the 2 hidden sys files needed to be on a specific location of the harddisk. (You couldn't just copy them over)

After this, the harddisk became bootable.

I see no other option anymore besides providing my bootable image. It's a bit of a chicken egg story. Without a bootable medium, you can't make the compact flash partition bootable..

OK could you please, please provide me with your bootable image when you get a chance?

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #41 on: September 11, 2016, 11:01:58 am »
Ok. let's try again.

Convert a megatouch XL from cdrom to harddisk or compact flash.

Needed:
A harddisk with pata (ide) interface (Something between 1 and 10 Gig should do) or
A compact flash card of at least 1 Gigabyte and a compact flash 2 ide adapter.
A method to transfer an image to that cf card or harddisk. (A usb cf cardreader or usb 2 ide (pata) harddisk enclosure)
A program to transfer a raw image to a disk.
The files from your original cd disk. You can simply copy all contents of the cdrom to a folder.

The work:

Get my freedos bootable image.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9w93x1vbjzaq959/megaxl_1g.zip

It's based upon freedos, so it doesn't contain any copyrighted material. (That's why I post the link here)
unzip that image to a folder. It should become an image file of nearly 1Gig (A bit smaller)

Transfer the image to your destination harddisk or cf card. Be carefull not to choose your windows drive as it will wipe out all it's contents. (I often use winhex for that. The raspberry pi website has some tools for that as well.)

remove and re insert the cf card or drive. It should come up as a drive letter.

copy all the cdrom files and folders to the mega folder of that drive letter.

Install the disk or cf card with adapter in your megatouch. Do a quick pray to your God and hope it boots...

My megatouch bios settings has all harddisks set to auto and no floppy's installed.

The drive detection is set to LBA capacity 1025
CYL 993 HEADS 32 and SECTORS 63

My mobo is a Telco.

Good luck.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 07:35:07 am by obcd »

ed12

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #42 on: September 11, 2016, 03:48:25 pm »
my god that is simple
thank-u

ed
Shipping something from the U.S. to Canada for repair/exchange?  Please use USPS to avoid (additional?/excessive?) shipping charges.  PM me if you have any questions.

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #43 on: September 11, 2016, 04:27:10 pm »
I forgot 3 small details.

1. In the autoexec.bat you will find a "keyb be...." line that will set the keyboard to the belgium layout. You might change that to the keyboard layout you are using.

2. A warm reboot using <CTRL> <ALT> <DEL> isn't working. You need to power cycle the megatouch pc for a proper reboot. This is likely a motherboard bios issue and has nothing to do with the compact flash image.

3. The romdisk on the io board needs to be disabled. This can be done with the removal of jumper JP1 marked eprom enable.
JP2 is marked NVRAM Enable and shouldn't be touched. (It keeps the high scores and setup between reboots.)
JP3 is marked MFG and shouldn't be touched either.

orizzle

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #44 on: September 11, 2016, 05:51:12 pm »
Part of the problem I've noticed with my CD vs. yours is that the binaries have different names....so my script would be trying to execute something that doesn't exist.  I'm not sure of obcd's image takes this into account.

The reason my image was 4 partitions was because I was using MS-DOS and it doesn't have the subst command that obcd is using.

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #45 on: September 11, 2016, 06:07:51 pm »
Mine is launching "launchit.bat" from the f folder.

I noticed on the autoexec daddy posted that the contents of that bat file seemed to be in his autoexec.bat file.
It copied 2 files to the d drive and launched megacdll.

I left the launchit.bat from my cd in the mega folder. So if it's not on his cd, it's not a problem.
If it's there, mine will simply be overwritten.

Can't remember if my launchit.bat is running the same megacdll.exe, and I am 2 lazy to go look it up.

In worst case, the launchit.bat will need to be edited to launch the correct file.

The major reason I posted my image was to resolve the issues that the other partitions didn't show up in windows as drive letters (To my understanding) I could use a good backup as well.

I removed the mega files, shrinked the partition and zeroed the remaining unused space on the cf card.
Next, I increased partition size again and took the image. Due to the fact that all unused partition space contains zeros, it's possible to seriously reduce the image size using pkzip.

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #46 on: September 12, 2016, 05:39:59 pm »
Thank you so much for the image! I gave it a shot but while I did make some progress, it wouldn't boot.

It said "FREE DOS" with a blinking cursor and then nothing would happen after that. So at least it sees the drive and it sees freedos, but it never boots. Just sits at a blinking cursor.

