Macintosh SE Does Not Boot Successfully

[EvieSigma]

I have a Mac SE (2x 800k floppy, no hard drive). I made a System 6.0.3 startup disk for it but there seems to be a problem...it reads the disk, gives a Happy Mac, and boots to the Welcome to Macintosh screen...but once it gets there, it never actually reaches the desktop. It just sits there forever. 

I'm honestly not sure where to start with this...the floppy disk should be good and if the drive was bad it wouldn't read the disk at all, right?

 

[EvieSigma]

Any ideas? I'm not sure where to start.

 

[just.in.time]

Start with the easiest solutions first.

Recreate a boot disk on a different disk, sourced by a different disk image. Hopefully you can now boot.

Test new disk in both drives. If it is freezing at the exact same spot it is probably safe to say it isn't the drives (though it could be).

If it still freezes in the same spot from both drives I'd guess bad ram that clears initial boot check but causes a problem when actually being utilized. Luckily the 1mb 30pin Simms are cheap. Consider it a good opportunity to upgrade to max ram if you don't already have it .

While logic board problems (aside from leaky batteries) are rare, the analog board and power supply are succeptible to problems. Check the voltage at the floppy port on rear. There are pin out diagrams floating around that can help. I'd check both the 12v and 5v lines to make sure they are staying close to those values and not dipping too low. If they are just slightly out of range there is a POT that can help you adjust them. If they are significantly out of range (idk what qualifies as significant... more than half a volt?), you may still be able to use the POT to correct but it is probably time to look at recapping the PSU in that case.

Can't hurt to clean the disk drive heads and relubricate both drive mechanisms. Not difficult, just time consuming. Also, don't bend the heads back too far or they will never work again.

 

[EvieSigma]

I guess I'll be ordering a box of 800k floppies as the System 6.0.3 disk was the only one I had. I don't trust the "tape over the hole" method.

I used the Legacy Software recovery CD to make the floppy, I don't see why those images wouldn't work.

 

[just.in.time]

For long term, actual 800k disks are good. Or data that is unique and not available everywhere on the web.

That said, for testing it can't hurt to try a 1.4mb disk with tape over the hole. I'd say I have ~4 out of every 5 used disks that I do that to work okay, specifically for testing purposes. I've heard brand new 1.4mb disks work with even better success than that.

And if it doesn't work, just pull the tape off and reformat as a 1.4mb disk

All that said, I actually need to order some new 800k disks.