legacycentral bbs

Okay, so I have everything wired into my car, got the cable to plug in and I thought I had the CD burned properly but I can't get my computer, or my friend's, to boot off it. I downloaded the file and extracted it with winrar and I put both files that were extracted - boot.img and boot (security file thing, 2kb). This didn't work so I even tried putting the other boot file I'd downloaded - bcbfscan.img and the corresponding bcbfscan.com on the CD and tried again. Still no luck. I know this is something I'm going to kick myself in the ass for because it's probably right infront of my eyes but if someone would please point it out I'd greatly apprecaite it. Thanks all.

Lee

You gotta burn the bcbfscan.iso file directly to the disc as a CD image. Don't try to open it up and use the files inside; it's an El Torito bootable CD, so there's stuff in the headers that tells the computer to use boot.img and boot.cat to boot off of.

Oh, another option, if you can't figure out how to make your burning software just burn the ISO, is to try using it to make a bootable CD. When it asks for the boot disk image, give it a copy of boot.img. That should create a bootable CD with the right stuff on it.

Arrrggg.... I think I have the CD copied right now but now I'm not sure if my laptop is even trying to boot off my CD drive. I'm going to keep fighting with it and try some more with my friend's tomorrow. Another quick question, can a boot CD have more than just the boot file on it? (currently it doesn't) Thanks for the quick reply, this is killing me and will be solved tomorrow.

Yes, a bootable CD can have plenty of other stuff on it. Most do, but this particular one doesn't, since it doesn't need anything other than the boot image.

I was having the same problem. My laptop is running XP. I burned the .iso file onto a fresh cd. Got the laptop to try to boot off the cd-rom and it just ignored it after reading it and started up windows. It doesn't have a floppy drive, so the cd is the only way I can get this thing to run.

Wow, I'm actually glad I have old-ass Win 98 and a laptop with a floppy drive, makes it much easier to run this...lol The scantool is awesome BTW, thanks vrg. It would be 47647843783476 times more useful if I had a turbo though...

You have to make sure the bios is setup to boot off the floppy. The currently installed OS really doesn't mean a hill of beans.

Brat4by4 - How did you resolve the problem?

When the ISO is burned correctly, you will never see its contents (boot.cat and boot.img) during the burning process, but when you look at the CD you just burned you'll see those two files on the disc.

91White-T - You're welcome . With Windows 98 you can actually just run the scan tool off the hard drive. Put bcbfscan.com in the root directory of drive C, and reboot. When it says "Starting Windows 98" hit F8 and choose "Safe Mode with Command Prompt Only." It'll drop you to a C:\> prompt and you can just type "bcbfscan" and the scan tool will run.

I'm pretty sure my BIOS is setup to try the cd-rom first. But it won't use the cd I burnt, I just burned the .iso file on their with a regular burning program, I don't need to use something special do I?

And the one time I did a restart where it said it would boot off of the cd. I heard it read the cd... then XP started up again. I wish I had a floppy drive on this laptop. I gotta get another OS installed on my other laptop, 98 kept half-installing. (I got all of these laptops for free, by the way. Never hurts to just ask )

I don't think you burned it correctly... You don't want a CD with the file "bcbfscan.iso" on it.

Look in your burning software for an option like "burn from a disc image" or something like that. The ISO file is an image of a CD.

Well I bypassed the whole CD issue by getting rawrite32 and using that to make my 3.5" boot disk. So now I get the nice intro screen that says press any key to continue and when I do it just sits there saying " Reading ROM ID ... " and it won't get past there. Tomorrow I'll double check my wires to make sure nothing is backwards but if I need to get something off my ECU to make this work I'm more than happy to, just let me know what and where. Thanks for all the help so far.

Oh, yeah, a floppy disk is a lot easier to write than a CD.

If it hangs when trying to read the ROM ID, that means it's not successfully talking to the ECU. So, yeah, double-check your wiring, check that the parallel port is properly enabled, and make sure you're testing this out with the ignition switch on.

Well I found I had the numbering sequence backwards for the connector in the car so I had 2 and 3 reversed and 5 and 9 reversed. So I fixed that, double checked my continuity, and tried it again... same thing, no luck. It still sits there saying reading ROM ID. How long will it normally take for the program to read the ID? Also, just to double check, if I'm looking at my male printer cable connector head on (I'm looking at the pins with the widest up top), 13 and 25 are on the right correct? Any ideas? This is starting to get frustrating but I haven't given up yet.

Uh oh...

Pin 5 of the Select Monitor port is a +12v supply. That means your parallel port might have been seeing a good -7 to -12 volt signal on its pins. It's only ever supposed to see 0 to +5 volts.

