Mac Classic I and Classic II Weirdness

[LongAlphabet]

Hope you can help! I just got these two machines back, and they have just been recapped - analog and logic boards. Mainly playing with the Classic I (with the thought that if I can get the files how I want them on the 'lesser' machine, they'll work fine (just faster) on the Classic II.

However, some issues..

1) Classic I - has a BlueSCSI (so cool) in it. I made 3 .hda images - two are 2GB, and one 1GB. However, when I boot, often, only 1 or 2 of the 3 will show up. And, oddly, opening the "drives" I see that there are 0 items showing - despite the MB count showing the space is used up. Why aren't the files showing? I rebuilt the desktop (for all 3 drives) and the issue still persisted.. (but I can access the drives using an alias in the drop-down Apple menu.. hah). But why are the files/drives not showing up? After a restart, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.




2) Classic I - no matter what I do - will not respond to the PRAM reset. Seriously. Cmd+Opt+P+R = just starts up. Ignores the keyboard command. I tried a different keyboard - same result. I tried without any startup drive (removed the BlueSCSI) - still ignores PRAM reset. That's weird. (Yes, it DOES respond to the ROM boot - if I i hold Cmd+Opt+x+o - she boots off the ram disk!) But what's with this entirely ignoring the PRAM!

3) Classic II - a couple times on startup with an external SCSI drive attatched, no chime, and it hung with vertical banded lines. Hm. But then other times, after a restart, booted up more or less fine. What might this be, lingering power issue? It did it a couple times, but not all the time.

 

[LaPorta]

I could be wrong, but I don’t think Cmd-Opt-P-R was yet a thing when classics were introduced. Removal of the logic board battery will do it.

Second: how large are the drives really? Making the 2 GB ones slightly smaller (1.97 GB perhaps) might help.

 

[bibilit]

Yes i agree with Laporta on both.

 

[LongAlphabet]

No PRAM for 1990 Classic Macintosh? Okay, that helps, thanks. The Classic II definitely responds to PRAM reset, which is why I was confused.

The drives are exactly (two) 2000MB and (one) 1000MB. They're .hda images on the ExFat formatted BlueSCSI SD card. Can't really "shrink" them after the fact, but, I could make new partitions that are smaller. But, I don't think this will solve the issue at hand - the 1000MB one had the same problem (not appearing sometimes, and, not showing files, despite showing space being used up). Odd. Difficult to reproduce the problem reliably - sometimes a drive/files show up, sometimes not! Hah. Always boots immediately though - the machine has no delay or issue finding a working System Folder.

 

[LaPorta]

I’ll admit, I have no experience with BlueSCSI, im just shooting in the dark here with SCSI2SD experience. If you were to fire up patched HDSC setup or Lido, how do the partitions look? Screen shot would be helpful.

 

[joshc]

How did you format/create the partition on the BlueSCSI? On which machine and with what software?

You should measure voltages on the Classic II, if they are low, it could cause behaviour like that. But that looks like something caused by a logicboard fault. I assume your logicboard is re-capped and clean? A photo of it would be useful.

 

[cheesestraws]

That or the BlueSCSI is misbehaving, which is far from unheard-of.

 

[LongAlphabet]

Thanks for the replies/suggestions/questions!

@LaPorta your questions spurred me onto to getting Basilisk II up and running (took a few hours) and good news for me; the .dsk images that I was using worked fine while emulating a Quadra and System 7.5.3. The images I had on BlueSCSI opened and worked entirely fine there. No glitches. Sorry - I was going to take screen shots, but then I moved Basilisk II files on my computer, and it broke, and refused to work again (it simply will not open, despite retrying everything from scratch) - but that's a different issue. But, it appears the images (created with Disk Jockey and with Basilisk II) work fine. In the future, I think I'll keep partitions to 600MB (or 700MB) so I can burn backups to CD-R.

@joshc the BlueSCSI's SD card was formatted on 10.15 Catalina - ExFat format. It is a *super* cheap SD-card - a 32GB no-name Wallmart buy for $10. So perhaps this is the issue.

@joshc the Classic II was just recapped by someone - I should reach out to that person, I imagine. I figured I wanted to exhaust other options first before bothering him again.

@cheesestraws the Classic II didn't really have much of a chance to experience the BlueSCSI yet - I imagine it's something else for now.

 

[joshc]

@joshc the BlueSCSI's SD card was formatted on 10.15 Catalina - ExFat format. It is a *super* cheap SD-card - a 32GB no-name Wallmart buy for $10. So perhaps this is the issue.

No, I mean how was it partitioned and a system installed on it? Are you using a pre-made image or did you start with a blank image that you then formatted/partitioned on an old Mac?

 

[LongAlphabet]

No, I mean how was it partitioned and a system installed on it? Are you using a pre-made image or did you start with a blank image that you then formatted/partitioned on an old Mac?

A combination of both - some images were pre-made, and some were self-made blanks made with "Disk Jockey". They're made correct to spec (as far as I'm aware) for BlueSCSI. I didn't "reformat" or have to intiailize them once they popped up on the desktop with the Classic. Perhaps I should have, but, it never asked me to. (On a related note, with a different machine, the IDE version - SCSI2SD *only* worked once I initialized on a proper machine - it was far pickier that way.)

 

[LaPorta]

I personally try and format the drives on the machine they will work with themselves. I once had a really hard time formatting on different Macs with SD card adapters, then putting them into the target machine...etc. It was far easier with no headache once I just did everything on the target computer and installed after from disks or CDs.

 

[imactheknife]

Sounds like low voltage on the classic ii, or some possible issues not addressed regarding recapping. Are you getting a chime with both machines?

 

[LongAlphabet]

@imactheknife - no chime sometimes on the Classic II! (Classic I always chimed and started-up fine). Low voltage, okay, thanks for the insight.

@LaPorta that make sense, intializing the "drives" themselves, good idea. Thanks!

 

[imactheknife]

@imactheknife - no chime sometimes on the Classic II! (Classic I always chimed and started-up fine). Low voltage, okay, thanks for the insight.

@LaPorta that make sense, intializing the "drives" themselves, good idea. Thanks!

My classic ii boards all needed some chips taken off around where caps were to clean underneath. Only way i was able to get sound 100%. I have now done four classic ii boards, and 2 classic. Classic needed sound chip removed to get sound back too

 

[SpaceFlightOrange]

Does the Classic II tend to have issues when cold? I dont have one, but when i repaired my Classic I i had issues with low voltages from cold (like, hadnt been run for at least 14hrs.) after a couple of mins it would startup, or, i could make it happen faster by directing heat on the main switching part of the PSU on the analog board. I'm not 100% certain but i think it was the optocoupler. I removed it an fitted a new one, and that made the issue worse. I replaced a couple of other components but while doing that i fitted a socket and a new optocoupler and the problem has gone now. I think the optocouplers might be very sensitive to heat and soldering the first replacement in caused issues.

 

[dochilli]

Did you try the classic II logic board in the classic? If it works there you can be sure, that the LB is not the problem.