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SE hard drive just died today; options to replace it

I

ioncehadamac

6502
So it was working just fine until yesterday.

Today I took apart the SE to clean up again the floppy disk, since it was not reading some disks that were working on the other SE, and when I did put together the SE, now the hard drive won't boot anymore.

It start with a solid red light for few seconds; then it goes blinking at 4 regular blinks in sequence, then it stops, then 4 more blinks and so on. Booting from floppy works; but the drive won't mount.

I did use the HD20 tool disk and it can't see the drive, so I guess when I did move the cage to remove the floppy, the hard drive gave up on staying on this planet and went to a better place.

Sadly the other 2 SE that I have, does not have a working HD; so I am hunting for one. I have the desire to stick with real hardware, to keep the machine "true" to the original purpose (is not like I use the SE for anything at all; I simply keep it as collectible to play with it now and then).

From my research, the SE use special Apple drives, so I can't just use a standard 50 pin SCSI drive (if I can even find one btw, prices on ebay are ridiculous; you can get a whole SE for the price they ask just for the drive).

Is there a known place where to get old SCSI drives that would work with the SE?

 
Hi! My SE FDHD is able to use standard 50pin SCSI drives. The only issue is the mounting bracket screws don't line up 100%. I have to make due with 2 screws holding the drive in place. At least that was my experience with the 80mb drive I used to replace the too-small-for-7 20mb mini scribe it shipped with. My model is m5011. Not sure if this holds true for m5010 (800k floppy drive instead of 1.4mb floppy drive usually indicates m5010).

Edited to add: some drives have the connector to support the LED on the front of the SE, other drives don't. My drive had A connector, but to make it work I had to gently bend the pins upward and experiment which direction the connector had to plug into it.

If you are looking for another original 20mb/40mb miniscribe drive, then I'd say posting a want to buy ad on this site's trading post, or keeping an eye out on eBay.

 
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I see, and how did you format the drive once you did install it? I was told that you can't use the HD20 software because it works only with Apple branded drives.

Also is still possible to buy 50 pin SCSI drives somewhere? I have to check my local e-waste places to see if they have any available.

 
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I used Lido version 7 to format since Apple's utility didn't support my non-apple branded drive. However there are plenty of Apple drives out there so you may get lucky.

I know someone on this site was selling 70-something GB 10k rpm server drives and the appropriate adapter to make them work with old school 50pin interface. However, note that systems below 7.6 or something (any OS the SE will support) only supports up to 2gb partitions. Lido will allow you to break it into 2gb partitions.

Another option is getting a SCSI2SD v5 adapter. It would allow you to use a micro SD card as the hard drive. I have one in my SE/30 and one in my Color Classic. They work well, but come at a price around $65 if I recall correctly (mine included 8gb cards).

Aside from those two, your best bet would be a vintage hard drive. It's quite common to see old ones here in the trading post and on eBay ranging from 20mb all the way up to 4gb... most are in the 200mb range though.

 
Got it, where can I find this Lido software? Is it on the macintosh garden or similar sites? I do have a SCSI2SD device; got it for cheap but I am using it already on another device; while for this one I was looking to make a restore with standard parts.

I don't even need a big drive, after all the SE software may fit probably on a 300 MB disk? I really don't use much of it, so I don't even go as high as 1 GB for sure. The issue is that older drives are more prone to fail, from what I read, so I was looking for the "youngest" SCSI drive that would work in the SE, but still retain some sort of remotely reliable factor :)

I will have to check the e-waste places then, if I can use any SCSI 50 pin, probably I can find some good ones in old server racks; there are a couple of stores in the area that sell old Pentium server for less than 40 dollars :) I need the software though, otherwise I can't format it for the SE.

 
Also, I'm sure you are already aware but just as a reminder check your PRAM battery while you have it open.

If it is a red maxell battery, regardless of if it still works to keep time or not, toss it out. These have a history of exploding and spraying acid all over the logic board, killing it beyond repair.

Anything else should be fine to keep using if the computer is keeping time between shutdowns. The voltage is 3.6 volts new, as a point of reference. eBay and macsales both carry the replacement batteries should you need one.

 
YEah, I did check mine (solder version), and it is still good after so long.

On another motherboard the same battery (varta) did leak and ruined everything; I was able at least to save some chips and the ROMS, if I ever need to replace one or all of them.

