Deathsmiles II - "Disk error" during boot?

[aoiddr]

I picked up a non-working Deathsmiles II pcb this past week and have made some headway in reviving it, but have hit a bump as it gives me a "Disk error Press any key to restart" when booting up. I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas on what I need to try.

Images:
http://imgur.com/a/djpde


Troubleshooting Background:

The Deathsmiles II PCB wouldn't power on at all when I got it. I was able to narrow down the problem to the motherboard having some bad solder joints and even if it got power and the CPU fan spun, it wouldn't display a VGA picture.

So, I replaced the Gigabyte motherboard with the same model and flashed the bios with the correct F2 bios ("ma78gu2h.f2") the game uses. The new motherboard seems fine.

I plugged everything in (IDE CF Card Adapter, Flash Drive, JVS Board), but I started seeing a "NTLDR is missing" during the boot process. I took the CF Card and made a back-up of the card in SelfImage, and then used SelfImage to put the final release "ds2_4.0.img" version on there. I also dug out a USB Flash Drive and put the "cave_ds2_usb.img" on that since it has an indicator LED to show when it's accessing (the default CAVE USB key doesn't). I put those into the PCB, and upon boot...I get the current "Disk error Press any key to restart" error.

Ideas?? o_O

[yosai]

Ask andygeezer if if doesn't respond to this thread.

[aoiddr]

Yep, I did just that earlier.


He replied:

Sounds like a corrupt image.

The windows xp embedded on this is pretty tight if I remember, no keyboard driver even.

The cf image has been dumped, so should be on the net somewhere.

Regards

My reply back was:

Yeah, I've tried it with both the XP version that my Compact Flash came with and with the 4.0 dump that's online. I've also tried the USB Flash Drive it came with and flashed a different USB drive with the 4.0 dongle dump online.

I'll get a "NTLDR is missing" error with the default CF and USB it came with, and a "Disk error" when using the dump versions of the CF & USB (and original CF & dumped USB).

Driving me nuts, as I can definitely see the data and directories on the CF and USB when I put them in my computer. @_@

I've also tried changing the boot order and only trying to have either the CF or USB plugged in at a time. That'll either just give the "Disk error" or get it stuck on the "Verifying DMI Pool Data" part.

I've gone ahead and ordered a CF Card (a Lexar 8GB, but it's UDMA 300x speed like the stock) and a different IDE Flash Card adapter to rule that out and not have to keep using SelfImage to reflash the stock CF with the back-up original image I made or the 4.0 dump.

I am curious if it's possible to just put the CF Card image onto a hard drive and get it to boot that way. I've attempted to do this using a SATA Hard Drive and a IDE To SATA adapter, but all it will do is just get stuck at the "Verifying DMI Pool data" part of the boot process.

[aoiddr]

Okay, I'm at a total loss for where to go. My thinking is that the Compact Flash card might be the problem...though, the fact that I've used SelfImage to back-up the card, flash the 4.0 dump (the Bicycle Repairman one), revert to the back-up, flash the 4.0 dump again, and so on... well, the card being bad wouldn't make sense, but I'm not ruling it out. The CF definitely seems to be the part that's hanging the boot process.

The PCB's JVS i/o board will blink one of its lights and the CF Adapter will have the accessing LED light up very quickly and go off...and bam, the "Disk error" pops up. If I click enter like it says, then it'll give me a "NTLDR is missing" error. I've checked the CF and the ntldr file is present, so that's odd. It's like it isn't even bothering to read the CF or something, or just instantly failing when it does.


Not sure if I need to set anything in the BIOS. I've mainly just let it load the optimized defaults, so it's booting using IDE mode and the default boot order (floppy, hard disk, usb... not that that has much effect).


And just for the heck of it, I had a hard drive in my closest that had an XP Embedded install on it, so I hooked that up to the motherboard without any of the CAVE stuff plugged in...and was able to get that hard drive to start booting windows. It crashed with a blue screen before getting after the windows splash screen, but that's to be expected with a drastically different motherboard/specs.

[aoiddr]

Okay, after a lot of troubleshooting, I was able to load my back-up Compact Flash card image to a 40gb IDE Hard Drive...and was able to get the game to boot.

I'm getting the JVS USB 410A Error at this point after it's done the loading screen check, and that's even with my SEGA JVS I/O hooked up to it. I believe there's a way to patch this out...?

Image: http://i.imgur.com/TSS7Sbx.jpg

[Braintrash]

NTDLR missing is just the system corrupted.
Use a bootdisc, restore, done.

