Re: A2 Disk boot problems

[Jack Friess <jfriess@wctc.net>]

Timothy L. Trimble wrote:
> 
> When I plug in my controler card for the disk drives and then turn on the
> Apple II, the drive comes on and continues to spin.  The prompt never
> appears on the screen.  When I remove the controler card then the Apple
> starts up fine with the prompt.  Any ideas what I may be doing wrong?  It
> seems like the apple is locked into some kind of disk mode when the
> controler card is in.  I've tried another controler card and drive with the
> same results.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Your drive and controller are probably operating just fine.  When you 
boot an Apple with a drive controller card (which is best in slot #6), it 
will look for DOS (Disk Operating System) to load off the disk and into 
RAM.  Otherwise, it will not know how to communicated with I/O devices, 
especially your disk drive(s).

You need a DOS or ProDOS (operating system) formated disk with DOS 3.x or 
ProDOS 8  file and at least the BASIC.SYSTEM file on it in the drive with 
the door closed at power-up.  Most commercially available applications 
will be set-up to take care of installing the proper software it needs to 
operate properly, including DOS or ProDOS.  If you don't have a disk in 
the drive at power-up, can stop your drive from running by pressing 
control-reset--this will give you the same prompt you had when booting 
without your controller card installed--but then, you won't be able to 
access your disk drive(s).

Stay tuned and Nathan M. will probably refer you to more information in 
the Apple II FAQ's, which I encourage you to look over--I find them very 
helpful myself.

Jack Friess
Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA