Epic Facepalm #2

[MrMacPlus]

:-/ Uh, yeah... Well, I got my Quadra 660av. It had some things that were broken. The display wouldn't work right, but I got that all fixed. On Friday when I moved it to a more permanent spot the HD decided to go belly-up, shame. Not much of a biggy though as I got it running of of a Zip Disk. Last night I decided to try and get auto eject on the floppy drive working again. I did somehow... But now all disks say "Disk Initialization Failed!" and instantly eject. I borked it...

/me facepalms

 

[Bunsen]

Well, fortunately floppy drives are easily replaced. Sorry for the run of bad luck on that machine though. Hopefully it's over now.

 

[MrMacPlus]

Can't I use the drive out of an 800k external as a substitute until I can get a FDHD from the owner? I honestly don't want this to go where my old G3 went: on the sidewalk with a free sign...

One side note is that the machine would make a superb server in it's current state, just run it off a RamDisk and it'll be good to go! I do have the Ethernet dongle, no word on how to get it to work. :\

 

[porter]

Can't I use the drive out of an 800k external as a substitute until I can get a FDHD from the owner?

You *may* be able to, obviously only to read 800k disks. My IIx has both a 800k and a 1440k floppy drives.

 

[MrMacPlus]

The owner, who is actually an IT guy at a college, told me it wouldn't work. I'm gonna take his word.

 

[porter]

who is actually an IT guy at a college

Wow, actually an IT guy at college! He must know everything then, and there you were asking on a forum on the net when you had the oracle of the universe at your beck and call.

 

[MrMacPlus]

I actually got a reply back from him before I got a reply here, so excuse me...

>

 

[MultiFinder]

who is actually an IT guy at a college

Wow, actually an IT guy at college! He must know everything then, and there you were asking on a forum on the net when you had the oracle of the universe at your beck and call.

Lets do try not to be an arse, 'kay? We're a friendly forum; lets try to keep it that way

 

[MrMacPlus]

Anyway I will trust a definite "No" over a "may be able to" between two people that know what they're talking about.

 

[MrMacPlus]

Is there anyway of fixing this drive? I need a good DIY project, anyway.

Oh, update... porter = right, IT guy = wrong. Sorry porter.

 

[Bunsen]

So it works?

 

[MrMacPlus]

The 800k drive does work, but it doesn't fit in the floppy bay. I don't think I'll have any luck fitting System 7.5 on an 800k disk, either. I'm waiting for the email saying I can pick up a new floppy drive. *sigh*

 

[porter]

Is there anyway of fixing this drive? I need a good DIY project, anyway.
Oh, update... porter = right, IT guy = wrong. Sorry porter.

Excellent news.

There are three basic drive types, the 400k, the 800k and the 1440k drive.

The 400k drive needed a special motor signal to spin the disk at different speeds in order to put more sectors on the tracks depending on how close to the spindle or the edge the track was. This signal was generated by the computer in the same way as classic macs did the sound.

The 800k and 1440k drives did away with this motor signal requirement where the drive itself determine the motor speed depending on the track number, and in the case of 1440k, the type of disk.

Later Macintoshes stopped generating the motor signal, for example the Macintosh Classic uses the motor signal mechanism to drive the screen brightness instead. My external 800k drive still works on my Classic.

 

[coius]

I should have a 1.44/2.88MB Floppy and 1GB SCSI HDD you can have for the cost of shipping. give me your contacts, and if you pay shipping, they are yours