Mac classic trys to boot from hard drive but fails

[Blake]

Hi! I recentley bought a macintosh + image writer ii on ebay for 30$ and i got the stuff yesterday. When i tryed to boot up the computer it would show happy mac then it would dissipear for a few seconds and it would pop up again. It would do this till i reset it or booted it from rom. I opend my mac and didnt see any leaking or buldgeing caps so i closed it up. If you can tell me whats wrong with it that would help me out a lot so i hopefully dont have to buy a system disc 

-blake 

 

[EvilCapitalist]

Just hazarding a guess but it sounds like the System Folder might not be blessed or otherwise corrupted.  If you boot from the ROM image are you able to browse the HD without any trouble?  Does the System Folder have a regular folder icon or one with a picture of a Mac inside it?

 

[Blake]

Im at school right now but i beleve its a folder with a mac in the middle yes

 

[bibilit]

All caps are bad by now, i will remove and replace anyway.

Booting from ROM should be the solution.

Can be a SCSI cable badly connected or corrupted system.

 

[Blake]

How do fix a corrupted system?

Ill open my mac when i get home and disconnect and reconnect all the cables and see what happens

 

[Blake]

I connected and reconnected all the cables and still nothing

 

[EvilCapitalist]

If the System Software is corrupted to the point that it won't boot it's best to just reinstall.  Assuming you're running 7.1 on there it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to reinstall.  If you don't have any SSW disks you can copy over the System Folder from the ROM image but remember that it's a seriously stripped down version of System 6.  It also wouldn't be a bad idea to run a proper verification on the disk (like Norton Disk Doctor) to make sure you don't have any problems hardware-wise.  Don't bother with Disk First Aid though.  The version that runs on the Classic is only a hair above completely useless.

As bibilit said though, a recap needs to be done even if the machine is working now.  With nearly 30 year old capacitors you're on borrowed time.

 

[Blake]

Im not a expert at recapping so i dont want to potentially damage the thing if i dont need to at the moment but, i will do it when my luck runs out on these past-exparation date capisitors and they fail. But i will have to go online to buy a os i just got the computer and it just came with a power cord and image writer ii. And thank you for the advice

 

[bibilit]

Unfortunately, caps are not supplied with an expiration date written all over them, they have probably failed already or on their last legs.

the Classic is by far the easiest logic board to deal, with only a handfull of capacitors.

You can clean the board to remove as much as goo as possible in the first place.

 

[Jinnai]

I cannot remember if people were saying to wash in vinegar, or baking soda, for in case it is important to neutralize the alkaline of the leaky caps. Regardless... yes I also have had success with boards running better just from scrubbing them. As long as you let it try it's totally fine for them.

 

[Blake]

Well again i inspected all the caps and none seemed to be leaking or buldging so, i dont really think i will need to do any repair or cleaning work for Now. But i think EVERYBODY will have to do it in the next year because it seems like more and more "just used it now i have white lines" are appearing. Also there has been more broken mac classic1s and 2s on ebay than ever. so even tough the caps dont really have a exparition date i think they reached their end last year. Even if you DO a have a mac like mine that somehow still has good caps they will soon have to be replaced as 

Bib did say "they have probaly failed already or on their last legs". 

 

[Jinnai]

I try to mark the boards I recap, usually with a sticker, so later on people know it's been recapped. Say in 6 years, wouldn't want someone to think some machine had 35 year old caps if it didn't.