Hard Drives Compatible with LC II

[twillkickers]

Just re-capped a power supply and the board from an old LC II my dad had in the basement. At first, everything worked well (even after my sketchy solder job.) However, after a few reboots the computer stopped recognizing the hard disc. The bootup tone still plays, but the "?" disk icon shows up on the screen. The hard disc makes a small spin up sound upon boot, as if it is trying to start, but then it quickly goes silent.

What i want to know is 1) Could my amateur re-cap job be the culprit? 2) Is my current hard drive more than likely dead for good? and 3) If my hard drive is dead, what would be an acceptable replacement for this drive?

I did find this eBay listing for some SCSI hard drives: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-286714-B22-404709-001-289042-001-72GB-10K-U320-SCSI-HARD-DRIVE-/181680342091?hash=item2a4cfe044b:g:guAAAOSwEK9TyBZx; would the drives in the listing be compatible? If not what should I do?

As an added note, the system does boot properly from a floppy disk if a floppy disk is inserted. However, I prefer having a nice hard drive to work with! Thanks for any & all help!

 

[Juror22]

I don't know if this specific drive will work in an LC II, but I have a similar setup in my Quadra 900, using an LVD adapter similar to this one

 http://www.ebay.com/itm/SCA-80F-IDC-50M-Hard-Drive-Adapter-with-Active-Termination-SCSI-U320-U160-LVD-SE-

You will need both an adapter and the drive to fit in the case and that might be a very tight fit.

 

[avadondragon]

1) The Hard disk failure is very unlikely to be related to your re-cap job.

2) Unfortunately the disk is probably dead but MAYBE not.  I've brought a couple PowerBook drives back from seeming death.  I'm not the best to advise on how to proceed though.  I just tried initializing my drives with various different software like Lido, SilverLining, etc. marking bad sectors as I went. Maybe others have better ideas.

3) You're looking for a 50-pin SCSI drive but many of the 68 and 80 pin drives can be used with a converter.  The drives from that particular eBay listing are 80pin drives that may or may not work for you.  I've had luck using a similar drive on a PowerMac 7300 but I am running OS9 on that massive 76gb drive though and it can handle HFS+ partitions.  OS7 can only handle HFS partitions and they max out at 4gb so you'll have to make many of those if you want to make use of the whole drive.

 

[twillkickers]

1) The Hard disk failure is very unlikely to be related to your re-cap job.

2) Unfortunately the disk is probably dead but MAYBE not.  I've brought a couple PowerBook drives back from seeming death.  I'm not the best to advise on how to proceed though.  I just tried initializing my drives with various different software like Lido, SilverLining, etc. marking bad sectors as I went. Maybe others have better ideas.

3) You're looking for a 50-pin SCSI drive but many of the 68 and 80 pin drives can be used with a converter.  The drives from that particular eBay listing are 80pin drives that may or may not work for you.  I've had luck using a similar drive on a PowerMac 7300 but I am running OS9 on that massive 76gb drive though and it can handle HFS+ partitions.  OS7 can only handle HFS partitions and they max out at 4gb so you'll have to make many of those if you want to make use of the whole drive.

Thanks for the response! Where would the best place to download an .img for Lido or SilverLining be? I've noticed a lot of Macintosh disk images that I find online are contained in .sit files, which my modern-day PC that I'm using can't handle. Thanks for your help!

 

[twillkickers]

Well, I was able to install Lido 7 to a floppy disc on my LC II and get it running. After Lido 7 scanned my machine, it came back to me with the following two errors: "Unable to read drive Capacity!" followed by "OSErr = 5 Bad SCSI Command: phase error." The "OSErr = 5" window pops up twice for some reason. When I click "Bus Status" the window displays "0" values for every field (ie. Attention, Acknowledge, Reset, Busy, etc.) and at the bottom says "Phase: Bus Free". Does this mean my drive is gone for good? Any input is appreciated! FYI I am currently running my LC II with a floppy disc-bootable version of System Software 6.0.8.

