Troubleshooting a Macintosh SE

[Scott Squires]

BTW, HD SC Setup won't work for formatting it (since it's not an Apple hard disk), but it's probably on your System 5.5 disk, and might indicate whether the SCSI2SD appears on the bus. However, I would jump straight to Lido: http://www.euronet.nl/users/ernstoud/lido7.html

 

[peafour]

I would expect 7.5.3 to work since you have 4 MB of RAM. However, I do prefer System 6 on the Mac SE. You find download links for 6.0.8 here: http://gryphel.com/c/sw/system/sys60/index.html

What do you mean by "not able to see the SD card"? It doesn't appear on the desktop (and doesn't prompt to format an uninitialized disk)? Is the drive visible in Apple HD SC Setup, SCSIProbe, or Lido?

I set the SD card up using the scsi2sd-util from my laptop, and was able to initialize and format from my System 5.5 disks, and install 7.5.3 from the floppy emu.  The problem came in on reboot when the drive neither was bootable, nor visible to the Mac in SC Setup.  I'll add SCSIProbe and Lido to my floppy emu and check those out tonight.

BTW, HD SC Setup won't work for formatting it (since it's not an Apple hard disk), but it's probably on your System 5.5 disk, and might indicate whether the SCSI2SD appears on the bus. However, I would jump straight to Lido: http://www.euronet.nl/users/ernstoud/lido7.html

I should have mentioned that I used the scsi2sd-util app to configure the SD card, which (I guess) when configured correctly mimics Apple branded HDDs so unpatched HD SC Setup works.  I'll check try to initialize with Lido tonight when I get home, thanks!

 

[peafour]

Weird thing: I came home, flipped it on, and got a snowy checkerboard screen, which has been happening sometimes this whole time. I turned it off and back on, and it booted from the SD as I would expect. I don't know exactly what's going on, but I might move it to 6.0.8 anyway later tonight.

 

[Scott Squires]

Could you grab a photo of the snowy checkerboard the next time it happens?

 

[rsolberg]

An unpatched Apple HD SC Setup will initialise the card if you've set up the SCSI2SD to the correct vendor, model, and revision strings. This blog post from Ryan Collins is a good reference: http://ryancollins.org/2016/02/07/scsi2sd-with-my-macintosh-se-30/

 

[peafour]

rsolberg: that's exactly what I did, and the SD card showed up right away as a good drive the first time I turned it on.  Thanks!

General question about Lido: I followed that link, downloaded the .hqx file, unpacked it with both The Unarchiver and Stuffit, but I can't seem to get a good disk image out of there that my SE will read.  It produces a folder called Lido7.56, with a couple of files in it, but nothing that my floppy emu can see to mount onto the SE.  Any idea what I'm doing wrong?  I googled to try to find some sort of walkthrough, but no dice.

anthon, here is what it looks like when it boots. It usually goes to this screen if I've been away for a few days, but turning it off and back on seems to jump start it: http://imgur.com/n6bDUUi Sometimes it's more artifacty than this, with 60% or so of errant characters strewn about the screen.

I noticed that the drive size was only 20 MB, so I've been trying to reinitialize and reformat from the floppy emu using later tools than the 5.5 SD HC, but now I'm getting system errors and the test says that the drive cannot be read.  

 

[Scott Squires]

The intermittency of it suggests to me that it might be a cracked solder joint. The analog board connector is a common place for that to happen. Do you have a multimeter? Before diving inside I would check the voltages from the floppy connector while it is exhibiting symptoms. (See Macintosh Repair and Upgrade Secrets, page 284)

 

[peafour]

The first bracket actually has pics showing it mounting on its side behind the floppy drives. It'd block any potential expansions like networking but I'm not sure that's a big concern for most people. The 2nd is a factory bracket and to the best of my knowledge it won't fit on top of two floppies.

If that HDD ends up going for a bit much, or you want to save a bit of money, https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/28013-my-macintosh-se-that-was-damaged-in-shipping/?p=299373is a setup I've done (and have pics of later in the thread) that works fine in an SE, just a bit of adapter chaining.

Does this only work for single SCSI chains?  I was going to try this method on a Performa 600CD, but looking further (after I'd bought everything, of course), and I'm thinking it won't work with a multi-device chain (i.e. the CD-ROM and HDD share the same SCSI cable).

 

[Scott Squires]

I suspect it would work. What aspect of it are you thinking would not work?

If you want to use a 68 pin hdd and a 68 pin cable, it would look like this:

logic board (with 68/50 pin adapter) => cd-rom drive (with 68/50 pin adapter) => hard drive => termination

The main issue is probably finding room for the adapters.

 

[peafour]

I suspect it would work. What aspect of it are you thinking would not work?

If you want to use a 68 pin hdd and a 68 pin cable, it would look like this:

logic board (with 68/50 pin adapter) => cd-rom drive (with 68/50 pin adapter) => hard drive => termination

The main issue is probably finding room for the adapters.

Mostly I think because the cable I got looks like it only has two ends: http://www.ebay.com/itm/360757452196?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT The exact one from compgeke's post wasn't available anymore, so I looked for the same model on eBay.  I'll be the first one to admit that I am largely operating out of my depth, though, and may be over-reacting especially since I haven't actually gotten this stuff into my house yet.  I'm glad that I decided to buy a couple extra adapters, since they're coming from China, anyway.

 

[Scott Squires]

Yeah, you would need a cable with at least 3 connectors on it (4 if the cable doesn't have built-in termination). I'm sure you'll find a use for the cable that you ordered in some Mac that is made for only a hard drive and floppy drive. Like an LC series, II series, some Quadras, etc.

 

[peafour]

I had asked a couple questions in a previous thread about a SE/30 that I had picked up, but I don't want to totally hijack someone else's thread, so I'll hijack my own

When I turned the SE/30 on, this is the screen that greeted me: http://imgur.com/ZK6m2Lh

On the SE, the checkerboards were bigger, and seemingly indicative of a RAM problem, that mostly went away with new RAM, until it didn't.  On the SE/30, is this a RAM or cap issue?  I'm assuming, based on the other thread, that the thing will need to be recapped anyway even if that's not this issue, but if it is, then no more diagnosis necessary right this second.  Thanks in advance!