I was planning to remove the battery; but the voltage is still good (3.4V if I recall correctly); probably next time that I clean it up I will just cut the battery and put a replacement one. Or even leave it as is...keeping time updated on the SE is not really something that I am concerned about  :) Thanks for the hint

 
Yes, the garden had a copy when I last looked.

My SE is using the old 80mb drive that came with my SE/30 (the one that now has a SCSI2SD).

With system 7.1 and a ridiculous amount of software, including the disk images for system 6.0.8, I still have 17mb of free space.

I agree about the reliability part though. All the prices on eBay were within 15 dollars of a new SCSI2SD adapter... except all the drives were at least 20 years old. I personally wouldn't pay more than $25 for any of those hard drives. At this point they are on borrowed time.

 
Time keeping isn't a huge deal, more of a luxury for sure. However, the mouse tracking speed is also held in PRAM.

I used my SE for almost a decade with a dead battery. When I finally put a fresh one in I had forgotten how nice it was to not have to adjust the mouse speed every time it booted up. Mine defaults to some awefully slow speed when the battery is dead.

 
just.in.time said:
I agree about the reliability part though. All the prices on eBay were within 15 dollars of a new SCSI2SD adapter... except all the drives were at least 20 years old. I personally wouldn't pay more than $25 for any of those hard drives. At this point they are on borrowed time.
Click to expand...
Totally agree :) I ended up buying 4 different SE and putting together the best parts, exactly because of the crazy prices that such old and delicate hardware goes for.

I did find plenty of drives but they go for 40-50, which is the same price of another SCSI2SD at that point.

Is there a way to boot from an external SCSI device? Maybe I can find an old ZIP drive; which is plenty to keep the OS and software.

 
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just.in.time said:
Time keeping isn't a huge deal, more of a luxury for sure. However, the mouse tracking speed is also held in PRAM.

I used my SE for almost a decade with a dead battery. When I finally put a fresh one in I had forgotten how nice it was to not have to adjust the mouse speed every time it booted up. Mine defaults to some awefully slow speed when the battery is dead.
Click to expand...
So prefs are also kept via battery? i thought that anything beside the time, was saved on disk/hd

 
Yeah, there are external SCSI Zip drives. They work very well for booting the SE. They aren't rare, but they aren't exactly common either so expect to pay a little for one. Luckily the Zip disks themselves are plenty cheap. If you go this route, I'd reccomend staying with the 100mb drives. Lido or Zip Tools 4.2 both work pretty well for formatting the disks. This works extremely well for transforming software from my quicksilver G4 (has a built in Zip drive). Lately I have been trying to acquire Ethernet cards for all my older computers to move away from Zip disks and keep them as a backup, not for day to day transfers.

Most prefs are kept on disk, however some are kept in PRAM. To my knowledge the ones in PRAM on the SE are time, date, volume, mouse speed (and maybe double click speed as well?), and startup disk.

Other Macs keep other things in PRAM as well.. for example the Classic keeps its display brightness in PRAM I believe, as it doesn't have a brightness knob like the previous compact Macs did, its all done in software.

 
just.in.time said:
Yeah, there are external SCSI Zip drives. They work very well for booting the SE. They aren't rare, but they aren't exactly common either so expect to pay a little for one. 
Click to expand...
Be careful though when selecting your second hand Zip drive. There are two kinds of drives: there's the Parallel port model and the SCSI port one.

image courtesy of Akai MPC Forums:

PC model on top (Parallel - note the printer symbol)

Mac model underneath (SCSI - note SCSI ID selector)

14tc2s8.jpg.fd4a216978b6a9999b6ad2f307d0e5b0.jpg


Some Zip drives had an auto detect feature: you could use either Parallel or SCSI on these ones (like the Zip100 Plus) 

image from the same forum:

zipplusback.jpg.716b3f3f768606c198f5b88a2045a05e.jpg


 
Thanks for your suggestion!

I was not aware that I can use also 68 pin drives; that open more options; especially if all that it needs is an adapter!

 
You can get some ridiculously large capacity 68 pin drives too - and there's not likely to be a shortage of them any time soon, like with the 50 pinners.

Seagate make a 68 pin parallel SCSI drive called the Savvio, which is 2.5" wide.  Nice for fitting in space-constrained Macs like the compacts (though they're too large for Powerbooks, sadly).  NB that there are also Savvio drives with Fibre Channel, SAS, SATA and other interfaces and you don't want those.

Our wiki has a page on SCSI hard disk replacement options

 
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