The PowerDuo Troubleshooting thread . . .

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

. . . I thought it would be nice to have a repository for 2300c troubleshooting lore. I'll edit some of the old thread links into this initial post as time goes on.

Duo 2300 specific threads:

PowerBook Duo battery replacement

Screen problems on my PowerBook Duo 2300c

DUO 2300c's: Trackpads lost their minds

Powerbook Duo SSD

My Dying Duo

Etherdock Inquiry

Powerbook Duo 2300c Wireless Help

2300c Keyboard Voodoo

Internet on a Powerbook Duo

General PowerBook: loosely related . . .

AppleTalk via Ethernet? We need a thread like this for AppleTalk over Printer Cable for Duos

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I just sent my first 2300cTB (TrackBall Upgraded) to Mk.588 and he's having some interesting problems with it, such as:

It's been almost ten years since I've used this particular Duo on a regular basis, and I never used it as much as PowerDuo, the stock 2300c Bookkeeping/Field Graphics Design Workstation for my business. That was actually used for a while as my main workstation, as it was my first ever PPC Design Station.

It never gave me a bit of trouble, all I switched out was the Memory Card and the HDD, but it has been sitting unused for a long time.

I sent it off with a 24MB Card/32MB total built in Memory and now it's showing 24MB, strange.

____test: remove card to see if it's the MoBo RAM bank or one of the banks on the Upgrade Card that have disappeared.

He's using ___ :?: ___ to switch between system installs of 7.5.5 and 8.1 on a single partition drive, which I've never heard of, much less done. I've always kept two partitions on every laptop to double down my bets of having a working system on hand to unbork the main system or retrieve files from the main partition in the field or on a trip.

Are system blessing utilities for multiple systems installed on a single partition reliable?

Does anyone have insight into what might be going on?

 

[bbraun]

IM: OS Utilities Start Manager chapter has a section on Boot Blocks.

The first two logical blocks on every Macintosh volume are boot blocks. These blocks contain system startup information: instructions and information necessary to start up (or “boot”) a Macintosh computer.

Among the information the BootBlkHdr contains is the system and finder files.

Apple used to distribute System Picker on their developer CDs, and there were other utilities out there to do the same thing. It was useful to developers when testing out beta OS releases. I've used it quite a bit and have not had any problems. However, I would recommend rebooting after altering your boot selection, since that will update your boot blocks, and other utilities may get confused as to which System Folder you're currently using.

AFAIK, this is the same mechanism used to switch between booting OSX and OS9 on the same volume.

 

[Mk.558]

I use 6.0.8, 7.0.1 and 7.5.5 on my SE/30 with absolutely no ill effects -- ever, so far.

8.1 wouldn't work with 1.0b10, so I had to upgrade to 1.1a3, which has no issues. The issue is not System Picker, but more likely hardware.

I did buy a tool with a bunch of small Torx bits but it was Chinese (and I hate Chinese tools, or any cheap tools in general) and was rubbish. Returned it, I'll have to figure out what Torx size the screws are and figure out how to take it apart, with consulting the 2300 Technical manual.