 

[just.in.time]

I saw that OSErr = 5 error on one of my drives.  As far as I could tell, the drive was dead (and had been giving symptoms for a few weeks leading up to that moment).

You may be able to fix the drive, but at this point it seems to definitely be outside the realm of a software fix.  Several people have had luck replacing the old bumper/stopper for the drive heads with a piece of aquarium airline tubing.  Of course, if you get into the drive and the head isn't sticking to the original bumper then that is unlikely to be the problem.  If you hunt around the site there should be some threads of people making this repair.  Good luck!

 

[GerrySch]

If you want to go a completely different route, look for a SCSI2SD adapter as a drive replacement on eBay.  You can partition an miniSD card into multiple drives.  It works great in my LC475 with a 32GB miniSD card.  I installed OS 7.5.5 so I could use the Apple IIe card.  I just installed OS 8.1 on a new miniSD card and it also works great.  So it's an alternative to buying another HD and very price competitive.

I wonder if putting your original HD in a freezer bag and put it in the freezer to shock the main bearings into rotating and freeing the heads.  I don't know if that will work but when you get it up and spinning, immediately pull all the data off of it.  It may never work again so be careful.

Gerry

 

[twillkickers]

If you want to go a completely different route, look for a SCSI2SD adapter as a drive replacement on eBay.  You can partition an miniSD card into multiple drives.  It works great in my LC475 with a 32GB miniSD card.  I installed OS 7.5.5 so I could use the Apple IIe card.  I just installed OS 8.1 on a new miniSD card and it also works great.  So it's an alternative to buying another HD and very price competitive.

I wonder if putting your original HD in a freezer bag and put it in the freezer to shock the main bearings into rotating and freeing the heads.  I don't know if that will work but when you get it up and spinning, immediately pull all the data off of it.  It may never work again so be careful.

Gerry

Gerry,

Thanks for the idea! I have a couple questions:

How long should I leave the hard drive in the freezer for?

Should I wait for the hard drive to thaw for a while after removing it from the freezer? Or should I put it in the computer right after it comes out of the freezer?

Thanks for your help!

 

[GerrySch]

I googled this from Lifehacker:

1. Remove the hard drive from the computer.

Place the hard drive inside of a zip top freezer bag. (don't buy a
cheap bag.)

Place the wrapped hard drive inside of ANOTHER zip top freezer bag.
(yes, you need to do this)

Place the double wrapped hard drive in the coldest part of your
freezer.

Leave the hard drive in the freezer for 12 hours at least. You want
it good and cold! (see figure 2 below)

Once very chilled, install the hard drive in your computer and
start pulling off data. Begin with the most valuable data.

At some point, the hard drive will fail again. When it does, mark
the last successfully copied data, pull out the hard drive, double wrap
it again and stick it in the Chill Chest for another 12 hours.

You may need to do this a number of times to get all the data you
want, or until the hard drive stops working completely.
Good Luck,

Gerry

 

[twillkickers]

Gerry, thanks for your input! After freezing the hard drive did start making a more promising noise than before, but the LC II failed to recognize it. I opened the hard drive up for one last try by following some instructions on YouTube, but I seem to have made the situation worse now. Looks like this one is gone for good! Since buying a new SCSI HDD will cost more than the machine is worth, I'll probably consider this old Macintosh as a parts machine. Thanks for everyone's help!

 

[Johnnya101]

Well you've got nothing to lose. Why not try taking off the cover and removing the sticky rubber bumpers? There is a video around on YouTube for it.

EDIT

Seems like you did that! Didn't read your reply above me.

EDIT

Don't make it a parts machine because of that! Many people would probably be interested in buying it!

 

[EvieSigma]

If you're interested, I have a 250MB SCSI drive out of a Power Mac 6100 I would be willing to sell...