Mac SE Problems

[deloprator20000]

Hello everyone, I bought a Mac SE with the following specifications:

1 Mbyte Ram, 800K drive, 20SC Hard Disk

I've used and built only PC's nearly all of my life, so much of the Mac methods are new to me.

When I turn it on all I see is a floppy disk with a question mark in the middle, can't find the boot file. I have several questions:

1. Given that I can't use 1.4MB diskettes and I can't use a PC drive to write onto 800k diskettes, I was thinking maybe I could use an external floppy drive like:

Teac Floppy Drive FD-05PUB

The drive can supposedly read and write 720k Mac diskettes. Is it possible to connect this drive to a PC and somehow write onto a 720k diskette a mac formatted boot disk?

2. What do I do if the floppy drive is not functional? Is it possible to boot from the SCSI port?

3. If the hard disk is non-functional, is it possible to replace it with any SCSI drive?

Thank You

 

[porter]

The drive can supposedly read and write 720k Mac diskettes.

Nope, it doesn't say that, it says 1.4M and 720k PC disks.

It can write 1.4M Mac disks, but there is no such thing (as a standard) as a 720k Mac disk.

The DD disks were formatted using a different encoding and differing number of sectors per track depending on circumference.

You do need a set of 800k System 6.0.5 upwards disks which any other Mac owner can produce for you.

Yes you can put in most 50pin 2Gig or lower disks, but expect fun formatting it if it's not from Apple. I do know Mac Plusses can be very picky about what they boot from.

 

[TheNixer]

Wow, it might be worth while to create a "I just bought an SE off eBay" site to help people.

You would do well to start with a fresh set of 6.0.8 floppy disks. PM me and I'll send you some. From there you can try an install and see if it recognizes the internal hard drive. If not, I have one lying around I could send you as well. It won't take much to get it back up and running. You may just need a disk utility or the hard drive could be bad too.

If you don't mind my asking, what prompted you to purchase such an old machine as your first Mac? What made you curious about Macs even though you're a PC guy?

 

[deloprator20000]

Thank you for your response, the major reasons I bought this particular Mac is mix of 80's computer nostalgia and curiosity. Another reason is that it represents a challenge, the only computers I've ever worked with were PC's Mac's represent something completely different with potentially different challenges.

 

[davidb59]

I am in a similar fix, would it be possible to get some of those diskettes Mr. Nixer?

 

[equill]

2. What do I do if the floppy drive is not functional? Is it possible to boot from the SCSI port?
3. If the hard disk is non-functional, is it possible to replace it with any SCSI drive?

Any commercial disk utility worthy of the name can format HDDs for Mac. 'Commercial' involves a cost with all but Silverlining, a utility supplied by LaCie with its external drives. Silverlining is capable of 'taking over' a drive that has been formatted with non-Apple software, given that the old software came from this side of Jupiter.

Silverlining 5.8.x, under 'Hard Drive links', can also compensate for slow SCSI throughput in older Mac CPUs by adjusting the 'interleave factor' from 1:1 up to 3:1 (number of platter revolutions to read a complete track), which is desirable for the Plus (3:1) and SE (2:1). Modern drives with track buffers, as opposed to drives that were contemporay with 68000-processor Macs, may not need interleave adjustment, but the deficiency lies in the CPU—not the drive—so be aware of the possibility.

The utility Mt Everything, an earlier version of which is also available from gamba's page, can often get hold of slippery drives.

de