dandb@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Dean Rubine) (10/16/89)
I have an SE/30 with a 40 Mb internal hard drive. Often, when the computer
is powered up, the system fails to find the hard drive, instead displaying a
picture of a floppy disk with a flashing question mark, as if it's waiting for
me to insert a bootable floppy. The hard disk light flashes briefly,
periodically once per second or so.
If I power cycle the machine (i.e. turn it off and turn it on again) enough
times, eventually the normal hard disk boot happens, and I can use the machine
as normal. Other than this, there have been no problems with the hard disk or
any other hardware.
I've been keeping the machine powered up as long as possible, but
occasionally I do have to power it down and back up again. At first, it only
took a few tries before it would boot properly; however, the last time I tried,
it took about 50 tries before it would work. I'm worried that soon it will
not boot at all from the hard disk.
Has anyone out there experienced this problem, or have any clue as to
what is going on? I assume I will have to bring the machine to some Mac
technician to fix it; I was hoping that if someone already knew what the
problem was, it might save me some repair time and money. Thanks in advance.
--
ARPA: Dean.Rubine@CS.CMU.EDU
PHONE: 412-268-2613 [ Free if you call from work]
US MAIL: Computer Science Dept / Carnegie Mellon U / Pittsburgh PA 15213
DISCLAIMER: My employer wishes I would stop posting and do some work.bauman@shell.com (Evan Bauman) (10/19/89)
In article <6530@pt.cs.cmu.edu> dandb@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Dean Rubine) writes: > I have an SE/30 with a 40 Mb internal hard drive. Often, when the computer >is powered up, the system fails to find the hard drive, instead displaying a >picture of a floppy disk with a flashing question mark, as if it's waiting for >me to insert a bootable floppy. The hard disk light flashes briefly, >periodically once per second or so. > > If I power cycle the machine (i.e. turn it off and turn it on again) enough >times, eventually the normal hard disk boot happens, and I can use the machine >as normal. Other than this, there have been no problems with the hard disk or >any other hardware. > > I've been keeping the machine powered up as long as possible, but >occasionally I do have to power it down and back up again. At first, it only >took a few tries before it would boot properly; however, the last time I tried, >it took about 50 tries before it would work. I'm worried that soon it will >not boot at all from the hard disk. We've seen the same problem in a 40MB internal drive on a Mac II. This Mac II is about 18 months old and has the Apple drive (Quantum?). The symptoms are that when you turn on the power to the Mac, the drive doesn't spin up. Thus, the Finder does not see the drive and blinks the question mark at the center of the Mac icon on the screen. Our solution is to bang on the side of the Mac right before turning on the power. A few good shots and drive powers up and works normally. Unfortunately, due to sometimes erratic temperature fluctuations in our building in the evening, the guy who has the Mac II has to turn it off at night lest it fry. He's been beating on his Mac every morning and gets some strange looks from onlookers in the hallway (we're mostly a PS/2 company and this doesn't help the image of the Mac). We bought the Mac from Businessland and they have made some noises about replacing the drive although I don't know the final disposition. Evan G. Bauman Shell Development Company - Westhollow Research Center PO Box 1380; Houston, TX 77251-1380 bauman@shell.com or for the uucp types: {sun,bcm}!shell!bauman
bmh@demon.siemens.com (Beatrice M Hwong) (10/21/89)
The problem I'm about to describe involves the 40Mb internal in a MacII and the Apple Tape Backup 40SC. A recent drive failure has meant replacing the internal disk2 with a disk3, but now the Apple Tape Backup cannot recover from any tapes created with "volume save" from the past six months. Disk3 can backup and recover a newly created tape. The only old tape that is recoverable is one created over six months ago just before another 40Mb, disk1, failure. The suspicion is that the 40Mb disks are not exactly the same, although the Apple part number would indicate they are. Disk3 is known to be a Sony. The tapes of recent vintage are the ones we need to recover to disk, not the 6 month old tape. Any ideas or suggestions? Beatrice Hwong Siemens Corporate Research 755 College Rd E Princeton, NJ 609-734-3384 bmh@siemens.siemens.com