Trying to replace my Color Classic's dead hard drive

[krye]

Out of my 20+ vintage Macs, I've only had 1 or 2 hard drives die on me. The hard drive in my Color Classic died this weekend. I opened it up to install an Asante Ethernet card, and when I powered it back up the hard drive was toast. Don't know if a faulty nic can kill a hard drive, but the seller said it was pulled from a working machine. Maybe it's just coincidence. I thought maybe the nic was bad and it somehow shorted out my logicboard, but it seems to be OK. I can still boot it up from an external hard drive.

Anyway, I usually have a few random SCSI drives floating around pulled from other machines, but I'm afraid I'm down to my last 2. Both of them don't work in the Color Classic. I pulled the 1G drive out of my Macintosh TV and that doesn't work. I tried the 700MB drive from my LC520. No luck. Lido complains about "Arbitration Failed" and termination. I don't see any jumpers on the hard drives for TE, etc.

Generally speaking, what kind of SCSI drives will "just work" in a Color Classic or machine of that era? On eBay, I usually try to get something in the 80MB - 200MB range, as they're usually cheaper, and I don't really need Gigs and Gigs of storage. 160MB is more than enough for an OS and a few apps.

The question is, there's tons of 9G, 30G, etc hard drives on eBay, but are they too big? Judging by the capacity, they are of a later vintage. Will they work? I don't care if the Color Classic only sees them as a 1G or 2G drive. But will they work at all?

Can anyone chime in on the general hard drive compatibility requirements for vintage Macs?

 

[krye]

After digging in the forums a little more I found this:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=14443

So basically any SCSI drive will do as long as it's 50 pin?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

You can use just about any SCSI connector config with the correct adapter if you have room, if not, swap with a Mac that does have the room. [] ]'>

Ultra320 SCSI for Macs? Other Server interfaces?

Some of the related threads are posted, but there's another good one that I need to edit in. Lunchtime = no time ATM, though.

 

[tecneeq]

I believe your best bet are IBM drives in the 2GB range, they are cheap and there are plenty of them on Ebay. The only problem is that they are usually quite loud, since the have 7200 RPM. The problem with larger drives is that they usually require an adapter, wich might fit in a Quadra 650, but maybe not in a Color Classic. I also believe that volumes can only be 4 GB large, but i'm not sure if the filesystem (HFS) or the operatingsystem (7.x) is the problem.

 

[krye]

I picked up 2 x 36G SCSI drives for $5 each. I figured I'd give them a shot since they were so cheap. They are both 80 pin SCSI. I have two 80-to-50 pin SCSI adapters. I tried both of them in the Color Classic without any luck.

Lido complains with one that Arbitration Failed and to check termination. I don't see anything on these drives as far as termination. No jumpers, nothing. I though at minimum, it would have a default ID of 6 or 7.

The second drive isn't even detected by Lido. I put it in an external enclosure too. I can hear it spin up and there's a green LED on the underside of it that lights up. So it appears to not be dead. Again, nothing as far as jumpers.

Maybe these drives are too "new" for a vintage Mac. If the SCSI ID was set via software, what are the chances of me getting one of them to work in my Color Classic?

Anyone have any tips or tricks? Pointers? Suggestions?

 

[zuiko21]

80-pin drives usually have no ID jumpers... ID is set via jumpers on the adapter itself. I believe there's no way to activate termination on a 80-pin drive, other than connecting an external terminator. Some high quality adapters include termination, though.

I've been successful using large, 68 and 80-pin drives on vintage Macs. It would be helpful to know the exact model of your drives, in order to investigate their capabilities. Drives adhering to the Ultra-320 SCSI interface may or may not support the "narrow" transfers required by our old Macs.

On the other hand, narrow transfer support is mandatory for Ultra-160 drives and older; but some of them need to be "enabled" or "forced" into narrow mode, usually via jumpers. One of my 80-pin drives (without any jumpers) does not work with the "regular" adapters, but is fine with a terminated adapter.

Another issue to consider is power requirements: some of those "big" drives draw a lot of power, especially on the +12 V rail, which the already loaded CC PSU might be unable to supply... but since you tried your drives on an external enclosure too, we probably could rule out this.

