Waltermixxx Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 (edited) HI there I just aquired a Megafile60 today, and there are 4 partitions on it. it was all working fine and dandy, then I started to look around and change settings etc on it, and i was messing around with some files, and now when ever I try and run a .prg file, I get Illegal file type. also when I try and delete the desktop.inf file I get two bombs... rebooting does not appear to help.... Help? has anyone run across this before? do i need to reformat the whole thing? are there any trouble shooting tips anyone can offer? please let me know thank you Edited June 30, 2013 by Waltermixxx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waltermixxx Posted June 30, 2013 Author Share Posted June 30, 2013 Some additional information: the problem just started to appear with my 1040ste (upgraded to 4megs) it used to work fine on it, but suddenly stopped working, now I get the error message illegal file type when trying to run programs or even view documents.... If I unplug the set, and plug everything into an atari 520 stfm everything appears to work fine... no issues... then i switched back to my 1040ste, and tried to boot from my hd driver floopy disk, and when I was able to boot from the floppy (which is hit and miss with holding down alt, mostly does not work but did a couple of times... the set i have has the ram test when you turn it on. if I can get it to boot from the floppy, then i can read and run programs from my ste on the drive... if i boot from the drive itself on the set, .prg files will not run.... it's so weird.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 Such error happens when Desktop.inf file is corrupted. Because you can not delete it, likely FAT is damaged. You should run some recovering SW, like CHKDSK3 . Or reformat C partition. Of course, maybe it became too old, unreliable. so possible that will have problems in future Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 Long shot but it could also be a virus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waltermixxx Posted June 30, 2013 Author Share Posted June 30, 2013 How do I bypass hard drive boot up and boot from floppy? If I boot from floppy I should be able to delete the desktop.inf file... Holding down alternate on the 520stfm works, but one the 1040ste it does not seem to work because of the memory test it performs... I may just reformat the whole thing I just bought the drive and it's full of crap for the most part... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jens Posted June 30, 2013 Share Posted June 30, 2013 Skip the memory test by pressing the [space] key (or whatever), then press [Alt]. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waltermixxx Posted June 30, 2013 Author Share Posted June 30, 2013 Thanks I will give it a shot. i will report back... I have a feeling that my 1040ste has a bum dma chip... and that may be part of the reason... just odd that it would suddenly stop being able to run programs, when the 520stfm can with no problems... i wonder if i may have dissabled a ste-fix of some sort while messing around? is there such a thing? a software plugin etc, that would fix the dma issue in software? thanks again, I will report back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waltermixxx Posted June 30, 2013 Author Share Posted June 30, 2013 Well I verified some stuff... I have the good DMA chip. (C398739-001A) That's good news. I checked my Floppy Controller while I was in there, and it's the Western Digital 1772 Chip. ( Which I think is also good news? if I want to upgrade my floppy?) At any rate I was able to fix the problem with my hard drive by renaming the Auto folder that was there, and copying the auto folder from my hard disk utility disk... now everything appears to be fine And Yes JENS i was able to bypass the hard drive boot by pressing space to to disable the memory test, and then press and hold Alternate. Thanks... I guess I wasn't doing it correctly . this is good cause there was some stuff on the hard drive I wanted to keep but a may still delete a bunch of crap thanks again folks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waltermixxx Posted June 30, 2013 Author Share Posted June 30, 2013 He he, turns out the WD1772 is not the chip you want in your ST if you want to upgrade to a 1.4 Mbyte drive... one needs the Atari Ajax chip? oh well not the end of the world I supposed, at least I have the hard drive working and a good DMA chip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_ Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 He he, turns out the WD1772 is not the chip you want in your ST if you want to upgrade to a 1.4 Mbyte drive... one needs the Atari Ajax chip? oh well not the end of the world I supposed, at least I have the hard drive working and a good DMA chip Not sure, but I think the STe can't be upgraded with a 1.44 drive. You need a Mega STe for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 STE can be upgraded to 1.44 (HD) floppy drive. Just circuit must to suply somehow 16MHz clock ( what is available in ST(FM) ). There are schematics special for STE . You can get 16MHz by using crystal, or freq. doubler for instance. With little luck,. original FDC chip will work fine at 16MHz, so wait with ordering Ajax chip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waltermixxx Posted July 2, 2013 Author Share Posted July 2, 2013 I guess one of those 4 pin crystal oscillators would work, give it 5 volts, Gnd, and it will give you 16Mhz I will look into that option... and do more reading, this rings a bell, i had looked into it a few years back... Cheers and thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.