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Centris 650 Won't Boot - "?"

1200XL M.U.L.E.

Well-known member
I turned on my Centris 650 after cleaning it up and it seems to work! A chime rang out and the monitor lit up!

Unfortunately, it won't boot. 😞 The screen shows a floppy disk with a flashing question mark.

IMG-3518.jpg

Did I destroy the drive? Did I destroy the built-in SCSI controller?

Is there a way I could make a boot floppy on my Windows machine to see if the Centris is toast?

Edit : I think the keyboard is dies after power-on. Pressing Caps Lock and Num Lock does not illuminate the LEDs on the keyboard.

Thanks!
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Quantum drives are super problematic so it's no surprise that it's died. If the SCSI controller got fried somehow, then you'd likely get just a cursor with no question mark. I've heard many stories of Quantum drives being started for the first time in years, working, then failing just a day later. Usually it's due to the sticky rubber issue. I'm sure that the main board is fine. Looks like it's time for a solid state upgrade!
 

Paralel

Well-known member
Quantum drives are super problematic so it's no surprise that it's died. If the SCSI controller got fried somehow, then you'd likely get just a cursor with no question mark. I've heard many stories of Quantum drives being started for the first time in years, working, then failing just a day later. Usually it's due to the sticky rubber issue. I'm sure that the main board is fine. Looks like it's time for a solid state upgrade!
It really is a worthwhile upgrade. It makes everything so quiet.
 

1200XL M.U.L.E.

Well-known member
Whooo-hooo! I may have posted prematurely!

I was able to get the computer to boot!

It took me a few times of turning the machine off and on. Maybe 7?

On that last try I heard the hard drive chattering around and the machine started booting up. In all of the previous tries the hard drive would spin up, spin down slightly, spin back up, and then sit spinning steadily without any chattering.

I just shut down the machine and restarted it. It came back. How many cycles do I have here? Probably not much!

Somewhere along the way I disconnected the CD drive thinking it may be faulty and preventing a boot cycle. I'm not sure if that's the case. Could a bad CD drive stop a Mac from booting up?

At first I wanted to upgrade the RAM and all that but now I think I will follow @31ectr1cPPC and get a solid state drive!
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Yeah, you're on borrowed time. That drive is falling victim presently to the rubber bumper issue, it's just starting and very soon will happen 100% of the time. Hardly surprising. SSD upgrade will also give you way more space to work with.
 

1200XL M.U.L.E.

Well-known member
Well ... it died! Here's a coffin for the drive. ⚰️

A minute or two after I posted the message here I started to hear what sounded like a coffee grinder. The computer became unresponsive. Ahhh, that was fast!

And so ends this thread! 🙄
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Yep, sorry to hear that. From what I've heard, that's what happens to many Quantum drives nowadays. May have been a head crash, or the heads got stuck to the rubber. Could be either, you could crack it open and see. The LPS series drives (like the one in your machine) can be potentially fixed if you tape over the sticky bumper. If it sounded like it was grinding though, it's likely been a head crash.
 

1200XL M.U.L.E.

Well-known member
Yeah, actually, pretty close. In the video I heard a sharp bang before the grind. My grind started gently and worked its way up to a fever pitch.

Now I am trying to boot from a floppy using images from https://www.savagetaylor.com/2017/1...e-classic-68k-macintosh-using-a-floppy-drive/ and I'm having issues. The images were written to disk on my Windows machine using WinImage.

I was able to boot once. Then I had the swell idea to remove two sticks of ram to see what the other two would give me. 16MB. Great. Then I put everything back and then started getting bad behavior.

Once an alert box came up saying something like my floating point coprocessor can't be found. Then another time the computer said it doesn't have the resources to boot. Now the floppy is read a few times, the floppy is ejected, and the machine reboots,

Any ideas?
 

Paralel

Well-known member
WinImage should be able to handle it. That's the only way I know of to write a Mac floppy on Windows 10 or 11. I just wrote one today in fact.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
Agree with cheesestraws. Contact cleaner might be good too.

I recommend using the CD drive over floppy, they're generally more reliable. Is it a tray or caddy drive?
 

1200XL M.U.L.E.

Well-known member
Ahhh, I’m such a dunce! I think I know what I did wrong. 😢

When I put the RAM back in, I put two of the sticks in backwards and not all the way in! I corrected this but the behavior is the same.

Did I nuke the RAM, the motherboard, or both?
 

1200XL M.U.L.E.

Well-known member
I'm going to take out the memory, one module at a time, and try booting with the floppy I made with WinImage.

I could have bad RAM?

I could have good RAM but a bad slot?

I could have all good RAM and slots but a bad floppy?

@Phipli I have not tested the CD drive. It uses a caddy. The front of the drive had a piece of white tape on it. When I removed it, I discovered holes and openings for a headphone jack and a volume knob. Both elements are missing.

I would burn a CD with System 7.5 and System 8.1. Both seem to be available from WinWorld. But ... but ... I don't have any blank CDs! 😫
 

ExplorerZ

Well-known member
I turned on my Centris 650 after cleaning it up and it seems to work! A chime rang out and the monitor lit up!

Unfortunately, it won't boot. 😞 The screen shows a floppy disk with a flashing question mark.

View attachment 51960

Did I destroy the drive? Did I destroy the built-in SCSI controller?

Is there a way I could make a boot floppy on my Windows machine to see if the Centris is toast?

Edit : I think the keyboard is dies after power-on. Pressing Caps Lock and Num Lock does not illuminate the LEDs on the keyboard.

Thanks!
Old drives die all the time. It sucks. I recommend getting a external bluescsi. They are really useful compared the the internal model since you can swap them from machine to machine without having to open it up.
 

1200XL M.U.L.E.

Well-known member
Alrighty ... so what did the last two hours yield here?

I downloaded System 7.5 from WinWorld in 3.5" format and wrote the first disk image to a floppy using WinImage. All but one memory stick were removed. Oh, wow! The machine fired up and I was greeted with an installation program. Since there is no place to install anything I quit the process. Then I tried booting up with a System 8 installation disk from WinWorld. I was told I did not have the proper resources. Does that mean not enough memory? I added another memory module and the machine got stuck in a reboot loop, spitting the disk out.

I also noticed the floppy drive has a hard time spinning the disk sometimes. There are pauses in the revolution. So, maybe I am battling a bad drive?

I went back to the System 7.5 disk and got a Sad Mac error.

IMG-3549.jpg

(Pardon the dust - I had no idea my screen was so dirty!)

Google says this may be some sort of system incompatibility. Maybe between software and hardware?
 

ExplorerZ

Well-known member
Alrighty ... so what did the last two hours yield here?

I downloaded System 7.5 from WinWorld in 3.5" format and wrote the first disk image to a floppy using WinImage. All but one memory stick were removed. Oh, wow! The machine fired up and I was greeted with an installation program. Since there is no place to install anything I quit the process. Then I tried booting up with a System 8 installation disk from WinWorld. I was told I did not have the proper resources. Does that mean not enough memory? I added another memory module and the machine got stuck in a reboot loop, spitting the disk out.

I also noticed the floppy drive has a hard time spinning the disk sometimes. There are pauses in the revolution. So, maybe I am battling a bad drive?

I went back to the System 7.5 disk and got a Sad Mac error.

View attachment 52001

(Pardon the dust - I had no idea my screen was so dirty!)

Google says this may be some sort of system incompatibility. Maybe between software and hardware?
The '0000000f' means that the error code is "Reserved for Macintosh Compatibility" and 00000066 means that the system is too old for the current ROM. (According to google.)
 
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