Classic II: hard drive is super duper dead

[veilside1030]

My Classic II has always been a fickle machine (what with it having been revived with q-tips and rubbing alcohol) but a few weeks ago the hard drive went on strike as well. However, its symptoms are unlike anything I've found useful help for online. Nothing is necessarily stuck, but the hard drive is simply and completely dead. Nothing moves, the CII doesn't even recognize its existence, and my G3's SCSI card (which I'm not sure if it works either) as well. It's as if the drive just didn't exist. What could cause an IBM WDS-L80 80meg SCSI drive to so thoroughly delete itself from extenses, and can I so something about it?

 

[Nixontheknight]

I suspect a head crash. Since the drive isn't showing up on anything, open it up and see if you can see any obvious circular scratches as that would indicate a head crash, as that's the only failure mode I can think of that can make a drive delete itself from existence

 

[veilside1030]

although i found evidence that the drive has been opened before and when light is reflected there are super thin scratches all round (like you'd find on a CD for instance) there's nothing to suggest a head crash really. I suppose I'll have to bring out my multimeter and start testing voltages.

 

[GRudolf94]

You have bigger problems than a dead hard drive if all you did to that Classic II was qtips and rubbing alcohol. 2.5" IBM drives tend to nuke themselves at the slightest suggestion of unstable voltage.

 

[veilside1030]

Shame. Reviving this drive is out of the question then? And I would assume then that by strapping a new drive into this piece of shit I would have a good chance of killing that too?

Sorry, but as one who has minimal experience with 90s Apple stuff (all my other Mac stuff from the 80s and 00s have always been absolutely rock solid) I'm failing to see the severity of the situation at hand. I know about the rubbish capacitors and whatnot but I simply can't be bothered to put the effort into recapping all these surface mount caps. I realize that alcohol is a stopgap solution but the computer otherwise works pretty much perfectly for the moment (aside from the speaker too it seems), so I just want to get this thing up and running properly until I gather the time and courage to do a thorough repair. What other "bigger problems" will I run into were I to continue to use this Mac with factory caps?

 

[GRudolf94]

Alcohol and qtips won't get the crud from under the caps. Anything Apple of that era with surface mount electrolytics is a lost cause if not recapped. If you leave it like that, it'll just keep corroding itself (worsened by current running thru the cap goo-infested areas) and eventually stop working altogether, and then you'll not only be forced to yank the caps, but also patch the traces/pads that got eaten away. Not to mention leaked caps lose capacitance, and therefore their function in the circuit. It'd probably be less harmful to try running the machine without caps than with bad ones, in that particular case. You wouldn't get sound, for sure.

I wouldn't put any further effort into the dead drive. Chances are the machine will be solid if you recap and toss replacement storage at it. If the drive looks like it's been opened before, even more reason to leave it well alone. On anything not using old iron oxide-coated media, it should be a perfect mirror, with no swirls or scratches of any sort.

 

[davewongillies]

Shame. Reviving this drive is out of the question then? And I would assume then that by strapping a new drive into this piece of shit I would have a good chance of killing that too?

Get yourself a ZuluSCSI or BlueSCSI. This allows you to use an SD card in place of a SCSI hard drive.

 

[veilside1030]

Damn, all I wanted was to just fix this thing up and be able to say I own an 030 machine if someone asks. I'd care more if it were an SE/30 but for a Classic II... meh. Maybe I'll just sell it off when it's working.

To my defence "alcohol and qtips" are a bit of an oversimplification; after a good wipe I thoroughly toothbrushed it with alcohol then bathed the board in warm water with (again) alcohol and rinsed it off in the shower, so it's probably as clean as it'll ever be without a complete recap.

I'm not compelled to buy a modern SCSI solution to use in a semi-broken computer that I payed less for than it. Having it shipped to where I live will be a pain too so there's that. Maybe I'll just pick up a random old drive if I happen to come across one in the future.

Thanks for helping me out.

 

[joshc]

but I simply can't be bothered to put the effort into recapping all these surface mount caps

Then don’t expect that computer to continue working for very long at all. The caps need replacing. Often the damage is underneath the caps - you can’t completely clean it without removing the caps and cleaning the pads properly with new solder, wick and flux.

 

[veilside1030]

Yeah I know, I know. It simply isn‘t worth the effort for me, especially since I have a perfectly healthy SE right next to it. Perhaps the next owner will be more willing to put in the time and effort into making this machine into something to be appreciated.