SE Floppy Drive Ejects (Rejects) All Disks - Help!

[ben68]

I thought I'd start a new thread focused solely on this topic.

The Macintosh SE that I bought a month ago came with a floppy disk labeled "Your Apple Tour of the Macintosh SE". When I tested it the, the disk was read, and I worked through the intro program. So I know it worked not long ago.

Meanwhile, I acquired an SE/30 - which promptly ate and destroyed that floppy disk. So the only disk that I knew worked for certain on the Macintosh is not available.

I then found some 720k DOS disks and used a Power Macintosh 7100 with Disk Copy to create system disks from the disk images found on the Internet. However, when I put in thes disks, the SE ejects them immediately. I have some dedicated Mac disks, like FAX drivers and such - these also are ejected.

Some questions for you -

• When presented with the Mac question mark ? are all disks rejected that are not bootable?
• Is there any issue with using previously formatted DOS DSDD floppies to format for Macintosh?

I have re-lubricated the floppy drive. When I had it apart, I noticed that the heads stuck together magnetically.

• Does that mean I need to de-magnetize them? Or is that normal?

The recommendation for Disk Copy is to use the version that matches the operating system.

• Does that mean the target operating system (6.0.8 ) or the source (I'm using OS 9 on the 7100)?
• Does it matter which verion of Disk Copy that I use? Should I use v4.2 only?

In one of the floppy dissembly videos, someone mentioned that in the eject mechanism, you have to set the little nub to 12 o'clock. Mine was at 9 o'clock, so I set it to noon.

• Is that necessary? I haven't seen anyone else mention that.

This is what my eject gears looked like:

 

[BadGoldEagle]

When presented with the Mac question mark ? are all disks rejected that are not bootable?

They're not bootable or the Mac can't see them as bootable (i.e. system folder not blessed. Possible cure: stick the disk back inside the 7100. Drag the system folder out of your floppy disk to some place on the hard drive. Make sure it is not present on the floppy anymore. Drag it back to the floppy afterwards and try again on the SE.)

Is there any issue with using previously formatted DOS DSDD floppies to format for Macintosh?

No - although it might help if you blank them before restoring from an HFS image. BTW, what utility are you using to deploy the image? Are you simply dragging and dropping the image's contents? That works too but something might be wrong about the procedure itself.

Does that mean I need to de-magnetize them? Or is that normal?

If the floppy drive is in the "down" position (i.e. disk technically inserted but no disk present), it is normal. If you can still insert a floppy and if the heads block it, then you definitely have an issue with your drive. They are not magnetised, there's a piece of metal on one of the heads that bends it back into position when a floppy is inserted. When no disks are in the drive there should be a gap of approximately one centimetre...

Does that mean the target operating system (6.0.8 ) or the source (I'm using OS 9 on the 7100)?

Does it matter which verion of Disk Copy that I use? Should I use v4.2 only?

With 800k disks for 800k systems it's always better to use Disk copy 4.2. IIRC it works on OS9.

Is that necessary? I haven't seen anyone else mention that.

Hum... Never played around with those gears yet, but nothing shocks me with your mechanism. Somebody else with greater experience will help you out on that one.

EDIT: what happened to that disk?? Is the media surface physically damaged? I've never seen a drive completely destroy a disk before. I've seen the opposite happen quite a lot of times but...

 

[ben68]

Thanks for the answers - that helps a lot. The damaged disk went into the SE/30 and got stuck - I tried to force it out but failed - I didn't pull that hard, and I honestly have never seen a floppy damaged that way.

I used the Create Disk function in Disk Copy v6.3.3 for one try. I used 4.2 Disk Copy (By Steve Christensen) for another shot.

I'll try dragging the System folder off then back on again.

 

[ben68]

I tried dragging the System Folder off the back. It didn't make a difference. It ejects the disk so fast that it makes me believe that it doesn't even attempt to read it first. It's like there's a physical rejection.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I tried to force it out but failed - I didn't pull that hard

Did you actually try to pull the floppy out of the mechanism with pliers? If you did, then yes, the disk and the drive are now both damaged...

There's a small hole next to the slot on the bezel. Get hold of a sturdy paper clip, bend it and push one end into the hole. Apply a bit of force, and the floppy should come out.

How did you deploy the image onto the floppy? 

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Let's try something else...

You should have your disk image on the 7100's hard drive right? Open the image by double clicking it. If Disk copy 6.3 is installed on your machine, it should mount the image on the desktop. It should look like a floppy disk. Then, insert your "new" 800k disk and format it. Drag the source floppy icon (the mounted image) to the destination floppy (the physical floppy you wish to use with your SE). It should ask you if you want to replace the contents of "xxxx" with the contents of "yyyyyyy" (where xxxxx and yyyyyy are the respective names of your source and destination floppies). Click OK to format. Once done, eject using the trash can (sometimes Cmd-E doesn't eject stuff properly).

Try again with the SE.

Now, that method is not 100% guarantied to work, but you never know...

BTW, are you absolutely sure the image you selected is not corrupted or something? Try it with Mini vMac (or if you don't have it let me know which image you're using i'll test it myself)

Another thing to know: The above method probably won't work but it's worth a try. Why is that? Because the 7100 runs 7, 8 or even 9... The SE (if not upgraded to 4MB) won't run anything past system 6. The file system changed a bit between 6 and 9 and that's why sometimes it won't work. BUT I believe it's a little crude and sometimes something that doesn't work on one machine works on the other...