I did follow your directions step by step but when I copied over my CD to the mega folder, it asked me if I wanted to overwrite launchit.bat, and I said no. I figured if you had one already in the mega directory that it's probably the one you want me to use, but please confirm when you get a moment.

Also I have JP1 removed so it completely ignores the onboard ROMDOS or whatever. :)

Thanks for any suggestions/help!

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #47 on: September 12, 2016, 05:58:39 pm »
Can you tell me what program you are using to transfer the image to the compact flash card?
Have you checked the HDD auto detection in the bios?
What parameters does it show you for your Compact Flash card?
It's ok to use your own launchit.bat file. I wasn't sure if you would have one. That's why I left mine there. They might contain the same instructions.
What os are you using to transfer the image to the card?
The behavour you see is what you get if the drive parameters in the bios are incorrect. You could try a manual setup with the settings I posted. I'll check tomorrow what the working options are.


DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #48 on: September 13, 2016, 12:35:29 am »
Can you tell me what program you are using to transfer the image to the compact flash card?
Have you checked the HDD auto detection in the bios?
What parameters does it show you for your Compact Flash card?
It's ok to use your own launchit.bat file. I wasn't sure if you would have one. That's why I left mine there. They might contain the same instructions.
What os are you using to transfer the image to the card?
The behavour you see is what you get if the drive parameters in the bios are incorrect. You could try a manual setup with the settings I posted. I'll check tomorrow what the working options are.

Thank you so much. It must be the drive parameters because I don't even know where in the BIOS to go to change it or what to change them to. I think I am one step away from finally solving this thanks to all your help!

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #49 on: September 15, 2016, 03:04:18 am »
I just tested again myself. When I restore the image on a 4Gig CF card, I get the same behavour as yours.
It freezes only showing FreeDOS_ on the bottom of the screen.

I'll try it on the original 1Gig card again to make sure it's not a problem with the image.

Next, I'll see if it's fixable when you alter the bios HDD settings.

What size is your CF card?

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #50 on: September 15, 2016, 03:37:06 am »
I just tested again myself. When I restore the image on a 4Gig CF card, I get the same behavour as yours.
It freezes only showing FreeDOS_ on the bottom of the screen.

I'll try it on the original 1Gig card again to make sure it's not a problem with the image.

Next, I'll see if it's fixable when you alter the bios HDD settings.

What size is your CF card?

Luckily I bought a 1GB and a 2GB, so I can try the 1GB no problem if you need me to :)

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #51 on: September 15, 2016, 04:48:20 am »
I just tested the image on my 1Gig, and it's not booting either.  ???

Thee image must have gotten corrupted during the proces of taking and shrinking it. I'll do the proces over again. I already restored the full image on a 4Gig card, and it boots again. So far So good. Will test it a bit better this time. My apalogies for this misery.

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #52 on: September 15, 2016, 07:34:00 am »
New image for the die hards that are still with us

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9w93x1vbjzaq959/megaxl_1g.zip

Took it from a 1 Gig card and restored it to a 4Gig

Tested the 4Gig, and it booted into the game.

Hopefully right this time.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 07:35:44 am by obcd »

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #53 on: September 15, 2016, 10:19:44 pm »
New image for the die hards that are still with us

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9w93x1vbjzaq959/megaxl_1g.zip

Took it from a 1 Gig card and restored it to a 4Gig

Tested the 4Gig, and it booted into the game.

Hopefully right this time.

OK good news is FREE DOS finally boots and I got a bit further this time.

Bad news is I get a completely new error:



Any idea what I can do to fix this?

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #54 on: September 16, 2016, 06:47:34 am »
I assume you didn't forgot to copy the files of your cd to the mega folder. Maybe you created a subfolder under that mega folder and all stuff is in there?
First, you need to abort that error loop. You can do so by pressing <CTRL> c. So just press and hold the <CTRL> button and press c at the same time. It should give you the message:
Wilt u batchbestand 'f:\launchit.bat' be-eindigen (Ja/Nee/Alles) ?
Simply hit the j button and you should be prompted with
d:\>
First we might check if both d and f are created properly.
dir d: <cr>
dir f: <cr>
These commands should show you the contens of d and f

My d contains 2 files. My f contains 52 bestanden (files)  and 42 dir(s) (folders)

Next, you could try dir  f:*.exe

This should show you all files on f with the exe extension. Those are files you should be able to run in dos.
My cd has 2 such files.

delall.exe
megacdll.exe

The freedos autoexec.bat launches f:\launchit.bat
The contents of that file:

:runit
d:
f:\delall
copy f:\megacdll.exe d:\
copy f:\thefiles.dat d:\
megacdll
if not exist d:\escape goto runit

As you can see, it tries to launch megacdll, which in your case doesn't seem to exist.

