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macintosh centris 650 floppy question

soneigr

Member
Good evening I got a macintosh centris 650 Greek from a Greece which unfortunately does not enter the operating system shows a floppy disk on the screen and flashes. I do not have floppy disks at all to re-run the operating system on floppy disks through windows and reinstall it. An optical drive has only floppy disks. The strange thing is that before he sold it to me, the picture here shows that it lit up just fine. Tell me in detail bass tips and it works. I'm not that old guys unfortunately.
Let me tell you that this machine only works with diskettes, it does not have an optical drive. I do not have floppy disks with the operating system on either. How can I find it?
If I open it, I clean it from the inside and I take out its memories and the hard disk and I put them back again, then will it get to work?

Χωρίς τίτλο1.jpg
 
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MacKilRoy

Well-known member
There is a hard drive inside the computer. It has likely failed from when the seller took the picture until you got it. That’s normal these days I’m afraid. Drives will suddenly stop working for no reason at all.
 

jessenator

Well-known member
Hello and welcome!

There is a hard drive inside the computer.
That is my thought as well. I suppose the seller might've just removed before selling… But I agree. Sadly, with computers this old, disk drives (floppy or hard) are on their last legs, so it could have failed in transit.

I don't know where OP bought their Quadra, but on eBay, you have to disclose what is included in the listing. They could have shown multiple Macs, shown them working, with only one hard disk that they keep. A seller that does this will get a lot of returns and bad feedback.

@soneigr is the hard disk still present inside the case? SCSI ribbon cable plugged in?

As far as floppy disks, there might be members who can write system disks for a fee. The drive itself might be damaged from age. Putting a good disk in a bad drive will ruin the disk. Cleaning and lubricating is a possible fix, but not guaranteed, especially if it's a manual-inject drive:

A more long-term solution for the floppy drive would be something like a FloppyEmu: https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/

A possible solution for both hard disk and an optical drive (in emulation) would be something like a MacSD or SCSI2SD
 

chillin

Well-known member
I'm afraid it's just as likely as not that the floppy drive no longer functions, either. Some have the patience and skills to troubleshoot, lubricate and repair them, but unless it is one of the first two compact macs, personally I think it is a lot of work for not a lot of function (though an impressive feat nevertheless).

I also would not recommend replacing the hard drive. Old SCSI drives are getting expensive and it does nothing for their reliability and lack thereof.

Fortunately, in the last few years there has been a surge of innovation in the way of SCSI emulators which allow the use of SD cards, and so researching and then choosing one of the available emulators is highly recommended. SD cards are far more reliable and affordable than floppy disks and floppy drives, old SCSI drives, and even old optical drives. Due to excellent community support, using one of them makes it far easier to get a system up and running, and it often doesn't involve having to install anything. Simply download an appropriate pre-made image file and image it to the SD card using your modern computer, then install the SD card in the SCSI emulator, and you'll have a booting and functional system.

Here are the SCSI emulators I'm aware of, in no particular order. I doubt this list is comprehensive.





 

soneigr

Member
There is a hard drive inside the computer. It has likely failed from when the seller took the picture until you got it. That’s normal these days I’m afraid. Drives will suddenly stop working for no reason at all.
Good morning, now it displays the floppy disk with the question mark and I did not start, it does not move forward. He does not even remember what he did to him and started the moment he took the above photo which seems to work after he says welcome to macintosh in Greek.
 

soneigr

Member
Hello and welcome!


That is my thought as well. I suppose the seller might've just removed before selling… But I agree. Sadly, with computers this old, disk drives (floppy or hard) are on their last legs, so it could have failed in transit.

I don't know where OP bought their Quadra, but on eBay, you have to disclose what is included in the listing. They could have shown multiple Macs, shown them working, with only one hard disk that they keep. A seller that does this will get a lot of returns and bad feedback.

@soneigr is the hard disk still present inside the case? SCSI ribbon cable plugged in?

As far as floppy disks, there might be members who can write system disks for a fee. The drive itself might be damaged from age. Putting a good disk in a bad drive will ruin the disk. Cleaning and lubricating is a possible fix, but not guaranteed, especially if it's a manual-inject drive:

A more long-term solution for the floppy drive would be something like a FloppyEmu: https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/

A possible solution for both hard disk and an optical drive (in emulation) would be something like a MacSD or SCSI2SD
I will open it from the inside to clean the whole system and I will see that there is the hard drive inside as well as its cables all because it will have dust from the other world I guess it will never open from so much dust inside.
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
I love the Greek language and alphabet, even though I only know a few words :). I've never seen that Greek Welcome to Macintosh before, though...

Yes, I think your hard disc is dead. A lot of those old discs seem to break in transit: I assume being bounced about in the post kills them.

You can try cleaning the dust out and replugging the cables, but I'm not sure it will help. It's worth trying, but you will probably need a new hard disc or hard disc replacement thingy.
 

beachycove

Well-known member
I agree that the hard drive is most likely dead, or needs repair, but there is also the simpler possibility that the System Folder on the internal drive has become “unblessed” and needs to be “blessed,” enabling the machine to find its operating system.

See http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/testing/docs/TNblessdebless.html .

You will, however, still need a set of installation floppies (or another working drive) to sort this out, whatever the problem may be. We have at least one member in Athens who may be able to help. Hopefully he will respond to this thread.
 

zezba9000

Well-known member
The hard drive in mine went out as well.
I was able to fix it by taking it apart and cutting with wire-cutters off a peace of plastic blocking the head from moving and reading the disk.
You can turn the drive on with the lid off to see if the head moves or not. If thats all it is, its easy to fix.

Otherwise just replace with SCSI2SD drive
 

soneigr

Member
Good evening today I decided to deal with the issue again. I have good news but I also have bad news unfortunately. But let's start from the beginning. I have received these diskettes from a friend on facebook who had them and he told me I will send them to Cyprus and you will have them in a week at the latest as it happened so far everything is fine and the greatest joy is for the centris 650 as see:

271723687_4712241522230900_1697676687691096110_n.jpg

271755724_4712241585564227_8462491934821327800_n.jpg

Introduction no and all some are licenses completely but those that do not write on macintosh. I put the floppy disk in the first one, I start successfully, I say here we are:

271669007_4712245712230481_1590946766945710707_n.jpg

271748392_4712256325562753_1262338420621876132_n.jpg
But then I see that it does not recognize the hard drive:

271659965_4712256392229413_4288179933889413841_n.jpg

So I decided to turn on the machine to see what was going on:

271765809_4712446322210420_3534352573199672542_n.jpg

271726425_4712446538877065_4030694862427700576_n.jpg


The hard drive seems to be starting, but because unfortunately it is quantum, it has the well-known issue with its mechanism, so I took it out, hit it once on the side and buttoned it back again. Nothing went forward. I said ok I will search on ebay to find another hard drive. Unfortunately the floppy drive has a hard time extracting a floppy disk so we probably go for a floppy drive and look in ebay and what can I do about it? I had to.
 

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Phipli

Well-known member
Evening @soneigr If you turn down the brightness on your screen while you take photos it is easier for your camera to deal with the refresh rate. It makes the colours a little strange, but is easier to see :) hope this helps!
 

soneigr

Member
Evening @soneigr If you turn down the brightness on your screen while you take photos it is easier for your camera to deal with the refresh rate. It makes the colours a little strange, but is easier to see :) hope this helps!
This is the issue my friend and did you understand that?
 

MacKilRoy

Well-known member
When you boot off of a floppy disk, are you able to see the hard disk at all using Apple HD SC Setup utility or is it completely invisible?
 
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