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Mac SE/30 booting troubles

CodeMonkeyZA

CodeMonkeyZA

6502
Hey guys,

So, I've been creeping on this forum for a while, looking for help for my first *brand new* Macintosh SE/30. When I bought it, everything was working fine, except no bong. I was so excited to start coding on this awesome old machine! (I'm into programming on vintage platforms, so this was a very exciting buy for me). Alas, when I got home, I turned it on and just got the blinking question mark. I read on your forum it might be the caps. As I live in a small town in South Africa, I decided to do it myself. Everything went fine, except for some pads that lifted, so I had to lay some jumpers. I put the whole thing back together, and.... nothing... I actually got the bong for the first time, which indicated that I must have done something right. I turned it off, and on again, and it actually booted! I was so happy, and scared at the same time. Why didn't it boot the first time? After I played on it a little, I decided to reboot again. I was greeted with the blinking question mark. 

I investigated further and read that the head on the hard drive might be stuck. I opened everything, and looked at the head of the hard drive. It didn't seem to move on startup. I tapped it a little and it jumped into position, just to go limp again, without booting...

So now, after my sob-story, I have the following question: is the problem with the hard drive, or the motherboard? I am willing to order a scsi2sd card to replace the hdd, as finding a original scsi in South Africa proves to be impossible. The problem is just, it is expensive to get it here, and I don't want to buy it if it's not gonna fix the situation.

Thanks very much for the amazing forum you guys keep! I have learned so much about this little machine, and I am desperate to get it working again! 

 
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Just to make sure it is not the Logic Board, check the traces around the Bournes Filter. Its the "Yellow IC" next to (or under) the SCSI Cable Connector. Except for two of the corner Pins, I believe, all of the pins should go somewhere. Forum member Uniserver would know this best.

Chances are it is the hard drive. Have you checked the voltages on the hard drive power connector? They should be around +5V on the Red and +12V on the Yellow with black as the ground.

Do save up for the SCSI2SD, even if you do not replace it now, you will need too in the future.

 
What make of drive is it?

If it's a Quantum, chances are the rubber head stop has turned to goo, which is causing the head to get stuck.

If it's not Quantum, then I'm not sure.

c

 
My original Quantum still works be it slowly, after reading everything on here i would go for the acsi2sd conversion, its what im planning for my se/30 after memory upgrade

 
Hi everyone, thank you very much for your reply. It is a Quantum drive. If the rubbers were causing the problems, wouldn't tapping the head have solved it (temporarily at least)? How else would I be able to save this drive if it is the rubbers? Is there any way to check that this is the problem?

It seems that scsi2sd is the way to go if it is the hard drive. Is there any way to check if the logic board is still trying to read the hard drive? When I start the machine up, the hdd light does flicker initially, but then just once every second or so. Does that mean the logic board is still okay?

Thanks again for all your help guys!

 
So just a quick update. I ordered the scsi2sd card about two days ago from China. Here's hoping that it actually gets here and that it'll solve my problem. I'll report back as soon as I can :)

 
So the awesomest thing happened last night! Out of frustration, I put my old mac back together (I was keeping the hdd out for easy insertion of the scsi2sd when it arrives :) ) and it booted!! I was so happy! I have turned it off and on a bunch of times in the mean time, and it seems to be happy. I'm still waiting for the scsi2sd, but in the mean time I can at least play with it :)

Now I have a new question... I asked it on another thread (https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/27503-writing-disk-images-to-floppy/), because I don't know if it belongs here, but your input will definitely be very much appreciated. 

 
I think the first think you should do when your SCSI2SD arrives is to back up the files from your HDD if there's anything you want to keep.

 
My SCSI2SD arrived!! I almost cannot believe the South African Post Office actually didn't lose something! What a win!  :p  

So I spent the last three days trying to get my little Mac to boot from the new device. I have followed the tutorial (http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=HFSFromScratch) but alas, I have yet been able to boot from it. I emailed Mr. McMaster today to see if I'm missing something.

Unfortunately, I also fear my floppy drive heads are misaligned, as any floppy I write on my USB floppy drive to try and boot from is rejected. Maybe I'm just not making them right? Does anyone have any suggestions?

I have been scouring the Internet for possible tutorials for creating a bootable image that I can write to the SD card, but until now I haven't found anything. Any suggestions on how I might get a bootable image for writing to my sd card? Is someone maybe even willing to share a working image I can just write to the card? Any help will really be appreciated!

CM

 
Well, USB Floppy Drives only work in PC format and signalling, so it will never boot a Mac System. It is not that your Mac floppy Drive Heads are misaligned but it is unable to a PC Formatted disk.

