Powerbook 5300 dead?

[somorastik]

Hi,

Im so sad to anounce that my powerbook 5300 is probably dead.

The last thing I will try before "burring" it is to ask on this forum.

The problem occured when connected via SCSI in slave mode to my B&W equiped with a formac SCSI card. This worked

very well in the past. I wanted to reinstall the system, but the connection somehow dropped and the drive was

reported by finder that its having issues and does not work ok. It shows up on the desktop, I can initialize it, but the pop-up appears. And I cant finish copying or install a system.

I tried replacing the hard drive with a CF card, the same deal.

When I mannaged to somehow record a system folder onto the card, the Powerbook on boot up showed only a Floppy with a question mark.

Any hints?

Please, I hope I can fix this I wanted to use it daily, its such a sweet computer.

Thanks

 

[J English Smith]

One option would be transplanting a 2.5 notebook drive into the 5300. I recently did this with a spare 1400 drive re-loaded with system 7.6. The modifications to the hd caddy are fairly simple, but tight. You need to use top-mount screws as there is no way to put in side-mount screws. The caddy is not too hard to drill through. There is just enough clearance when you snap the trackpad panel back on for the top screws. You only need two to hold it, not 4.

The other option would be using another device to load a full OS onto the CF card, then installing in the 5300.

It's a tough device now to refresh, without a built in cd drive and with those deeper, older 750mb hard drives.

Good luck! I pull mine out every once in awhile. The size is great and screens not too bad and the keyboard has an interesting feel to it.

 

[somorastik]

Thanks for reply.

Actualy I tried to replace the drive, but with the CF card holder. If I get myself a 2,5 dirve I will try that.

But it seems that maybe some SCSI chip is probably dead or not working properly in the notebook itself, so it cant comunicate with my B&W.

Any other thougths?

 

[J English Smith]

Only other thing I can think of would be to zap the pram and see if that clears up the scsi issue...if you can boot it. Or, try pressing and holding the reset button on the back for a minute or so.

Not sure where the scsi controller is located on the mainboard...the only scsi devices I ever used with my 5300s was an external CD drive, and that always worked OK.

Cheapest option may just be to pick up another 5300 on the 'bay? I imagine mainboards are scarce now.