BTW, did you try the external enclosure with and without an external terminator?

 

[krye]

I managed to get my hands on yet another SCSI drive. This one is a 540MB 50 pin drive, so I don't need to play around with any 80-to-50 pin adapters. I popped the drive in my CC and fired it up. Lido gives me an "Arbitration Failed. Check termination" error. I connected my external drive so that I could throw a terminator on the end of the chain. Now Lido only shows the external drive, not the new internal drive. What gives?

Can anyone shed some light on this if it's a termination issue? I'm sure it is. But I don't know how to resolve it. I found the spec sheet on the drive and according to that, my SCSI ID is set to 6. (My external drive is 3.)

According to the spec sheet: (http://insight.actapricot.org/insight/common/drives/hard/mmxt540s.htm#jumper) it looks like it has terminating resistors on the board.

 

[nvdeynde]

As far as I can see on your photo the parity jumper is not set.

All old hard drives Apple used in these Compact Macs had parity enabled, same counts for the external CD-Rom drives.

Enable the parity jumper and try another formatter than Lido like Apple's Patched HDSC setup 7.3.5

 

[krye]

No dice. I didn't notice that one of the pins on the parity jumper is broken off. What's left isn't long enough to make a connection because it still doesn't work. I don't fell like soldering it if doesn't fix the problem. Maybe I'll do a wire wrap.

Anyway, I tried Lido and a patched Apple HD SC 7.5.3 utility. Both give me weird errors and fail to format. Maybe the drive is just toast.

 

[nvdeynde]

What brand and model is the drive ?

Have you tried it in your external enclosure without an internal drive connected ?

 

[krye]

Yes, and it doesn't work. The most recent drive I tried is a Maxtor drive. The other 2 that I tired with the 80-to-50 pin adapter were Compaq drives. I also pulled the stock drives from my LC520 and Macintosh TV. Both of those machines don't startup, so I have not been able to verify that those drives even work. I pulled both those drives out and tried them in my 80SC and they don't work either. (all while there's no drive in the CC). I don't get it. The CC has some a weird hard drive/termination requirements.

 

[nvdeynde]

I have not seen this issue before with my Color Classic. I can use any vintage SCSI drive from 40MB to 160MB: IBM, Connor, Quantum with or without external SCSI devices. The Color classic has no special SCSI termination requirements.

I'm wondering, have you recapped the logic board of your CC ?

A last resort what you can try is take a working drive and do a universal install (=minimal system for every mac ) of Mac OS 7.1 on the drive in one of your other Compact Macs. Then install the drive in the Color Classic.

If that doesn't work, you either have a faulty logic board or damaged/bad contacts in the flat cable assembly.

Given an external SCSI drive works well it are likely damaged contacts in the flat cable assembly.

There's a small possibility it's a faulty internal SCSI cable.

 

[krye]

That's a good idea. There has been a bad smell coming from it since the hdd died. I posted in another topic about it. At first I thought it was the flyback going bad, but it was pointed out that the "fishy" scent I'm smelling is most likely caps going bad. It could be that. Or maybe I damaged the cable somehow with all the excessive drive swapping I've been doing.

 

[onlyonemac]

If it's smelling, then definately do a re-cap. Mine was getting worse and worse, and then when I recapped, it was fine. Try that, then carry on with your drives. (I noticed that in my Performa there are two capacitors right next to the hard drive connecters; I don't know if the Colour Classic also has those.)

P.S. Why is this not in the compacts forum?

 

[kite210]

I'm currently using a 1.2gb Quantum Fireball in my color classic, and it works just fine. I had pulled it from my 6100 back when I wasn't using it full time.

 

[krye]

That's good to know. I ordered the caps. I just have to find the time to solder them in.

 

[MinerAl]

P.S. Why is this not in the compacts forum?

Although small-of-screen, the CC is very much in the Performa/LC 5xx & MacTV family. Logic boards swap in with little or no modification to the CC (or 5xx if you're swapping that way for some reason).

You could make some arguments about the SE/30 belonging to the Mac II family, but it board swaps with an SE, so it's a compact.

 

[onlyonemac]

Oh, bit odd! I say "if it's got a screen in it, it's a compact 'cause it's small".