There are "so-called" utilities that "claim" to create Mac Format Disks from a PC Floppy Drive but it is my experience that they never worked as claimed. Sure, A Mac with a "Super Drive" or "HDFD" floppy drive can read and write to a floppy formatted on a PC, but that is only after it has booted and a program extension like "PC Exchange" added to the OS. But to be able to boot up a Mac with a floppy disk created on a PC is not possible.

 
If you use a USB floppy drive on a modern-ish Mac (say, any late-model G4, all G5's, and Intels up to 2008) that run Tiger or Leopard, you should be able to create a Mac-formatted 1.44 MB disk bootable by a classic Mac (you'd probably have to bless the System folder on that old Mac before it'll boot). Newer Macs with Snow Leopard or later cannot format the disk properly for such old systems (it can, however, format them in HFS Extended, which is usable in the classic Mac OS versions 8.1 through 9.2.2). But Elfen is definitely correct about PCs running Windows: they cannot properly format a disk that is bootable in any Mac.

A fun fact is that some USB floppy drives can actually work in the classic Mac OS as well, which should make for a fairly seamless experience, but only for HD disks (no USB drive that I know of can format a disk in the less common GCR scheme needed for 400k and 80k Mac disks).

I know this to be true because I have done it before!

c

 
Okay, I didn't know that I cannot create a bootable floppy from Windows even using programs such as WinImage. I have also tried using dd from my Mid 2012 Macbook Pro, without any success. Is there anyway that I can create a bootable floppy disk using the setup I have? (i.e. a USB floppy drive, a Mid 2012 Macbook, I also have access to a Windows XP machine and a Raspberry Pi) I was dreading that I had to buy a new floppy drive, but perhaps I would get away with just buying bootable floppy disks?

 
I've previously used HFVExplorer for Windows to create writable floppies for my LC III, used in tandem with an external floppy drive. I was able to install System 7.1 and System 7.5.3 from scratch and put a bunch of old games on the machine using the floppy disks formatted using that program, so as far as I have been able to tell they are in the classic Mac format natively (i.e., no PC Exchange extension involved). Note that this is for 1.44 MB disks only.

Is there a reason this approach wouldn't work for an SE/30, considering that they have FDHD as standard?

 
Yes, that should work. You can certainly create bootable Macintosh floppies on a PC, and long as we're talking about 1.4MB high density floppies and not 400K/800K.

I think there's some confusion about PC-format floppies (FAT12), versus Macintosh format floppies (HFS) that were written from a Windows PC. The Macintosh can't read FAT12 floppies without special software like PC Exchange, and can't boot FAT12 floppies. But with the right Windows software, the PC can write HFS floppies that work fine in a Mac.

 
I have Windows XP running on VirtualBox with a USB floppy drive. Should I in theory be able to create a bootable floppy disk using HFVExplorer? Are there any special steps I should be aware of, or is it as simple as selecting a disk image and writing to the floppy?

 
As far as using HFVExplorer goes, if you have the disk images already available (such as those for Disk Tools or System 6/7 install disks) then it should just be a matter of opening the application and then selecting File > Write volume to floppy. Then specify the floppy drive (should be A:) and the path to the disk image. I believe HFVExplorer primarily handles .dsk and a couple of other files for writing, but may be able to open other disk images which you can then copy the data from and move to a new .dsk file at your leisure.

If you are trying to move just generic Mac files (typically in .bin or .sit formats) then you can go to File > Format new volume and create a .dsk file of your own (set size to 1440 kB), and then write to your floppy drive using the same procedure as above.

I've done this with a native Windows 7 instance only, and so I can't comment on how the process would change for Windows XP. I'm pretty sure the program is compatible though. You can check the "Windows" section under http://www.gryphel.com/c/image/ for more information on how to write to floppy. http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/hfvexplorer has a download link you can use if you want to go that route.

 
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Okay, so last night I did exactly as explained. After formatting, writing and reading the floppy with HFVExplorer, checking that everything is there, I tried to boot the Macintosh, just to have the floppy spat back in my face. I tried it over and over with different disk images, checking every time in HFVExplorer if the floppy is readable (which it was), but I was not able to boot from it.

I really hope that it is because of the fact that I'm using a VM or an external USB, and not because the floppy drive is broken...

I found someone in my local vintage computer Facebook group who is willing to make a floppy on his PowerMac running OS9 for me. If I am still unable to boot using this method, I am going to assume the floppy drive is defective  :(

 
Thanks to the amazing Michael, my little Mac is officially running on a SCSI2SD.

Now I am quite sure that the heads of my floppy drive are misaligned. I cannot see any disks made using HFVExplorer (it always asks to initialise the disk), and when I format a floppy using the mac and try to read it on HSVExplorer, it isn't picked up at all. I'm not really sure how I'm gonna solve my new problem, but hey, at least my little pride and joy is booting!

I was thinking of making a null cable... any thoughts on that for transferring files between computers?

 
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