Snagged a 'troubled' Mac SE w/ Ethernet for free today!

[Huxley]

Spotted a Craigslist ad the other day showing a Mac SE, priced at $45. The SE is a cool machine but I already have an SE/30 so I wasn't super interested... until I spotted what looked like an Ethernet socket on the back. I contacted the seller and we had a nice chat, and he confirmed that it booted fine (and apparently talked to him!), but he lacked a mouse and keyboard to do any further tests. We arranged to meet this afternoon, and my son and I took the ~40 mile drive to meet him. Unfortunately, while we were driving he called me with a very sad tone in his voice to inform me that the Mac was no longer booting, and instead only showing the dreaded blinking "?" at power-on. "I definitely can't sell it like this, but if you want it for free, come 'n get it!" Now there's an offer I couldn't refuse!

So, now I own a semi-functional, Ethernet-equipped Mac SE. I got it home and powered it up, and just as he said, it won't boot (though the HDD LED blinks a lot). Thankfully it did boot from the only low-density boot floppy I happened to have around (a Norton Disk Doctor floppy). I popped the bucket off the back and blew out a few decades worth of dust, but so far I haven't gotten it to boot from the internal HDD. As best I can tell, the HDD isn't getting enough power to spin up - does that indicate a failing analog board (or bad caps)?

Thanks for any tips you guys might have,

Huxley

 

[CelGen]

If it's the original hard drive it's a Miniscribe and it's probably hit a case of stiction,. The blinking is a spin error being indicated by the hard drive itself. Open the mac, turn it on and nudge the rotating interruptor and it will spin up. run the drive overnight or something with an exercising utility and you should be good to go for a format unless it's cranky, then I suggest a less aggressive formatter like Drive Setup.