Hi all, I recently bought a FM-TOWNS II MX.It has a Seagate Barracuda ST34371N SCSI HDD inside and 70MB of RAM. On the HDD it has been installed WIndows95 but, sadly, it fails to boot(it gives me an error after the WIN95 logo about some missing files). Now I'd want to install TownOS at least but, sadly again, the CD-ROM is not working (laser is dying IMHO). So, what can I do?Can I install TownOS under Unz emulation perhaps? I hope someone can help me. Thanks in advance P.S. It is possibile to use an external SCSI CD-ROM instead of the HDD (using the same IDC50 pin connector on the riser card)?Or I have to use the SCSI rear connector? Found this thread about: http://yaplog.jp/fm-towns/archive/25 Last question: are the FM-TOWNS CD-ROM drive proprietary ones?Mine it's a Matsushita EBP504, it has 40 pin connector and it's plug into the riser card but it doesn't have any power connector so I presume it's not E/IDE. P.S.2 I made an image of the Seagate HDD with WinImage utility, it can be useful? Update: I was able to open the HDD image with DiskExplorer (and fmimg2.dll) and found that there are three partitions (the first is WIN95 , the 2nd and the 3rd are DATA1 and DATA2) I attached the autoexec.bat, the config.sys and a picture of the missing files. View attachment Autoexec.bat - config.sys.zip
Not that I know anything about the FM-TOWNS, but if the Windows directory is on the 1st partition, config.sys and autoexec.bat should point to C: instead of D:.
My own FM-towns is the original tower and has no HDD so i cannot help you much but maybe unclejun has something there. Why would the path point to D: ? If you have the HDD image extracted maybe you can mount it in UNZ and experiment there, such as trying changing the drive letter path in the autoexec/config files. Also, if you have a 3 mode floppy drive you can try to write a DOS 6.2 boot disk for FM-towns and edit files directly from there. http://www.jcec.co.uk/fmtownsgames.html I do not have answer to that question but it reminds me of the Tandy 3.5 floppy drives. Had the same regular floppy ribbon cable as other PCs but had no power connector. Actually used some pins from the ribbon cable for power. IIRC there was a way to use a regular floppy drive if you modified a ribbon cable by connecting the power yourself on the right pins. Was a bit risky as you could easily fry stuff by making a mistake... Anyway maybe a regular CD-ROM can be used in your FM-towns with a similar mod? I would try the clean lens/adjust pot / change laser approach first though.
Hi and thanks for reply. Yes, definitively the problem is in the wrong path.But usually during inizialization of HDD , the HDD itself is mapped to D:, infact if I mount the image in UNZ, Win95 boots without errors (UNZ will hang up but his a emulation issue, I presume).I think that my FM-TOWNS has some problem with the CMOS and lost the settings so now the HDD is mapped to C: instead of D: I know that drive names assignement are stored in the CMOS.By the way how to use the CMOSUTY.EXE utility which is on the MS-DOS disk ? Anyway I will try to change the path with Diskexplorer and then restore the image on the SCSI HDD. I wrote the MS-DOS 6.2 but I'm not able to use the EDIT command.How can be used? I tried to clean the lens and also the mirror under the diode as well as adjust the pot but without success. My pickup laser is the same as Marty console, you can see it in this thread: http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3277.0 Replacement should be a Panasonic RAE-0170z but it seems pretty impossible to find. Any suggestions?
Im affraid you already know more than i do my friend... However i just bought a MA model off Yahoo auction and seller said he could not read CD. ( got it cheap ) Looks like i might land in the same soup as you I was trying to translate some obscure Japanese message board with Google but I think Google translate has a word limit and i cant translate it all. http://mimizun.com/log/2ch/i4004/1189888689/ Appears like someone was doing optical drive swaps with some FM towns computer. Anyway, I have 4 of the early 386 model ( dont ask ) . One of em is Bricked but i suspect PSU, a second one works intermitently ( PSU again i think) And 2 are fine. Ill have to find out what lasers are in those.
