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AppleCD 150 can't read CDs

J

juanmas

6502
Hi everyone!

I'm fighting with a AppleCD 150. I've dismounted the unit, clean and lubricate the mechanism and now it loads and ejects the cd tray smoothly but... (there's always a but) I can not make it work.

I've connected it to a Macintosh LCII and its recognized by the SCSIProbe as element 3 at the SCSI chain but if I insert a CD the orange led turns on and then goes off. If I restart the Mac with a CD inserted the orange led stay orange and the unit is not right recognized at the SCSIProbe but if I push the botón to eject the CD the unit appears.

Unfortunately I have not a SCSI terminator.. I'm not sure if its necessary.. The OS is 7.1 and I'm not sure if this OS supports CDROM.

Any idea? 

Thanks!!

 
So you say it has nothing to do with OS nor SCSI Terminator?

I've saw that post early but my unit is not exactly that model. It's an old one. Anyway tomorrow I'll check the capacitors.

Thanks!

 
You will need a CD extension for the OS to recognize the drive.  I don't recall whether a standard install of 7.1 would include the driver or not.  Take a look in your system folder and see.

Termination is a maybe/maybe not unfortunately.  Theoretically it's required but you can sometimes get away with not having it.  I've seen terminators on ebay for not too much money.

 
sstaylor said:
You will need a CD extension for the OS to recognize the drive.  I don't recall whether a standard install of 7.1 would include the driver or not.
Click to expand...
No, AppleCD extension was not a standard part of System 7.1. It came on a separate floppy.

juanmas: you need the AppleCD extension for your Mac LC II.

Termination is a maybe/maybe not unfortunately.  Theoretically it's required but you can sometimes get away with not having it.  I've seen terminators on ebay for not too much money.
Click to expand...
None of Apple's CD drives or external hard drives are SCSI terminated. You're supposed to have a terminator block on it, if it's the last device on the chain.

Here's a good run-down of SCSI termination rules by an Apple employee from 1989.

 
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I found an apple cd 300 on ebay a few years ago and tried setting it up on my se/30 which at the time was on os7.1. i needed both a cd extension (generic one) from Macintosh Garden plus a terminator to work. Ended up not using it as I couldn’t find a caddy at the time so brought another none branded CD-ROM drive which worked fine, funnily enough since then came across  a few caddy’s so must get the cd300 out and see if it works. Anyway let us know how you get on?

Neal 

 
Hi!,

Finally I got it working. I had to change severals capacitors from the PSU and install OS 7.5. I can not make it work with 7.1 and the cdrom installation floppy. I haven't the SCSI terminator yet but it works. But It doesn't recognize any data cd, only old music cds. I'm not quite sure about it but it looks there something different in the new music cds printing process. Did you ear something about it?

About the data cdrom.. I don't think that the SCSI terminator is mandatory but I'll test it again once it arrives. I've tried with severals kinds of cdrom, olds a new ones but it can not read any. It keeps trying and trying and if I push the eject button finally appears a message that says that the system can not mount the disk. Maybe it's necessary any ISO extension about the cdrom format file? or maybe the laser lent is quite blind..

I'm wondering if 7.5.3 will resolve this issue...

One thing else, the unit is a AppleCD SC.

Regards!

 
Hi,

i’ve seen that the problem could be related with the new 700MB cds. That’s the reason why it reads old music cds.

 
My se/30 reads old data game discs (from eBay) as well as music ok although I’m on 7.5.5, Jonny is right about the write speed you’ll need to have everything at its lowest speed setting when burning 

ive not tried burning from a new mac though, the newest macintosh i share data with is my 2001 iMac g3 and i do that via zip discs

werent CD-ROM discs 650mb back then?

 
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Not Sure... I’m using originals cds son no matter the write speed. Not sure if it’s a so versión problem... it happens with music cds also. The highest so that my se supports is 7.5.3.. the system says that can not mount the disk.. maybe it’s the file format used?

My oldest music cds are detected but not the new ones...

 
Weird, I didn’t think iso music standards had changed so that leaves file formats. Hum im just trying to think what i did with mine on 7.1. I lie i did try burning CD-ROMs from my mac mini os x 10.7 and that didn’t work but never really tried any further as I couldn’t get it to recognise the HFS formac so didn’t get anywhere and just gave up, brought some newer bridge macs and zip drives I believe os 8.1 had hfs+ and could be read more easily. I don’t know it was something like that.

 
Oh so it’s a CD SC (aka the first Apple CD drive), not a CD150? I have an SC and I had to manually clean the lens and install a terminator before it would do anything. Btw, this was on an SE/30 running 7.5.

Also, in my experience those things can’t read anything burnt at speeds above 4x. 

 
You need termination period. A SCSI device and Mac combination may "work" without termination, but such would be an edge case far outside SCSI spec. and an example of SCSI Voodoo.



Not reading newer types of CDs is an inherent "problem" for first generation, single speed CD Drives. They commonly work fine with write once CDs, but CD/RW is a good ways past the design spec. of the lasers/pickup systems of first gen. drives. They simply aren't sensitive enough to reliably read later iterations of Data CD media. CD Voodoo would be another good HowTo for the Peripherals Forum.

CD-R and CD-RW are the two great divides for early mechanisms. Music CDs are first generation tech, single speed format, Data is where 2x-24x and beyond comes into play and where write speed reduction may help second and third gen. media "work" in earlier, less sensitive read mechanism drives. The other complication for earlier drives would how a CD was produced, as even Music CDs have their own bit of CD Voodoo.

the-difference-between-pressed-and-burned-cds

 
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Well, I’ll wait until receive the SCSI terminator for further tests. Right now I’ve tried with several music cds, always originals cds, and all have been recognized fine. I’ve tried with a 2014 music cd and it worked too.

I can not make it recognize any data cd. I’m always talking about originals cds. I’ve tried with old cds that was released with the MacWorld Magazine also.

But thinking about it... If I insert the empty caddy it is ejected inmediately so I think that the unit can read the cd but the OS does not understand the cd ISO format. If I left trying to read the cd inside the unit after a few minutes appears an error asking for initiate or eject the disk.

Maybe it’s a “special” unit. As “NIGHT STALKER” said it’s seems it’s a problem inherent from the first units in the cdrom era when the technology was in its first steps.

 
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