You can modify the launchit.bat to remove the error loop:

:runit
d:
f:\delall
copy f:\megacdll.exe d:\
copy f:\thefiles.dat d:\
megacdll
echo if not exist d:\escape goto runit

echo will simply print that line on the screen. It will disable the loop in launchit.bat.

You can make the changes on your windows pc, but even on the megatouch itself with the keyboard connected.

simply run
edit f:\launchit.bat <cr>

the upper menu bar can be accessed with the <alt> key.
<alt> F opens the file menu which you need to save the file and quit the program.

Don't worry to much, you are almost playing it again.

I have the impression when I look at your screen picture that your screen voltage is a little 2 high,
but you should get the thing going first before you look into that.


 


DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #55 on: September 16, 2016, 11:35:10 am »
OK I guess there is something different between your CD and mine or something. I do have MegaCDLL.exe except mine isn't directly in the mega folder. It's in Mega/EXEC. So I did dump the CD correctly, but there is no MegaCDLL.exe directly in the root of my CD-ROM like it is on yours.

So I dumped the entire contents of the EXEC folder into the root of the MEGA folder and now I get a new error:



"Hard Drive Shock Mount Failure"?? What on earth does that mean?

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #56 on: September 16, 2016, 01:04:00 pm »
Copying the contents of the exec folder to the root was a bad idea. We really need to find out what your cd needs to boot.

So, is it having a launchit.bat in it's root or maybe another bat file.

You can try
dir f:\*.bat<cr>
to find that out.

A better way to deal with the megacdll.exe in the exec folder would be changing the launchit.bat file

:runit
d:
f:\exec\delall
copy f:\exec\megacdll.exe d:\
copy f:\thefiles.dat d:\
megacdll
echo if not exist d:\escape goto runit

This assumes that delall.exe and megacdll.exe are in the exec folder and thefiles.dat is in the root folder.
Maybe it's not like that on your cd.

You could try to run the megacdll.exe directly by using the following command:

f:\exec\megacdll.exe<cr>

I'll take a look at the other image if it might reveil how it needs to be started.
Maybe it needs an exec subfolder on the d ramdisk. Right now, All I can do is guess, and that's not good enough.

I just checked your image. It also has a launchit.bat that seems to copy the megacdll.exe from the f:\exec folder.
So maybe, try your file and see if it works with that.

:runit
d:
f:\delall
copy f:\exec\megacdll.exe d:\
copy f:\thefiles.dat d:\
megacdll
if not exist d:\escape f:\reboot.exe

You might add an echo in front of the last line, as it will reboot the system in case of an error. It might not give you the time to analyse the error.
so:

rem if not exist d:\escape f:\reboot.exe
« Last Edit: September 16, 2016, 05:57:25 pm by obcd »

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #57 on: September 16, 2016, 09:14:55 pm »
OK I used the exact launchit.bat configuration that you recommended. I also wiped the CF card and wrote the image again.

It tries to load megacdll.exe and I get the same error :(

"Hard Drive Shock Mount Failure"


obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #58 on: September 17, 2016, 08:23:00 am »
I restored the image on the 4 gig CF card and copied your image to the mega folder.

It gave me the exact same "Hard drive shock mount failure" message.

I am clueless about this. It works on my XL version and also on an older US version I once bought on Ebay.

Maybe someone else knows the meaning of this error. It's coming from the megacdll.exe as I can locate the text in that file.

If you are willing to post the image link you got from the other forum member, I can test with that to see if it behaves any better.

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #59 on: September 17, 2016, 09:54:51 am »
I restored the image on the 4 gig CF card and copied your image to the mega folder.

It gave me the exact same "Hard drive shock mount failure" message.

I am clueless about this. It works on my XL version and also on an older US version I once bought on Ebay.

Maybe someone else knows the meaning of this error. It's coming from the megacdll.exe as I can locate the text in that file.

If you are willing to post the image link you got from the other forum member, I can test with that to see if it behaves any better.