Now, if that still doesn't work, we'll find another way. Don't worry 

 

[ben68]

I'll try that first thing when I get home tonight - thanks for the encouragement!  [ ]

I do have Mini vMac running on a PC - I have a 1GB virtual drive running 6.0.8. I'll need to figure out how to mount the floppy image. 

I downloaded the 4 floppy images from MacFixer.

Can I boot up the 7100 using the 6.0.9 system disk? I'm a PC guy, and I know you can do it with a PC. If I put a system floppy in the drive and start it up, will it boot from the floppy first? It would save me time to check the integrity of the disks before jumping to conclusions about the SE drive.

 

[DJComputerGuy]

I had this same thing happen with my Macintosh SE SuperDrive, i pulled my working floppy drive out of my IIci to use in the SE, works 1 time externally, but once i put it in the case, it would spit disks out, known good disks too. I eventually got it to work again and it still seems to be working to this day. Not sure what i did, but i pressed down on the area where the black piece is that the top head rides on a few times, and the drive slowly came back to life. Not sure how or why that worked, but that's what happened with my drive.

 

[ben68]

I copied the disk images from the 7600 (thought it was a 7100) over to my PC and opened them in vMac with no trouble. So at least they are good images.

I was able to boot disk 1 using Mini vMac, so they look like good images.

I copied the system files from the image to the floppy.

It still does the same thing.

DJ - I think I need to open up the drive again and fiddle with it -

I did notice that it makes a noise now where I don't think that it did before. It sounds like a HD seek and it "ticks" or rather "scrapes" every one second - dit - dit - dit

And when I put in the disk, it doesn't wait even a fractio of a second to spit it out.

It's not the HD, because I unplugged the power to the HD.

I'm going back in...

 

[ben68]

I opened up the gear mechanism, and yes, it makes a difference where the pin is - more importantly, it matters if the platter is in the down position or the up position.

Anyway, I put it back together and checked it, and now I get the same issue - ejecting without even a handshake. I also tried plugging it in to the Upper ribbon plug with the same results.

The seek sound occurs after the Mac ? displays but not before. Here it is in action (don't judge me by my floppy labels)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyTt2q70KlI

 

[techknight]

Oooohhh... yea the Eject state is stuck logically. 

Do all your drives do this? This will help narrow down if its the drive/sensor itself, or the SWIM IC. 

 

[ben68]

I have an SE/30 that also won't boot and has disk drive problems, but I'm trying to focus on the SE first. So I don't have other drives to compare it to.

This SE was reading disks a month ago, and after a few weeks of not doing anything with it, suddenly does this - rejecting all disks.

 

[techknight]

You need a known good floppy drive to rule out a cable issue, or drive issue. There are state lines that come from the IWM to the Floppy drive, and one of those is eject. So if the IWM chip is fried, it can do this. But so can a shorted cable, and so can the drive itself! I know with the Portable, the SWIM IC drop like flies all the time, but usually it gets bad enough to hold up the bus so it never boots. This isnt the case for you so you need to to further troubleshooting. 

As with any electronic troubleshooting, you need to start swapping things with known good things to narrow down the possibilities. Troubleshooting 101. Another method is to pick up a Floppy Emu, and see if it "ejects" continuously upon image mounting. 

 

[ben68]

I think I'm beginning to see how some of you guys end up with 20 Macs! I'll be picking up another SE/30 next week, but that's not going to help me - I need an 800k drive or another, functioning SE. I'm not in deep enough to buy a floppy emulator (yet).

 

[techknight]

Well a Floppy Emulator is something all mac collectors should have at least 1 of anyway to be honest. As time goes on, the mechanical drives will start to fail worse than they are now. then the media itself will become impossible to find. 

Now granted, we still have a ways to go with HD media. but DS-DD media we are already starting to approach this point. prices are jumping because I dont think they are made anymore unlike HD media. 

Edit: Or, you can get lucky and find them mislabled http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-1-2-Micro-Floppy-Disc-1-44MB-Qty-45-Ships-Fast-Priority-Two-Three-Day-/282414176862?hash=item41c1325a5e:g:yv4AAOSw8gVX4R5j

 

[ben68]

That's how I found the 800k disks - an old box of Turbotax with 4 disks inside. I knew they couldn't be HD.

 

[Themk]

I remember 3 years ago buying 200 brand new double density (720/800K) floppy disks for like $20 total. They were sold in packs of 50 for $5, and I bought four packs.

Now I can only dream about finding them for 0.50/piece

 

[ben68]

I hadn't anticipated the 800k drives being a big problem when I bought the SE. I think the drive went bad, but I don't know how to troubleshoot it other than re-lubing it - which I've done. And to test it, I need to buy another 800k SE - I can't even test it in the SE/30. 

I like the SE because it's pretty solid with no (fewer) capacitor problems, but now I'm thinking that the SE/30 will be the one to keep and unload the SE.

The next challenge I have is trying to get a SCSI drive formatted with 6.0.8 using the 7600. I'm thinking that if I unplug the existing drive in the 7600 and plug in one of the spares, I can use the 7600's floppy to boot up and format the drive. I'm gonna need help on that too - I'm not a Mac guy, and the last time I had to set jumpers on a HD was 1991. I wonder if formatting it with 6.0.8 on the 7600 would work when I transplant it into an SE/30.

 

[Themk]

I am probably recalling wrong, but  I seem to recall using a high density drive on a Apple IIgs just fine (IIgs only uses GCR 800K disks). It *might* be worth a shot then to hook up your HD drive to your DD SE.