[andygeezer]

His boot problem was done to poor cf cards, some cf cards do not boot properly when they have more than 1 partition.

[Braintrash]

Ah, never buy cheap cards. They usually are bootlegs.

[aoiddr]

Ah, never buy cheap cards. They usually are bootlegs.

Strangely enough, it's the actual original CF card the PCB shipped with. I guess either the CF card or the cf adapter are on their last legs. The motherboard itself was shot, though--some of the solder joints on the corner that tells it to power on weren't making connections and there was not VGA output.

I cloned the CF's data onto an 8GB SSD I had in my parts drawer and hooked that up to a IDE To SATA Adapter and was able to get it to boot.

I'm currently getting a JVS error, though. It's one hurdle to the next with this game... but hopefully, this is the last one. @_@



UPDATE!!

It's alive! It's aliiiiive!!

Deathsmiles II is resurrected and fully playable!

Thanks so much to andygeezer for all this help!! ^_^

[Braintrash]

Would be nice if you put up a repair log.

[SuperPang]

But does it freeze before the Field D boss?

So many issues with this board, seemingly due to overheating, poor motherboard mounting, cheap CF cards and buggy code.

[aoiddr]

Repair log:
- motherboard had to be replaced with another motherboard of the same model,
- replacement motherboard bios had to be flashed to the right version (F2),
- Compact Flash was on its last legs and not working right so that had to be replaced (I cloned the data to an 8GB SSD and used an IDE to SATA Adapter),
- and finally, the JVS security checks had to be patched out (replace the "cvgame.exe" file on the CF's D:/ with a patched version).



andygeezer mentioned that it's likely possible to remove the USB dongle completely and just change "the shell in the software registry to launch d:\cvgame.exe". I'll look into this once I have a free minute.

poor motherboard mounting

Yes, that's one of the first things I noticed. The edge of the motherboard where a case power switch and indicator lights would hook has no support at all. The motherboard my PCB arrived would sometimes power on if you pushed down on that edge, but the VGA power was bad too as it wouldn't display a picture. The heat from the board (and believe me, it gets hot very quickly just from booting the bios) is very poorly dissipated...and the case had poor ventilation to get it out of the case. I'm thinking hot gluing an extra case fan to the side just to try and help this issue. And I'll try to add a small support peg for that corner of the motherboard, if I can.

But does it freeze before the Field D boss?

Oh dear... I'll test that tonight. >_>

[aoiddr]

But does it freeze before the Field D boss?

Oh dear... I'll test that tonight. >_>

I played through Field D (and the entire game) without issue earlier tonight. So things look to be okay so far.

[andygeezer]

The hardware is cheap - domestic grade.

They cut corners using a board with ok onboard gpu at the time, but heating is a big problem.

Solution long term is to use a different mobo with a pci/e video card as close to the onboard one.

On the x2 its too smooth.

The jvs card is a usb to serial port driver, with rs485 coms and ability to usb power on.

[Sunday]

Hello,

I know it's a quite old threat but I'm trying to throw a bottle in the sea.

I have a Deathsmiles 2 cave PC here that I'm trying to fix, I manage to fix the CF with mame CF chd image and now I get a screen with japanese chars
and two "USB" mentions. I don't have the usb dongle so it look likes the PC is waiting to detect it to launch the game.

I read here there was a patched cvgame.exe that can bypass this check but I didn't manage to find on the web (even after hours or research).

I also did a usb key based on the usb mame chd image, I was thinking it creates the usb security dongle but it seems I'm wrong...

Any help will be welcome, thank you in advance

Bye.

[nem]

Look for a Taito Type X2 multigame image that has the game.

[Sunday]

Hello,

I had this idea in mind but not sure it will work as it seems ttx2 multi is using a "loader" for Death Smiles II.
I will do some tests just to be sure.

Thanks.

[nem]

The loader should be a separate executable.

[Awbacon]

CF, or cards in general, are always a pain in the ****.

Even in my ODE devices (FM Towns Marty) I have memory card corruption issues. Same brand of card (Samsung), both formatted identically with the same files...one reads, other doesn’t.

Any time there is a problem with “disc failure” or “disc missing/corrupt” and a solid state drive is in the mix, I try like three more brands before I decide it’s not the card causing the issue

[zak]

@aoiddr, is there any chance you could "wetransfer" the working backup images for the CF card and dongle (patch)?

A few of us need it to fix this game.