OK at least it's not just me then. Sent you a PM with the image he sent to me. Thank you so much.

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #60 on: September 18, 2016, 05:00:53 am »
I downloaded the image and transferred it to my 4Gig cf card.
In windows, it only showed the first partition.
So, started my virtual debian and made my cardreader usb available to it. I got the 4 partitions.
Wiped the /dev/sdb7 clean and transferred your files to that partition.
Installed the CF card in my megatouch XL. It booted dos, but could only see the c partition.
So, I ran fdisk and noticed that it showed no logical partitions in the extended partition.
So, I deleted the extended partition and created a new one of approx 1 gigabyte.
I created 4 logical partitions into that extended partition. 3 of 50 MB and the fourth using the rest of the available space.
After a reboot, I formatted the D, E  and F drive.
Connected it back to linux. Struggled a bit to mount it writable

sudo mount -tvfat -o user,umask=0000 /dev/sdb7 /home/xxx/mount

finally did the trick.

copied your files over to that partition.

Installed the cf card back in my megatouch.

It booted into dos and....

Hard Drive Shock Mount Failure !!!

This is starting to irritate me....

Next test will be with the files again that originally where on the F partition. (Out of curiousity...)

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #61 on: September 18, 2016, 11:11:32 am »
Maybe the Megatouch somehow can detect that nothing is resting on the CD-ROM caddy? I have no clue. I don't even know why the program knows to ask about a hard drive considering it was a CD game.

Maybe Orizzle can chime in on how he got the error to not show up when he made his XL 5000 run from a CF?

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #62 on: September 18, 2016, 03:46:37 pm »
I just tried with Orizzle his files and they give a
ERROR   Invalid Key !!!
Which is pretty much expected behavour.

I noticed that there are some zero length files in his folder with some strange names like AAADDIDC.
There is no such thing with your files.

They could figure out that the files are transferred from cd to harddisk as they are no longer having the "read only" attribute set.

So, I basically have 3 cd versions that run normally from a compact flash card and yours that gives a
Harddrive shock mount failure.

I'll do one final test with your files all set to read only. It's just a wild guess, but who knows.

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #63 on: September 19, 2016, 05:39:29 am »
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/archive/index.php/t-69913.html

The second post talks about using a harddrive and says that it's not possible with the gold edition...
So, they put something in to prevent a harddrive copy from working.
If it's not documented somewhere, only reverse engineering the code could give a clue how the conversion to a compact flash card is detected.

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #64 on: September 19, 2016, 11:49:14 am »
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/archive/index.php/t-69913.html

The second post talks about using a harddrive and says that it's not possible with the gold edition...
So, they put something in to prevent a harddrive copy from working.
If it's not documented somewhere, only reverse engineering the code could give a clue how the conversion to a compact flash card is detected.

OK so I am willing to use the CD-ROM drive. Never in a million years did I think this thing could detect a hard drive and prevent it from booting but here we are. Anyway, is there a way we can make my CD-ROM bootable? That way I will simply keep using the CD-ROM. Maybe put FREEDOS somewhere on the CD?

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #65 on: September 19, 2016, 12:25:21 pm »
I am afraid this is not possible. The bios of the TELCO motherboard doesn't detect cdrom drives and doesn't allow to boot from them.
You could try to make it boot from compact flash card and have it run it's software from the cdrom.
It seems possible for freedos to mount a cd image file from harddisk and use it like a real cd in a drive. Maybe this approach won't be detected.
In order to test such an approach, I would need an iso created from your cd. I am unsure if the cue and bin could be converted.
There is a free tool cdburner xp that might be able to take such an image.
I'll check later on if your image can be converted for that purpose.
Is your security dongle a black rectangular block or something that looks like a thick coincell? It's on the io board in the upper right corner. (Same side as the dipswitches)

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #66 on: September 19, 2016, 04:19:14 pm »
Tried mounting the iso in dosbox emulation and I am getting a

Invalid Key!!!

Will try on freedos again with the shsucdhd and shcdx33e to mount that iso. Hopefully it works there as well.

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #67 on: September 19, 2016, 04:24:02 pm »
Tried mounting the iso in dosbox emulation and I am getting a

Invalid Key!!!

Will try on freedos again with the shsucdhd and shcdx33e to mount that iso. Hopefully it works there as well.

You are a saint.

