Macintosh Classic II ("Performa 200") Will not spin up HDD until floppy is inserted

[Boctor]

Earlier today, I visited a seller to pick up an old SE, wanting to salvage the CRT & analog board for my SE/30, which has a relatively burnt-in tube and a loose joint hiding somewhere. The seller told me he had recapped all of the compact Macs in his workshop, and they were all in good or great condition. I decided to purchase a "Performa 200" rebadged Classic II, instead of tearing apart a perfectly nice, cleaned and recapped Mac. The SE/30's dim tube can wait for another time.

I later noticed that this one had a "HD 530" hard disk, with a desktop tower icon. Apart from everything else working great, this rather loud HDD 530 does not spin up until after I insert any floppy disk. The machine will leave me at a '?' disk icon after completing the boot-up self tests. There is also a Silver Lining popup during boot, showing the disk as SCSI 0, with everything working normally. Is this an issue anyone has experienced before? These early-90's models are completely new to me, and I would appreciate any pointers on how to fix this.

 

[nvdeynde]

It depends on what the seller has recapped. Everything or just the logic board ? The analog boards of the Classic series are the worst I have seen as for leaking capacitors. 
They need to be replaced.

Are the voltages stable immediately upon power on or do they rise steadily ? The HDD needs a minimal voltage to power on, more than the logic board. 
Have you checked the jumpers on the HDD ? Anyway the HDD is not original as for a Classic II it was just a 40 or 80MB drive.

 

[Boctor]

The analog board looks fine; the whole inside is remarkably clean. However, the logic board has been recapped with electrolytic (through-hole) capacitors! I did some research, and the SCSI drive inside (HD 530) was meant as an external hard disk. It does not seem to have been reformatted or changed since it was attached to a different Mac. Maybe something's configured badly?

I doubt the analog board is doing anything wrong, as the HDD does spin up as soon as I flip the power switch. It's just that it spins back down during the RAM check, and waits until I insert a floppy. It's kind of odd that someone would grab an HDD out of an external enclosure and put it in a Classic II.

Here is the board, slid out of the machine. It's very clean and nothing got damaged before or during the recap. I suppose I should be happy that it's using this type of electrolytic cap, instead of those horrid silver ones that are guaranteed to spew all over the board. Despite the lack of Ethernet capabilities, it's a pretty solid compact for $100; The case was not yellowed at all.

 

[beachycove]

It is odd enough to think it a software rather than a hardware problem.

What happens if you boot with Extensions off?

 

[Boctor]

It is odd enough to think it a software rather than a hardware problem.

What happens if you boot with Extensions off?

It's not possible to do this without first inserting the floppy, because there's no system/extension to load until the HDD turns back on. Sometimes, the HDD will spin down right after it turns on, sometimes it will keep spinning and boot right away. If it were easier to switch them out, I would try putting my SE's HDD in the Classic II and see if it ever had the same issue, but I think all the analog stuff is working just fine. I have a feeling that this particular hard disk was not meant to be used internally.

 

[ScutBoy]

Older hard disks often had jumpers that could set a couple of different options.

One was "Startup Delay" or "Delay motor start" - usually the SCSI ID X 10 = seconds before the drive would spin up. Don't think this is your problem.

Another was called different things, but was either called  something like "start on power up" or "Unit attention". Would either start the drive immediately, or wait until the host sent a Unit Attention command or other startup command - this sounds closer, but since it spins up, and then down, not likely.

You should also recheck termination and also SCSI ID - that the Mac and the drive have different IDs. If you can boot with a floppy with HD Setup or Lido, etc. you can confirm the ID of the drive and the Mac. This sounds more likely. Termination can also be fickle. Since you say the drive was originally in an external case, it might not have termination jumpered on (or resistors present). If termination is on, turn it off- if it's off, turn it on. Stranger things have happened!

Lastly, a check with another known good drive is always good.

 

[techknight]

its probably a quantum hard drive. they will spin up AND spin down if the head gets stuck and it fails the POST seek test. 

It will remain spun down until the SCSI bus tries to access it again. When inserting a floppy disk, the ROM enumerates the busses again. 

Replace the HDD. Its bad. 

 

[beachycove]

That is genius.

 

[Boctor]

its probably a quantum hard drive. they will spin up AND spin down if the head gets stuck and it fails the POST seek test. 

It will remain spun down until the SCSI bus tries to access it again. When inserting a floppy disk, the ROM enumerates the busses again. 

Replace the HDD. Its bad. 

You're probably correct, it sometimes continues to spin, but it's about a 50/50 chance. Will probably put a SCSI2SD in it, or the hard drive from my SE since my SE/30 logic board is now toast.

 

[techknight]

That also explains the Silverlining popup. Sometimes it reads the track 0 but fails to read the rest, or fails to read at all. 

Toss the HDD and throw something more modern in it. 

 

[Boctor]

That also explains the Silverlining popup. Sometimes it reads the track 0 but fails to read the rest, or fails to read at all. 

Toss the HDD and throw something more modern in it. 

For the time being, I put my verified good 400MB HDD from my SE in it, since that has all the files from when I had the 030 board installed. Everything works great; the noisy/bad HDD was indeed Quantum.

 

[techknight]

Yep.... Glad you got it.