Quadra 800 - Seagate HD

[dcr]

Hello all.

I have a Quadra 800 I'd like to get running again.  It ran fine up until maybe a year or two ago when the hard drive stopped working.  (No grinding noises, no smoke, etc. so I'm hopeful those are good signs.)

It's a Seagate 500 MB drive.  Label on the front says "EPROM©1992".  I think the Quantum drives are the ones that have problems with rubber getting problematic over the years, but are there similar issues with the Seagate drives?  Or  any other known issues with the Seagate drives?

There's a file on the drive I'd like to get off of there if possible.  It's not important enough to send to a pro for recovery, but I was thinking if there were known issues and something I might be able to fix, I'd give that a try.  If I could get the drive working again to be usable as well (at least until the ever "out of stock" SCSI2SDs become available again) that would be a bonus.

Thanks!

 

[CC_333]

It might be suffering stiction, where the grease in the motor bearings freezes up and prevents the platter(s) from spinning.

One possible fix would be to apply power, and give it a sharp whack with your hand or a screwdriver handle (be careful not to dent the cover, or more serious damage may occur). Another, more risky method, is where you can actually remove the cover to expose the inner mechanism. From there, you can then spin the platter manually (don't touch the platter under any circumstances!! Only touch the inner hub). Ideally, you should do this in a dust free environment, but if you're careful, it'll get it working long enough for you to get your files backed up (never trust a drive that's been opened up like that for important stuff, unless you back it up vigilantly).

Good luck!

c

 

[sstaylor]

You can also try turning the drive on, then twisting it rapidly in the plane of rotation. Try one direction first, then the other.  That sometimes un-sticks a stuck drive.

 

[dcr]

One possible fix would be to apply power, and give it a sharp whack with your hand . . .

That worked.  Thanks!

Well, actually, I gave it a few taps before applying power and it booted up fine.

And now I find my original quandary with the file . . .  It's a 32MB file.  There's a compressed 10MB version of it, but, if I recall, I'm not sure it's complete as I seem to recall StuffIt choking on it towards the end or something.  In either event, 32MB or 10MB, that's too large for a floppy disk.  Many years ago, I tried copying the file over the network, but that never worked.  I have no functional SCSI Zip drives.  USB is not an option.

 

[Floofies]

That worked.  Thanks!

Well, actually, I gave it a few taps before applying power and it booted up fine.

And now I find my original quandary with the file . . .  It's a 32MB file.  There's a compressed 10MB version of it, but, if I recall, I'm not sure it's complete as I seem to recall StuffIt choking on it towards the end or something.  In either event, 32MB or 10MB, that's too large for a floppy disk.  Many years ago, I tried copying the file over the network, but that never worked.  I have no functional SCSI Zip drives.  USB is not an option.

If you're feeling patient, you could split the file up into parts small enough for floppy disks.

I believe some versions of Stuffit (Deluxe?) can do it, but there's also tiny programs that do it, like Split & Join.

 

[CC_333]

Do you have any reasonably modern Macs?

If you have any B&W G3s or Graphite G4s, you likely already have a Zip100 drive (they're usually built in on those models). All you'd need to do is find yourself a SCSI drive for your SE/30 and a disk or two.

c

 

[dcr]

Well, I thought I'd try networking it, but that doesn't seem to be working.  It is running System 7.5.5.  Can't seem to get it to communicate with my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X.

The Quadra 800 has 24 MB of RAM, but the system software is using 20 MB of it, which doesn't leave enough memory for Netscape Navigator to run, so I can't even check to see if the network is working on the machine.

Virtual Memory is on, but it won't let me increase or decrease the amount of RAM.  It seems to be using 24 MB of space on the hard drive for virtual memory, but it doesn't seem to be able to access it at all.

But, there's a copy of Fetch and, while the Quadra 800 doesn't seem to recognize the DNS settings, by using the actual IP address, I've been able to connect to one of my FTP sites, where I am uploading a file to see if this will work.

 

[rsolberg]

It sounds like 32-bit addressing is turned off in the Memory control panel. Turn it on and restart your Mac. It's required for access to all of the ram in your system. 24-bit mode will show System using all of the inaccessible RAM, in addition to what System is actually using.

FTP for transfer is a good idea as System 7.5.5 can't talk AppleShare to machines running OSX higher than 10.4.x, IIRC.

 

[dcr]

I am reasonably sure 32-bit addressing was on. I'll check tomorrow.

FTP for transfer is a good idea as System 7.5.5 can't talk AppleShare to machines running OSX higher than 10.4.x, IIRC.

Could be. I know I have been able to transfer between machines running Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X 10.6.8. I'm not sure I've ever tried networking the Quadra 800 to anything other than a machine running Mac OS 9.

I do have a machine with Mac OS X 10.4.11. I could try networking with that if nothing else works.

Thanks!

 

[rsolberg]

I find this chart handy for AFP compatibility: http://www.applefool.com/se30/#afpnetwork

32-bit addressing is disabled by default on my 68k Macs running 7.5.x, so it turns off every time the PRAM is reset-- which is very often with no battery installed. I usually think it's on until I run out of memory or notice the System is "using" 65MB instead of the 6MB or so it should be.

 

[dcr]

32-bit addressing was off.  Turned that on and virtual memory works fine now.  Thanks!

But now either the secondary video card has gone south or the monitor has.  Not sure which.  Will have to test later as right now I have it trying to compress the file I want to get off of it.

 

[dcr]

Well, that was fun, if perhaps futile.

Monitor and the secondary video card are okay.  Just that when it forgets its settings (due to the dead PRAM battery I really need to remove and replace), you can't walk away during the startup process and let it do its thing, because you need to be there to hit the spacebar when it says so on-screen otherwise it apparently assumes the monitor isn't working and stops sending a signal.

Yesterday, let StuffIt run all day trying to compress the file, but it was only 1/3 of the way by the end of the day, so I cancelled that.

Put a newer version of Disk Copy on the Quadra (the version on the Quadra would only copy floppies) and used it to create a disk image for the file I needed.  Once complete, I used StuffIt to compress it.  Then uploaded to my FTP site and downloaded on my more modern Mac.

Unstuffed, mounted the disk image and there it was!

Began looking through it and then discovered it didn't have half the stuff I was looking for.  Went back to the Quadra to see if something went wrong.  Nope.  Apparently, it was only in my head that it had all the info I thought it had.  Still, though, it has some useful information, so all was not lost.