My security key looks like a battery with a tab sticking out. Also I PMed you the ISO :)

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #68 on: September 20, 2016, 12:52:35 pm »
shsucdhd and shcdx aren't doing the job.
There seems to be a memory conflict with the 3m dostouch tsr.
Further, it increases loading times which almost double.
I am just reading about a tool called fakecd that might be able to do the trick.
If that doesn't work, I have reached the bottom of my magic trick box.

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #69 on: September 20, 2016, 04:19:52 pm »
shsucdhd and shcdx aren't doing the job.
There seems to be a memory conflict with the 3m dostouch tsr.
Further, it increases loading times which almost double.
I am just reading about a tool called fakecd that might be able to do the trick.
If that doesn't work, I have reached the bottom of my magic trick box.

Oh wow yeah, FakeCD seems to be a CD emulator. Hope that works. Thank you SO MUCH!!

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #70 on: September 20, 2016, 05:39:56 pm »
Right, the results with fakecd look good.

Download the fakecd zip. It should at least contain fakecd..exe and infocd.exe

I mounted your iso with virtual clonedrive (The original disk in a drive should work as well)
I opened a command prompt.
Next, I ran infocd d:\mega e:
d:\mega is a folder on my harddisk
e is the drive letter containing the cd (virtual clonedrive drive letter in my case)
It should create a fakecd.dat file in the folder you specified.

delete the contents of the mega folder on the compact flash card.
copy the fakecd.dat file to the mega folder on the compact flash card
copy the mega cd files and folders to that mega folder as well.

The reason I delete and copy them again is because I am afraid that previous tests might have altered something to the files that could trigger the shock error.

copy the fakecd.exe file to the c:\fdos\bin folder.

edit the c:\autoexec.bat file

find the following lines:

SET PATH=%PATH%;%DOSDIR%\DOG;%DOSDIR%\MERIT
swsubst f c:\mega

and change to:

SET PATH=%PATH%;%DOSDIR%\DOG;%DOSDIR%\MERIT
lh c:\fdos\bin\fakecd c:\mega /L:F

The last lines of the autoexec.bat are:

rem --- Start up the XL program

call c:\launchit

:donemega


So, I copied the c:\mega\launchit.bat to c:\launchit.bat

And I tweaked it a little:

:runit
d:
f:\delall
copy f:\exec\megacdll.exe d:\
copy f:\thefiles.dat d:\

megacdll
pause
echo if not exist d:\escape f:\reboot.exe

This gives the opportunity to read possible errors.

In my case it says

Invalid Key !!!

Normally, yours should  behave different.

I hope I didn't forgot a step.

Good luck..

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #71 on: September 21, 2016, 07:58:04 am »
OK well I got a bunch further and guess what? Now I get an "Invalid key" error.

I completely pulled out the Dallas chip and put it back in. I also tried cleaning the "battery" key thing and making sure it was seated properly.  Still "Invalid Key" error. I have no idea how this thing worked absolutely fine last year and now the DOS ROM chip dies and the Dallas key dies, but I am pretty much going to toss this thing in the trash sometime next week. You gotta love when anti-piracy measures lock out legitimate owners!

Thank you anyway everybody's help even though it didn't end up working in the end. :( I really, really wanted this thing to be part of my home.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2016, 08:04:47 am by DaddyLongLegs »

ed12

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #72 on: September 21, 2016, 10:55:50 am »
invalid key error
even though it is annoying
could be as easy as crap in your cf card that never got cleaned off
and or a hiccup in your iso

ed
Shipping something from the U.S. to Canada for repair/exchange?  Please use USPS to avoid (additional?/excessive?) shipping charges.  PM me if you have any questions.

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #73 on: September 21, 2016, 12:05:07 pm »
I already was afraid of this.
You likely have a problem with your unit io card. Basically, that card combines a number of things.

1. The boot flash drive. (Which you have disabled at the moment)
2. The nvram which is memory mapped in segment C800 (If I remember correctly) (For the highscores)
3. A soundcard with buildin amplifier
4. An interface to the security dongle.
5. An interface to the coin acceptor and the test and service button. (Should be able to drive a mechanical counter as well)
6. An interface to the 16 dipswitches on the board
7. An interface to additional in and outputs that can be used to connect buttons (currently unused)
8. A serial interface that can be used to connect a pc

If you have a problem on your io board, it can affect one or more than one of it's functions.
In your case, the boot flash drive is failing, and probably the interface to the security dongle as well.
It wouldn't suprise me that none of the other functions are working either.
I have one lying in front of me with similar symptoms.
A common problem are the pcb finger contacts or the riser card finger contacts. You cleaned those already, so you are facing other issues.
I have a couple of test programs to read and write the nvram. They can be used to test it's functionallity.
You could try to find a second hand io board on Ebay if you are willing to go on with the unit.
If you are not, I am interested in buying the security dongle and it's small interface pcb (the board that connects to the 5 pin on the io board).


