MPC2000XL keeps asking for .bin file

Hi everyone,

My MPC2000XL keeps asking for an MPC2000XL disk. It loads the .bin file fine if I present a disk that has it… but it doesn’t retain the firmWare after a power cycle. A bit annoying.

Anyone know why it does that and how it could be fixed? Is there an internal battery or something like that?

EJLive wrote:Hi everyone,

My MPC2000XL keeps asking for an MPC2000XL disk. It loads the .bin file fine if I present a disk that has it… but it doesn’t retain the firmWare after a power cycle. A bit annoying.

Anyone know why it does that and how it could be fixed? Is there an internal battery or something like that?

The reason why your XL is asking for the disk is that the on board flash, which contains the boot operating system is corrupted.

What you need to do is, boot off the disk with the bin file on it - once you're at the main menu, go and use the same disk to 'upgrade' the operating system. That'll re-write the flash and you should be fine after that.

If you're some how still stuck, then what you're going to need is a RECOVERY ROM chip, which will be physically installed to the ROM socket on the mainboard.

Wonderful! Thank you so much. That fixed it right away. I had tried earlier to replace my floppy with a flash drive.. but apart from being ripped off, it never worked out. It must have messed up the Flash ROM in the process.

EJLive wrote:Wonderful! Thank you so much. That fixed it right away. I had tried earlier to replace my floppy with a flash drive.. but apart from being ripped off, it never worked out. It must have messed up the Flash ROM in the process.

Yeah so what likely happened is when you tried to upgrade to the flash drive, you probably put the ribbon connector the wrong side around, causing a short and consequently corrupting the flash on your mainboard.

Thankfully, even though your flash was corrupted, the bootloader was fine (it's what was asking you for the .bin file).