Performa 575 Issues

[RC14]

Firstly, I have no prior experience with these systems and couldn't find a manual (or really any information at all) online.

That said, my 575 boots to a question mark.  I've been trying to boot from a CD-RW in the CD-ROM drive, but that doesn't seem to work (and when I eject the CD, it's still in the same position as when I put it in).  I'm assuming then that the CD-ROM drive is non-functional.  How would I go about fixing that, and is the only other way to install an OS using a floppy disk?  I found this link but have no real wish to write to 21 floppies (I'd much rather just fix the CD-ROM drive and boot off of that if possible).  Also, what is the best OS to run?

Thanks - I'm sure much of this is common knowledge, but I just for the life of me couldn't find anything!

 

[LCARS]

I'm of limited help but I can offer a few bits. Does the CD-ROM make any sound at all? Hopefully someone who has more experience can chime in but short of that, you could browse eBay for a replacement or an external SCSI drive. I've attached the repair manual for this Performa series. NetBoot would my the other alternative but that presupposes that you have another 68k or PPC machine to network with it.

As for OS, I'm running 7.6.1 on my Performa 575 with a 64MB RAM module. Its snappy for what I want it to do. 7.5.5 is also a good version to land on if you want easier networking.

View attachment lc_520.550.575.pdf

 

[beachycove]

A single disk tools floppy would in principle allow you to boot and see if any of the two scsi drives are recognized in the current configuration. I would try that first. The disk tools floppy from the link posted will do nicely. The machine will run 7.1 - 7.6.1, but system software from 7.5 on might be easier to use for disk tools purposes, as the later iterations are universal (no enabler needed).

If that doesn't work, then your hard drive may be dead, or the SCSI drive setup may not be properly terminated. Have you been in and had a look?