Mac Classic II issues

[Russell]

about a month ago i picked up a mac classic II at the MIT flea market the guy said it worked but wouldnt you know it when i got home it was no such luck. i had the stars and strips vertical lines after i did some research i found that this was most likely due to the capacitors leaking so after a few attempts at cleaning by hand with no luck i finally decided to let it soak in soap and water the dry it off. i popped the board back in today and to my surprise it actually booted up. well sort of, this model has an internal hard drive which i thought would be money but it seems that it doesnt recognize it i get the same icon i get on my plus which is just a disk with question mark inside it. so i guess my question is is there a way to clean that as well, if not and i wanted to replace it whats the biggest capacity hard drive could i use?

[Astro Chicken]

Have you tried re-installing the OS on the hard drive? It may just not have a bootable system on it.

[Russell]

i have not as i dont yet have a boot disk. but ill give that a look see once i get the disk.

[Sean2300c]

i assume you can use any regular internal SCSI drive. I think System Software 6 and 7.0/7.1 have a limit of 2 gigabytes (the most it can address) any disk larger than that you will have to partition.

The soap and water helped out? I have a Classic II which does not work anymore. I think it is the capacitors, because the sound went first, then the whole computer. Hopefully this summer I will get a chance to take it apart and clean it out.

[Lars (WhyOSX)]

With 7 disks up to 4 gigs are possible.
http://retromaccast.ning.com/photo/large-disk-with-712p

[Sean2300c]

oh sweet! even better :)

[Rowan Pope]

EDIT: Ahh crap, I didn't see the other replies :)


Bear in mind that whilst cleaning has made it work, the capacitors may well leak further and the problem can return. Cleaning the board as you have AND replacing the caps will make it trouble free for years to come, if you're bothered.

The flashing question mark means it's can't find a usable system folder to boot from. It's possible when the machine was working that someone formatted the hard drive to remove their personal data, for example.
Does the hard disk 'sound' ok? When you power the machine on you'll hear the fan of course but the hard disk should spin up and maintain a constant speed and not make clicking noises etc.

You probably want some system disks to try formatting and installing the system on the hard disk.

Do you have any other old Macs? I ask because OS X won't work with images of old system software, you need something like a G3 running OS 9 or earlier to make a 1.44mb floppy disk for the classic II.

Classic II's need system 7.0.1 or later, up to 7.6.1. Anything up to 7.5.5 is freely availible, you can download disk images and then write them to floppies. The first installer disk will have a hard disk format/setup program on it.

From here http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html you probably want the http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Up... etc files

Atleast it's a Classic II... most earlier compact macs couldn't handle 1.44mb disks, only 800k, which is harder to work with these days.

If there is any apple user group near you, someone there might be able to help you get those images onto floppies if you don't have a machine of suitable age.

Interestingly, a little known feature of the Classic (not the classic II) is that it had a small basic version of System 6 in rom! Without a hard disk or floppy, using a certain key sequence you could pretty much instantly boot into this GUI.

[macmedic]

Classic II's are notoriously bad in my experience. I think you'll find you hard disk may be OK, does it "spin up"?

Drives suffer an issue called "stiction" after old age and not being used. The common repair method i use it to remove the drive and "jolt" it in the right direction a few times. I need to make a video and post it on the correct method, its been working for me for years, maybe you can find some info on google until I can get it posted.

[Lars (WhyOSX)]

I know what you mean. That will usually do.
But I don't think these original disks are really worth keeping (in there), so why not replacing them ?

[Russell]

what could i replace it with or where would i find something that isnt equally as old and likely to fail?

[Lars (WhyOSX)]

Since a Classic II doesn't absolutely need an internal, many other external SCSI drives will do.
Most elegant is something as in Damian Ward's wonderful combination here:
http://retromaccast.ning.com/photo/photo/show?id=1672786%3APhoto%3A...
The external disk (one of its partitions) can be the startup volume then.
Such an HD may not be found just around the corner, but possibly built 10 years after your Classic.
Alternatively removable SCSI media may be used, e. g. opticals, Syquest, iomega...
My Classic II with its internal 40MB has a huge 230MB external, runs from 44MB Syquest as backup volume (~same size) as well as from a 100MB zip.
After you have found something like that, there'll be time for further lookouts.
Note: Not all SCSI drives can be used as Macdisks or as startup disks (the Finder/System doesn't provide a driver in these cases) in the first place - a few disk utilities may help.
But you'll still be in need of installing a system at all...
There really is no other SCSI Mac around ?

[Damian Ward]

I second the idea about running from removable media. I had two hard drives fail last week a 40mb and a 80mb. I think the best way to go is Zip, they are fast and quiet. The 100mb of storage should be sufficient for the system and a good selection of applications and games.

[Russell]

i do have a scsi 100mb zip drive but no way to get the driver it needs on the computer