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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #74 on: September 21, 2016, 03:47:21 pm »
I already was afraid of this.
You likely have a problem with your unit io card. Basically, that card combines a number of things.

1. The boot flash drive. (Which you have disabled at the moment)
2. The nvram which is memory mapped in segment C800 (If I remember correctly) (For the highscores)
3. A soundcard with buildin amplifier
4. An interface to the security dongle.
5. An interface to the coin acceptor and the test and service button. (Should be able to drive a mechanical counter as well)
6. An interface to the 16 dipswitches on the board
7. An interface to additional in and outputs that can be used to connect buttons (currently unused)
8. A serial interface that can be used to connect a pc

If you have a problem on your io board, it can affect one or more than one of it's functions.
In your case, the boot flash drive is failing, and probably the interface to the security dongle as well.
It wouldn't suprise me that none of the other functions are working either.
I have one lying in front of me with similar symptoms.
A common problem are the pcb finger contacts or the riser card finger contacts. You cleaned those already, so you are facing other issues.
I have a couple of test programs to read and write the nvram. They can be used to test it's functionallity.
You could try to find a second hand io board on Ebay if you are willing to go on with the unit.
If you are not, I am interested in buying the security dongle and it's small interface pcb (the board that connects to the 5 pin on the io board).



OK thank you. Unfortunately nobody on eBay is selling an i/o board. Just the motherboard which I don't need :(

Should I just suck it up and buy something like this? Seems ridiculously expensive:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Megatouch-XL-to-Maxx-Ruby-2-Upgrade-Update-Kit-5000-6000-Gold-Platinum-etc-/361121547775?hash=item54148585ff:m:m2_55DvZeZXmuziQoTOz4xw

obcd

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #75 on: September 21, 2016, 04:24:42 pm »

DaddyLongLegs

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #76 on: September 21, 2016, 06:00:54 pm »
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MERIT-I-O-BOARD-FOR-XL-MACHINES-MEGATOUCH-TOUCHSCREEN-/302061223463?hash=item4654407e27:m:mGMUnVP13FiFlH2g7Q4xmxQ

Even better. motherboard included:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Telcovision-486-Motherboard-Replacement-for-Megatouch-XL-with-I-O-Board-/151413170044?hash=item2340ed9f7c:g:ZJ4AAOSwGvhUGFJT

 
The upgrade kit is expensive. It's a full pc motherboard and a harddisk, but nevertheless..

It's up 2 you how much you are willing to spend.

OK I bought it. Thank you. I will let you know how it goes. Hopefully this thing doesn't crap out in a year as well...

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #77 on: September 21, 2016, 06:47:05 pm »
I am a bit too late, but you are better off doing a classic force conversion. You could have upgraded for less then $100 with your existing hardware. You put soo much effort into this XL, and i commend you for it, but its just a waste of time and money in my opinion. :dunno

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #78 on: September 21, 2016, 07:09:04 pm »
I am a bit too late, but you are better off doing a classic force conversion. You could have upgraded for less then $100 with your existing hardware. You put soo much effort into this XL, and i commend you for it, but its just a waste of time and money in my opinion. :dunno

Hi, can you explain what a classic force conversion is and what it entails?

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Re: Megatouch XL CD-ROM to Hard Drive
« Reply #79 on: September 21, 2016, 07:37:24 pm »
I am a bit too late, but you are better off doing a classic force conversion. You could have upgraded for less then $100 with your existing hardware. You put soo much effort into this XL, and i commend you for it, but its just a waste of time and money in my opinion. :dunno

Hi, can you explain what a classic force conversion is and what it entails?

an i810 compatible mobo, a force or ion ioboard , an exii microtouch controller (serial or usb) and a force key.

Now that i think about it, you could upgrade to ion for even less going by current ebay prices. The only issue is your monitor res. You need to disable hi res games.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2016, 07:40:50 pm by mahkeymike »