Formatting the Lisa 10MB Widget

After getting my Lisa 2/10 up and running, I was able to boot from the Widget into MacWorks XL. But it has started to hang during the boot process. The HD activity light would flash rapidly then go steady. Hitting the interrupt button would get it going again, including a momentary pfs:file & pfs:report flash screen before the desktop appears.

Now it won’t even boot at all, just going into an infinite state. No error codes. Can still boot it with the Floppy Emu. Does this sound like a corrupted hard drive? I did find a nVIRA virus on the Emu. Or would replacing one or more Widget boards more likely fix it?

I would like to reformat the drive and install LOS, and the BLU sounds like the answer. Too bad its not included on the Emu Lisa stuff. I don’t look forward to
“type a bunch of hex numbers in for the BLU loader” or running terminal software that supports x-modem transfers I have 128k to SE classics, Mac laptops running early to the latest OSX, and a Rasburry Pi 400.
Can the Apple Service mode reformat it?

I forgot iit did display a "read error" in the upper left hand corner.

Widgets are very delicate on almost never work. So…. Please relax and wait until you know what to do. BLU or NeoWidex can be booted from a floppy or FloppyEmu. You can do some analysis. But I would not rush things.

onabeach said:

The HD activity light would flash rapidly then go steady.

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This could mean a lot of things.

On a normal startup, the Widget's activity light will blink a little bit and you will hear a squeak-squeak-SQUEAK-squeek as the Widget recalibrates the heads. What should happen next is the Widget starts its surface scan, where it blinks steadily for minute or two (unless it finds a defect). At that point the light should go on solid; the disk is ready for use.

Can you go into more detail?

onabeach said:

a momentary pfs:file & pfs:report flash screen before the desktop appears.

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I'm not sure what these things are?

onabeach said:

Now it won’t even boot at all, just going into an infinite state.

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What is the drive doing, from power-up, in detail?

onabeach said:

Does this sound like a corrupted hard drive? I did find a nVIRA virus on the Emu. Or would replacing one or more Widget boards more likely fix it?

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The virus is irrelevant: it sounds like your drive is not completing its startup sequence (described above), which is something that's baked into firmware. We don't know where the problem is yet, so while replacing circuit boards may help, it also may not do anything useful. It's a bit like a car that won't start: you may fix it if you randomly replace enough components, but you could spend a lot of time and money replacing irrelevant things. With the car, it's better to troubleshoot the fault and replace only the part that needs replacing. This is probably the best strategy for the Widget too, but it's seldom easy.

onabeach said:

I would like to reformat the drive and install LOS, and the BLU sounds like the answer.

Click to expand...

If you wish to reformat your drive, I would keep several tools in the toolbox. BLU is one of them; NeoWidEx (which I wrote) is another. As they are separate implementations, you may find that one produces different results than the other.

Unfortunately, I doubt that either will work in your case. It sounds like your Widget is giving up on working before it is in a state where it will obey commands from programs running on a Lisa. This is why you encounter infinite: the Lisa is trying to talk to the Widget but nobody is listening.

onabeach said:

Too bad its not included on the Emu Lisa stuff. I don’t look forward to
“type a bunch of hex numbers in for the BLU loader” or running terminal software that supports x-modem transfers

Click to expand...

You have a Floppy Emu, so you can simply copy a BLU or NeoWidEx .dc42 disk image onto your Floppy Emu and boot it. The hex numbers are for when you don't have these programs on a floppy disk (or on a disk image if you are using a floppy drive emulator).

As for the x-modem transfers: this remains by far the best way to create images of data on a Widget, unless you own one of these.

onabeach said:

Can the Apple Service mode reformat it?

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I don't know the answer to this, but I expect that it won't be able to do a lower-level format in the same way that BLU or NeoWidEx do it.

As a final note: @mactjaap is correct to point out that Widgets are unreliable. They are nice to get running, but 40 years after their manufacture, they are no longer suitable as everyday-use hard drives for the Lisa. You will probably want to obtain a hard drive emulator instead.

Thanks again for your insights stepelton much appreciated.

After much effort I did manage to get BLU onto the Floppy Emu and run it on the Lisa. I did the E - Exercise/Test Disk for several minutes with no errors reported. I then did a L - Low Level Format successfully.

Now how do I get the hard drive mounted on the desktop?

onabeach said:

Thanks again for your insights stepleton much appreciated.

After much effort I did manage to get BLU onto the Floppy Emu and run it on the Lisa. I did the E - Exercise/Test Disk for several minutes with no errors reported. I then did a L - Low Level Format successfully.

Now how do I get the hard drive mounted on the desktop?

Click to expand...

And install LOS?

onabeach said:

And install LOS?

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Found from a previous post from you: "To install the Office System, you will need to boot from the first Office System disk and follow the instructions on the screen."
After I get the hard drive mounted on the desktop?

No, there is no need to mount anything onto any desktop. Your Widget is now completely empty. Just boot from the first Office System disk image in the same way you booted from the BLU disk image. Then follow the instructions on the screen to install the Office System to your Widget.

Fixed!
It was a bad sd card in the Floppy Emu. I got a replacement from BMOW and was able to use the first Office System image to get the hard disk initialized (in two parts) and LOS all loaded up and running.

Congrats! Enjoy LOS and consider joining the conversation over on lisalist2.com as well.

I did register at lisalist2, but the admin still has not approved the reg.