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Topic |
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Spyswitch00
New Member
86 Posts |
 Posted - 05 Jul 2002 : 00:40:58
Just bought a Mac Classic off e-bay. Everything seems to work ok EXCEPT, any disk I put in the drive gets spit out with a, "disk is write protected, initialization failed" message. This is regardless of write protection tabs being placed in the correct positions, tape over the tabs, no matter what I put in there it gets spit back out. Now I also read that I can only use double density disks, but they're impossible to find. Does anyone have any ideas? Thank you, I'd love to join the ranks of a classic Mac user! |
catsdorule
Senior Member
Canada
1627 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2002 : 01:34:35
The Disk drive is probally ver dirty, I cleaned my Lc wich had the same problem and the problem went away.-----
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danamania
Official 68k Muse
Australia
1193 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2002 : 02:08:20
quote:
Everything seems to work ok EXCEPT, any disk I put in the drive gets spit out with a, "disk is write protected, initialization failed" message. This is regardless of write protection tabs being placed in the correct positions, tape over the tabs, no matter what I put in there it gets spit back out. Now I also read that I can only use double density disks, but they're impossible to find. Does anyone have any ideas?
That's a bit of an odd error to be caused -only- by a difference between DD and HD disks. Quite often, using HD disks will work OK in a DD drive, for a little while - unfortunately (as it was explained to me) while a DD drive will read a HD disk that's been formatted to a DD capacity, the DD drive itself just doesn't have enough 'oomph' to write strongly enough to the HD surface. Having said that, it may not be your problem :D If you look inside the drive (push the black flap in to see), on the side that the write-protect tab sits, you should see a metal 'guide' with a hole in it, and inside that hole should be a small (usually white) rod of plastic sticking up vertically - that's the extension of the switch that is depressed when a write-enabled disk is inserted. If that small rod is broken off, the switch is never depressed, never thinks it has a write-enabled disk inserted. and isn't able to format or write to disks that are inserted. All this info might not help you get things up & working again - but it could help you find out why it's all breaking :D dana
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SiliconValleyPirate
Junior Member
United Kingdom
273 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2002 : 02:29:47
As catsdorule says, it sounds very much like the drive is caked in crud. The Mac Classic uses an older style Auto-inject drive which are notorious for suffering problems from dust entering the mechanism. I'm afraid the only 100% proof way to get it out i to remove the floppy drive from the computer and give it a once-over with some canned air and a cloth and cotton tip sticks, whatever thay are called there. If that fails to work you will have to source a new drive and it *must* be auto-inject otherwise the slots will not line up and you will have trouble getting the disk to go in the drive because of the shape of the moulded slot.--
Mark Benson FlatPackMacs http://fpm.gotdns.com 2nd Lieutenant - 68kMLA, LC Quartermaster
Flat Packing Macs for 68k MLA airlift excercises 
Macs Liberated = 14! |
~Coxy
Leader, Tactical Ops Unit
Australia
2822 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2002 : 05:34:10
Hey there, welcome to the MLA!
In future, though, it's better to post a topic like this in 'Balloon Help', or maybe 'Compact Macs'.~Coxy - Leader, Tactical Operations Unit
Mayor of NuBus City v3.0
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MrLynn
Junior Member
USA
394 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2002 : 07:12:09
Were any Classics restricted to DD diskettes? They came out well after HD drives became common, I think.Does removing the Classic case require the same long torx screwdriver and case cracker that the SEs do? If so, Spyswitch00 may need some advice (where to find these tools, avoid touching the CRT, etc.). Some here are better qualified to advise on repairs than I am. /Mr Lynn Curator of: SE (6.0.4), SE w. 020 accelerator (6.0.8), SE w. no HD, IIfx (7.1), IIci (bad HD); plus various PPCs in family (blue G3/350 is main Mac these days). |
Spyswitch00
New Member
86 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2002 : 12:27:31
To all of those that decided to help me out:Thank you so much for your advice; Professional and helpful. I've been a PC user all my life but I'm begining to make the switch! I tried the various methods that were suggested: I got the canned air thing, but it wasn't enough. It was mentioned that the drive might have some hardware in it that broke off, that isn't allowing the inserted disk to be read properly. I went ahead and swapped out the bad drive with another one that I took out of another mac classic that had way too many problems with it and EUREKA! Read it just fine. I guess it was a bad drive like y'all said.
So all my nonsense about HD disks and DD disk was in fact, just nonsense. However, now I'm trying to use the Mac Claris works 3.0 to save documents in a basic TEXT or MS Word format so I can take them to kinkos and have them printed out. I realize that this is a step that I may not have to worry about. I'm just trying to make a bridge (as stupid as that may be) between my Mac and PC for reading and exchanging basic text information. They don't have to be pretty. They aren't being submitted for anything important. When I try to save, the mac tells me it can't find the file I'm saving on. This may not make a whole lot of sense, however I think that I'm closer to my goal in eliminating the hardware problem and stumbling on a "user" problem. I'm new and ignorant at this so, I knew it would happen :\ If anyone can help, great. Y'all rule!
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Help please
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