SE-30 Restore - no hard drive

[Vtshopdog]

Hello, first post, lot's of great information here thanks. I have 4x SE-30s that were used in my business in the mid-late 80's that have been in storage for 30+ years. Decided to get them cleaned up and running with goal being to check there is no residual data on the HDs before selling them all off.

I just finished a main board recap plus floppy drive clean & lube on first unit and it initially boots with question mark. If I insert a system floppy I get smiley face and the machine will read floppy and operate but then cannot locate a hard drive. The red LED on front panel of machine is blinking most of the time. I'm guessing the 35+ year old HD is toast but thought to ask here in case there is some simple issue to check. It was surprisingly clean inside and battery was fully intact (vague memory of proactively changing the batteries in all the machines every few years) Since I have three more of them that will get opened up I can possibly do some parts swapping to isolate issue, but they are all at my storage unit and inconvenient to access.

Couple questions for the nice folks here:

The floppy drive service seems to be fine and I'm guessing if the recap was faulty the machine would not operate from the floppy drive at all. Is there a scenario where my cap installation might yield a partially functioning machine that recognizes the floppy but not the hard drive? Have double checked ribbon connector seating but not cable itself. (The floppy set I have here is system 6 and I'm pretty sure all the machines were on 7 in case that matters, can dig through the big box of stuff at storage unit at some point)

I had to repair a lifted pad on C6. Triple checked continuity from the pad and am confident it's fixed, but could my issue derive from this spot?
Thanks for any ideas.

Couple shots of the screen messages while running off floppy below.

 

[Vtshopdog]

Well, never mind.
HD is a Miniscribe brand and found a Reddit suggesting lubricating the stepper motor.

It boots from HD now (man had forgotten how noisy those old drives were...) but freezes after loading most of the apps. Will reformat and likely good to go.

 

[LaPorta]

Regardless, all of these are on borrowed time. Some sort of SD-based device is the way to go eventually.

 

[Vtshopdog]

Oops, forum newbie - can't figure out how to fully delete a post.

 

[Vtshopdog]

Regardless, all of these are on borrowed time. Some sort of SD-based device is the way to go eventually.

Thanks LaPorta, that makes sense.
Is there a fairly straightforward affordable implementation people here like?

Again, my goal is to have a little fun rebuilding and get all 4 of the machines functional enough to check and remove any 30 year old data before finding new owners for them. Doesn't make a ton of sense to throw too much time or money at them.

Maybe nostalgia takes over and I keep one for myself and go little deeper in the restore. I spent a lot of hours in front of those machines back when and getting this one to boot yesterday brought back memories.

 

[LaPorta]

Most people here are using blue/zuluSCSI devices it seems. Support here for them is very good.

 

[Vtshopdog]

I'm still working on these and have managed to get to below point, seeking any helpful input:

I brought home all 4 SE/30's from storage. One had very bad, unsalvageable battery damage.
For the other 3 units I recapped main boards and serviced floppies then commenced playing musical component swapping to isolate my issues.

One unit and one board had zebra stripe video that would present regardless of which main board was installed or which unit the zebra board was installed in. I gave this set and the battery damaged unit away.

I have two functional units remaining:
One main board will boot either box via respective installed hard disc - Good to go.

Second main board has below booting and shut down issue when installed in either of the working boxes and seek any ideas to solve:

Power up/Boot from HD:
Chime followed by booting from HD with multiple utility icons displayed on bottom of screen as they load. Looks pretty good, then after about 40 seconds the system will crash and display below error screen:


Boot from Floppy:
If I boot from a floppy, I can read and write files to and from the hard and floppy drives and open apps on the HD. Computer more or less functions.
When I attempt to shut down it will eject the floppy and then it stalls on screen with HD icon displayed.
Setup rejects booting from a Norton Disc Doctor floppy and crashes similar HD boot up

Swapping Boards:
Above issue will follow one of the main boards when swapped around to different box and HD combinations so the problem appears to be somewhere in this main board. I have spent a fair bit of time looking with magnification for damaged traces or degraded solder joints. This board had no battery damage and nominal if any cap leakage.

Anybody here have suggestion for what might be wrong or where to look harder?

Thanks.

 

[robin-fo]

One had very bad, unsalvageable battery damage.

Please don‘t trash it! There are many people out here who would love to build a replica board. Just offer it for sale here in case you don‘t want to keep it

 

[Vtshopdog]

Please don‘t trash it! There are many people out here who would love to build a replica board. Just offer it for sale here in case you don‘t want to keep it

My whole goal is to not trash things.

Battery explosion unit was really bad with 15-20 traces corroded away and a couple chips that just fell off board as did the battery holder. I gave that unit and the zebra screen one to a local who likely will combine them to make one from the two and salvage any leftover functioning components.

 

[Vtshopdog]

OK, I now have two fully functioning machines. My crash when booting from HD issue was resolved by swapping in different RAM salvaged from the battery explosion machine.

All good now.

 

[Lord Refa]

Regardless, all of these are on borrowed time. Some sort of SD-based device is the way to go eventually.

Hi LaPorta, if I use the BlueSCSI as a backup for files on a HD, can I use those files again on a HD, optical, Zip, or any other older spinning rust machine? Thanks.