I’ve been working on restoring a Macintosh Performa 450 for a long time now. I’ve had one problem after another. Today while attempting to install the internal version of the BlueSCSI, something went wrong. I guess it’s been terminated and doesn’t need to be because the floppy and mouse quit working. I thought I fixed that earlier, but I guess I was wrong. Before I realized the problem, I tried to put a floppy disk in the drive. It didn’t work, and I thought I’d put it in the wrong way. Because I have an automatic floppy drive and didn’t know it wasn’t even running, I attempted to remove the disk myself. It didn’t work. I realized my problem too late after jiggling the disk around too much. Now it’s jammed, and because I used pliers and got it partially out already, I assume my floppy drive is now damaged. I have a spare 1.44mb floppy drive from a PC, but it doesn’t have the same floppy connector. are the read/write heads replaceable? do I even need the second drive’s parts or can I just salvage the first? Why if I thought I’d fixed the termination issue on the BlueSCSI did it continue to persist?
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Performa 450 restore
- Thread starter Andrew18489
- Start date
You'll need to get another Sony MP-F75W floppy drive. The PC drives are a different bird.
I took a box of Macintosh parts to uBreakiFix. They couldn’t help me with the BlueSCSI soldering, but they did remove the disks from the drive, and at no cost. I brought the floppy drive home and tried it. It didn’t recognize that I was trying to put a disk in it. I don’t know if it comes on or not. Given the price of a new drive, I’d at least like to try to repair it myself. I found lots of information, but I’m just wondering where to start for a drive that’s not recognizing the floppies (and probably not going to read them even if they’re recognized) without repair.)
The eject drive gear you can get them here for about $10. As far as the soldering of the BlueSCSI I could do it for you I've done it myself multiple times.
Is the gear 3D printable?
Yes but you need a very, very good 3D printer most cannot print this at all.
Does the drive make noise when you power on the computer? I’m first of all curious if it’s dead.
Not always but in this case no. I have a fully lubed and restored drive I can send you if you need one.
I’ll think about what I want to do with my old stuff and decide later.
I don't mean I'll sell it so long as you cover shipping it's yours. I do believe the floppy you have needs the eject gear replaced its very common on these. As far as your BlueSCSI have you done any soldering before or do you have a Soldering Iron?
I didn’t do the soldering. Someone else soldered that BlueSCSI for me but it had issues. A wrong resistor was installed and another member commented about the jumpers.
Oh boy do you have any photos?
Yikes yeah, can see two problems
To answer your earlier questions about using PC drive parts on Mac floppy drives, no that won't work, they are not the same.
I've had a very varied experience with getting floppy drives working at all. There are lots of factors at play. Disks can be bad which damage an otherwise good drive. I don't mess around with floppy drives anymore - I use a Floppy Emu if I need to load a floppy image on a Mac, they are not the cheapest thing out there but they are well worth the money and make life so much easier. Otherwise, someone on here may have a working drive and be able to send you some working floppies to go with it (that said, doing a system install from floppy disks alone, for anything other than early System 7 is not a fun experience).
Whoever did the soldering on your BlueSCSI screwed it up, that BlueSCSI is not going to work without some serious soldering rework, get a refund and buy one that's been done properly. Or buy a ZuluSCSI instead (it's a better device anyway and the cost is not much more).
I've had a very varied experience with getting floppy drives working at all. There are lots of factors at play. Disks can be bad which damage an otherwise good drive. I don't mess around with floppy drives anymore - I use a Floppy Emu if I need to load a floppy image on a Mac, they are not the cheapest thing out there but they are well worth the money and make life so much easier. Otherwise, someone on here may have a working drive and be able to send you some working floppies to go with it (that said, doing a system install from floppy disks alone, for anything other than early System 7 is not a fun experience).
Whoever did the soldering on your BlueSCSI screwed it up, that BlueSCSI is not going to work without some serious soldering rework, get a refund and buy one that's been done properly. Or buy a ZuluSCSI instead (it's a better device anyway and the cost is not much more).
