running HP16500B logic analyzer from floppy

Hi. I've got an HP16500B logic analyzer with a bad hard drive controller (picked it up cheap off ebay. I was hoping I could just replace the hard drive, but that didn't pan out). I have 2 questions. First, does anyone know if I can run the 16500B just off of floppy disks. The system software loads off the floppy, but I don't seem to get configuration loaded, or the software for the 16550 logic analyzer card. Does anyoneone know how/if I can configure a runnable boot disk for the 16550B?

Question 2: Does anyone know of someplace that might stock individual CPU cards or reasonably priced repairs for the this analyzer? Thanks.

Lee

Reply to
Lee
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Format a DOS 1.44MB floppy put files "SYSTEM" and "SYS_032" on it.

Be aware that the 16500B can have problems reading a disk formatted on another system. You may need to try several disks and DOS systems before you find a combination that will work.

If you can just get the "SYSTEM" file to load then you can use the

16500B to format another DOS disk and then you can put the required files on it from your DOS system.

Floppies formatted by Windows systems may not work.

Reply to
Keyser Soze

Keyser,

That seems to have done the trick. I formatted a floppy using the

16500, copied the files to it using my pc, and now the 16500 boots and recognizes the 16550 card. Thanks for your help.

Lee

Keyser Soze wrote:

questions.

to

analyzer

disk

individual

Thanks.

Reply to
Lee Thalblum

Lee

I had the same thought, that the HDD controller is dead, when m

16500A analyzer with 16500b CPU upgrade card refused to detect a goo Conner 420Mb disk, which I have recovered from an old PC. Friend of mine is using 16500b and I had borrowed his 85Mbytes Quantu LPE HDD. Incredible !!!! My 16500A has booted from the original Quantum LPE hard disk without glitch Then I thought, that may be the reason is MBR contents (master boo record, the sector 0 on the HDD). I took the Norton Disk Editor connected the original Quantum HDD to my PC and found that the MBR i really different from the standard DOS MBR created by FDISK Amazing !! I copied MBR from original Quantum HDD to my hard drive, which befor was not passing the test Now with my HDD the logic analyzer says, that the HDD is good, but th FLOPPY is not ready. I guess what we need is the HP/Agilent proprietary FDISK utility, t prepare the hard drive. Also what I have found out is that the maximum allowed HDD size fo 16500B is 512 Mbytes since it doesn't support disks in LBA (logi block access) mode, but an old once HCS(Head/Cylinder/Sector) I will try to experiment more with the record 0 values, but I guess have a problem now because my HDD (420 Mbytes) does not match th parameters, which I have copied and pasted from 85 Mbytes Quantum HDD One more thing, when I was reading the dump of 16500B HDD MBR, I hav noticed, that all the data is presented in the Big Endian format. swapped all the odd and even bytes, and then I was able to read th text in this record. It says, that the disk has FAT16 system. On to of that, there is a message, saying "Can't boot from this drive please, press any key" "To make HDD bootable, use SYSx utility".

If anyone can point out a way to create a good MBR on the HDD, whic

can be supported by 16500b, please, let me know

Thank you soo much for your feedback

Reply to
Maxis

Not so incredible... You put a known good disk into a probably good frame.

Yes, it's much different. It was built on a 'standard' hard drive format.

Again, a standard format... The 16500 uses a 680x0 processor, which would explain the endianness issue... Further, it's built on an old version of pSOS. I'll check at work and see if I have any old floppies with 16500 SW on them, but I doubt it. I know that I have no old HW. There are a couple of companies that still sell used 16500 HW, and who might be willing to sell you a 16500 boot floppy.

I doubt that you'll be able to use a drive larger than 85MB. When they started putting HDD's in the 16500, they went with the smallest available, reasonably priced HDD. It was originally around 20MB. They ended up being tied into the PC world, which is ever driven higher and faster. Every time they were forced into a larger HDD, they had to release a new version of the OS/FW. Along with the visible stuff in the MBR, there are tables and such built into the OS/FW. You might be able to get the big drive to work as an 85MB drive.

I have a couple of other sources that I'll check. Some of them are consultants, so they migfht want money to provide assistance.

Reply to
Al Gosselin

Hi, Al

Thanks a lot for provided details !

You were right saying that FW might not support larger CHS disks eve if they are smaller than 512 Mbytes. I have made a little test i which I have entirely erased by using Norton Disk Editor the conten of Quantum 85 Mbytes drive. Then I have installed that drive into th

16500b mainframe. The 16500b reported, that the HDD test failed. But afterwards, I wa able to boot the system from floppy and format the HDD. Then I hav transfered the system files by simply creating the SYSTEM director on formatted HDD and copying all the files from floppy to thi directory After, I rebooted the system, 16500b passed all the tests and boote from HDD It looks to me like the 16500b logic analyzer does support just a fe known by FW HDD types. I have asked quite a lot of people usin 16500b mainframes about the make of the their hard drives. I had replies in which ALL THE HARDDRIVES are QUANTUM type. The size var from 85 Mbytes to 420 Mbytes.

On the other hand after further investigation I found, that th

PHYSICAL SECTOR 0 on HDD doesn't contain the HDD MBR, instead it ha the BOOT record exactly like on the floppy, but presented in the BI ENDIEN format.

Al, thank you for pointing out the fact, that 16500b OS is pSOS based

Now I understand why the boot sector format is such a weird thing

Also it looks like no additional FDISK utility is required. M

previous assumption was wrong. The 16500B FW will automaticall detect the HDD geometry and will be capable of formatting it

Dear HP 16500 GURUs, can you please list some HDD models supported b

16500B
Reply to
Maxis

I'd originally tried replacing the 16500b drive with a Quantum ProDrive LPS (120 meg) and still got the no disk found error. The drive is probably still formatted for DOS or windows, so I would think the 16500 should be able to detect it on boot. I figured I'd reformat it if the analyzer at least saw that it was there. Any ideas?

Lee

Maxis wrote:

based!

Reply to
Lee Thalblum

I just repaired a 16500B with a defective drive. The drive that wa installed from the factory was a Quantum ProDrive LP Marked

170AT RR17A011 Rev 02-E A02.0 1011/15/2

I had a Quantum ProDrive that was the 120M version that I installed.

No problems. The drive that was installed was set to DS, which changed the new drive to as well. Installed the drive, installed th first floppy disk, turned on the unit and waited about 5 minutes fo it to boot. It still flagged the drive as bad. Selected the forma hard drive option. Made a /SYSTEM directory. Manually copied al the files from all four disks and that was it. Ran the PVTest while I was at it and saw no problems.

I also had another ProDrive that was different from the other two.

Quantum must have called a lot of different drives the ProDriv series. None of the three I have look even close. This one i marked

52A 950-50-910

I was not able to format this drive. The LA would report errors an

time it would try to talk with it. It could be a defective drive.

Hope this helps some of you

Reply to
lecroy

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