First recap success - LC 475 (though unrelated system software issue)

[LazarusNine]

Hello all, 

Due to all of the assistance found here and through watching YouTube videos and perusing other forums, I have successfully recapped my LC 475's motherboard; it booted, chimed and everything worked with the first attempt. Whew. I also gave the motherboard an 99.7% isopropyl alcohol bath and scrubbed it down as best I could. Anyway, before and after pictures are below.

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I am having another issue, however, and it's one I could use some help with. It's a problem for two of my computers, so I can't imagine it's anything to do with the recap. Basically, no matter what manner in which I try to install System 7.5.3, I get an error at some stage during the install. The exact same disks worked with my LC III, but not my LC 475 or Performa 630. I will be going about my business and swapping disks in and out and suddenly (and at different stages each time), I'll be asked to "Please insert the disk: Install Disk 1". If I do that, it closes out the install and it says the following:

"An error occurred while trying to complete the installation. Installation was canceled, leaving your disk untouched."

So, thinking it could possibly be my floppy disks (though unlikely, since the same ones worked on the LC III), I re-downloaded the System 7.5.3 install disks and moved them over to my Floppy Emu. I have the exact same problem. And as I say, this happens with both my LC 475 and Performa 630. They have different hard drives installed and each of them had working OS's prior to my attempts to wipe the drives and put fresh installations of 7.5.3 on. It's worth noting that I have an original copy of System 7.6 that I must have gotten while my mom was still working in education; I've tried those disks and had the same result. I have initialised the drives, tried partitioning the drives, repairing the drives, etc. etc. It seems that no matter what I try to get an OS onto either of these machines, I hit this stumbling block. One more point to add: my LC III has a SCSI2SD adapter with SD card, whereas the 630 and LC 475 have standard SCSI hard drives. Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be causing this and what steps I might take to solve it? Thanks!

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In any case, here are my photos of the recap. It should be pretty obvious which photos are the 'before' and 'after'. Depending on how the uploads order themselves, it should be the first two are 'before' and the last two 'after'. This was my first ever soldering job, so I respect that it may not be a work of art, but the computer functions and I'm really pleased with the result.

Regards,

LazarusNine

 

[bibilit]

Great job on the recap.

 

[LazarusNine]

Thanks, bibilit! I attribute it to buying all the right materials before getting started - a lot of people said things like: 'don't use grandpa's old pliers or soldering iron'. I have no idea what my grandfather's soldering iron would have looked like as he's been dead for over two decades, but I can definitely say having the right tools helped. I can also attest to the fact that the 'twist' method works at removing the old caps, though there was one that was looking particularly corroded and I nearly took the pad off. It twisted a bit, but remained seated. Whew!

 

[Elfen]

Excellent recapping job, LazzarusNine!

Take the drives and put them on the LCIII (though this may not be possible for the P630 drive as it is IDE and not SCSI), and install the system from there and put it back in the 475. You would need to partition and format on the LCIII before installing the system. If the drive is bigger than 2GB, you need to divide the hard drive into 2GB slices as that is the limit for System 7. When installing the system, if there is an option for it, select "for any Mac" and not "for this Mac." this will install a huge system that will support most 68K Macs, and you can trim this down later when it boots on the 475.

If this problem happens again, then the problem is with the floppies and not the floppy drive. It is installs cleanly, then there might be a problem with the floppy drives on the 475 and 630.

 

[LazarusNine]

Thanks, Elfen. I'm pleased with the result. It's nice not to worry about what all that capacitor goo is doing to the motherboard, especially given the corrosion I was already seeing evidence of.

In regards to the system installation, I don't think it's to do with the floppy drives themselves, because the problem persists when using the Floppy Emu, which uses its own cable as well. Unless there's something going wrong with the Floppy controller on both motherboards, but that seems unlikely. Also, all other floppies work just fine. But system floppies (I have three software versions - 7.0.1, 7.5.3, 7.6 - on disk) ALL display this issue on both the Performa and LC. But it's intermittent. It always happens at different stages of the install. For instance, I have tried installing a minimum system about five time. On the sixth, it finally went long enough to get the system on there. When I try to install extra features, it's the same problem all over again.

So, I'm really at a loss on this one. Of course your suggestion is sound. As the LC 475 finally has a minimum installation, I suppose it's less important that I put the the HDD into the LC III for the install. I'm also getting a new IDE HDD from max1zzz that has a full 7.5 installation on it.

It's more just the principle. What if I want to upgrade the HDD in the 475 for instance (right now it has my old 80MB drive from the LC III)? Will I always be faced with these issues? So yeah, finding the root cause would be great! =)

 

[Juliet Elysa]

To me it does sound like a problem with the hard drives in the 475 and the Performa. It might be worth swapping the drives you're having problems with with known good ones and trying the install on them, if you have any good ones floating around. If the install goes well on the good drives that would theoretically rule out the rest of the hardware in the 475 and Performa, especially if the "bad" drives also don't work right in another computer.

Great job on the recap!!!

 

[LazarusNine]

To me it does sound like a problem with the hard drives in the 475 and the Performa. It might be worth swapping the drives you're having problems with with known good ones and trying the install on them, if you have any good ones floating around. If the install goes well on the good drives that would theoretically rule out the rest of the hardware in the 475 and Performa, especially if the "bad" drives also don't work right in another computer.

Great job on the recap!!!

Juliet, you were correct by my reckoning. I had no issues whatsoever with my Floppy Emu or the original install disks on a Macintosh IIx I recently picked up. It seems that the hard drives were likely the culprits. The new hard drive I received from max1zzz works really well in my Performa 630, so no complaints there either! 

 

[LazarusNine]

UPDATE: Tell me if this is a 'thing', because I might otherwise just be off my rocker, but I think the floppy drive (and Floppy Emu) issue I was having (intermittent connectivity, and failures to get a system installed) were down to the floppy drive connection. Basically, I replaced the HDD in one of my problem Macs and the issue persisted despite the Floppy Emu and system disks operating fine on other machines. So, I had suddenly ruled out the hard drives, the floppy drives and the Floppy Emu as possible culprits leaving only the motherboard or the floppy connections/cables as sources of my woes.

So, I took the cables off, swabbed the leads with a 99.7% isopropyl alcohol solution and then went about connecting and disconnecting the cables to the sockets on both the motherboard and floppy drives numerous times. I booted my Performa 630 and had zero errors with data transfer off my Floppy Emu after that. Is it possible that there can be a bit of a 'build-up' on these connectors? Or, at the very least, they need a bit of tweaking after sitting dormant for so long?

 

[Juliet Elysa]

That sounds like a logical conclusion. Dust, gravity, and things like that can all cause trouble.

Vulcan mode, activate! :lol: