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I've suddenly started to get this error when I start up VRPC. It occurs straight after the black screen with OS version and processor type. It comes up in a box headed "Message from Desktop" and reads "Machine startup has not completed successfully: File '&.!BOOT' not found", and offers Cancel/Retry/Floppy boot option icons. Clicking Cancel then brings up the desktop in a small, low-res window.

I haven't managed to trace the problem so far. The main !Boot directory is present in the HD root directory and is correctly named. Anyone had this problem or know a likely cause?

-Neil F

In the folder where your Virtual RPC executable is located (probably C:\Program Files\Virtual Acorn\VirtualRPC-SE) there is a file called VA.cfg where all the config settings are stored. It's a text file so open it in a text editor and look for the [HostFS] section. There will be a list of your mounts. These are in the form:

mount<n> = "<mountname> '<path>' optionslist"

where:
n is the mount number
mountname is the name you see on the icon bar
path is the windows path to the root folder of that mount.

The path can be relative (to the VirtualRPC-SE exe folder) or absolute (starting with C:\ etc). Make sure this path is correct. It is typically set to something like HardDisc4 which is a folder in the VirtualRPC-SE folder.

Graeme

Hi Graeme. Thanks for the prompt reply. My VA.cfg file doesn't seem to have any [Host FS] file in it. However, the model.cfg file in the ARM 7 JIT folder does. It reads:
mount0 = "HardDisc4 'HardDisc4' bootopt=2,showext"

Should I copy this into VA.cfg?

No. My mistake

Well, if the HardDisc4 folder is there, and !Boot exists inside it, it should work.

Oh, yes, you should also make sure the configured filesystem is hostfs (using '*configure filesystem hostfs' at the command line). It may be that your cmos settings have been corrupted for some reason.

Graeme

Thanks Graham, that last thought about the CMOS did it. Don't know how it got reset to ADFS but it's fine again now. Cheers.

Whoops. Sorry about the Graham, Graeme, I bet you get that all the time!