Quality parallel ports can sometimes withstand a little bit of abuse, but oftentimes laptops don't have quality parallel port circuitry because of cost and size savings.

I'm really sorry to tell you this, but it's possible that you may have fried your parallel port. You can test the strobe output by trying to print to a printer. And I think you can test the select input by making sure that the computer gets mad if you try to print without plugging a printer in.

I hope that's not the problem though.

Yes, when looking at the male connector head-on with the wide part on top, 13 and 25 are on the right-hand side. If you look closely at the connector, you should actually be able to see that each pin is numbered. The numbers are etched into the plastic base of the connector.

It should only take a fraction of a second to read the ROM ID.

I was afraid you were going to say that. Do you know of any programs that will let me test my port since my printer is USB and doesn't have a regular cable? Thanks and crossing my fingers I didn't kill it.

Hmm... I just Googled for a little bit and found this utility:

http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone16 ... /26377.htm

I've never tried this program, and don't have access to a Windows machine to test it on, but apparently it lets you mess with the parallel port.

So maybe connect pins 1 and 13 of your parallel port together, and then use that tool to turn the Strobe signal on and off. If the port is working correctly, you should see the Select signal turn off and on with it (yes, that's backwards -- the Select signal should turn on when you set Strobe off, and vice versa).

Thank you for the program, I was just wondering if you had one handy and wasn't expecting you to go searching for me, thanks. I got it running and I'm not 100% sure what it all means. I've read through the adobe file and the readme but I get a little lost. When the program is first opened I have three colums, Data Register, Status Register, and Control Register. With rows D0-D7, S0-S7, and C0-C7 respectively. When I toggle back and forth between read and write with pins 1 and 13 unconnected I read all 0's in the fields execpet S3-S7 are 1's (S0-S2 are just blank/empty fields). I then connect pins 1 and 13 and toggle it and S4 becomes a 0 and all others remain as they were. Beyond this I am not sure what to do. There is a pull down for the data and control column so that I can select a 0 or 1 and then hit read/write. This is all vague I know so I completely understand if this info doesn't do you any good or you don't have time to figure it out. If you don't have time/can't/etc. I'll wait till my friend (senior CPE) gets back in town and try to get him to look at it with me. It's an IBM thinkpad and I'm still under warrenty so if I need to I might be able to get a new port or something?? Thanks again for all the help so far too.

Edit: I forgot to mention that it's raining all day today and I won't be working outside on my car till Sat. earliest.

Okay... apparently the program's interface is a little less user-friendly than I expected.

The scan tool's output to the ECU is pin 1, the strobe pin. That is bit 0 of the control register -- C0.

The scan tool's input from the ECU is pin 13, the Select pin. That is bit 4 of the status register -- S4.

So connect pins 1 and 13, and then write a 0 to C0 and read S4. S4 should be 1. Then write a 1 to C0 and read S4. S4 should be 0.

So it kind of sounds like it might be okay, since you did see S4 change when you shorted pins 1 and 13 together. Try this specific test.

"So connect pins 1 and 13, and then write a 0 to C0 and read S4. S4 should be 1. Then write a 1 to C0 and read S4. S4 should be 0. "

I read a 1 and then I read a 0, you're a life saver bro. I'll get back under my dash this weekend and triple check everything and give it another shot.

Phew! I'm glad the port is okay.

You might also want to try connecting the ground wire to all pins from 18 to 25 instead of to just pin 25. Technically that's what you're supposed to do. I wouldn't expect an IBM port to have a problem with just 25, though.

Me too .

Cool, I'll go ahead and connect 18-25 to the ground just for good measure. I'll play with it this weekend (hopefully) and let you know how it works.

Well no go. All my wires are 100% correct but it still just sits there saying 'Reading ROM ID..." . Any ideas? Would my ECU not be compatible with the program? Thanks.

Unless your ECU is some kind of weird nonstandard unit, it's compatible enough to read the ROM ID. I get emails from people all over the world all the time complaining about how my scan tool can only read their ROM ID.

You have the ignition switch in the ON position (not ACC) before you start the scan tool, right?

The ECU does work, right? The engine runs?

Vikash, I'm as stumped as you. I have the car running and it's all hooked up and sitting at the DOS promt and I type bcbfscan tool, program starts, says hit any key, any then... 'Reading ROM ID...". I didn't have the car running the first time I started the program and then it stalled so I hit esc and returned to the DOS prompt. Tomorrow I'll take a look at the ECU and see if it's whack or something.