sdy@ssc-vax.UUCP (03/23/87)
I've recently got a hold of an apple 800k external disk drive for the Mac. Only it doesn't seem to work on my mac. I've tested it on a Mac 512 (original apple - no upgrade) and it seems to work ok, except that my Mac (an original 128k mac with Dr. Dobbs upgrade thanks to a friend) wouldn't read any of the disks that the external drive had formatted. But the real problem is that when I connect the external drive to my machine it won't recognize any disks -- even ones that I've used for months. It either thinks the disks are unrecognizable (initialize or eject ..) or sometimes I'll get a system error box. Now my mac has been running for about a year with this upgrade and I haven't had any problems -- In addition I've used 2 different single sided drives with it and everythings been fine (this was after the upgrade). I seem to remember that some of the earlier Macs had weaker power supplies -- could this be causing my external to croak ?? if so how hard is it to fix (upgrade) the PS?? steven yee. -- Steven D. Yee >>> my employer does not share my opinions <<< uw-beaver!ssc-vax!ssc-bee!sdy >>> (that's because I'm always right! ;-) <<< (chant) We want more! We want more! We want more lines than four!!!!!!!
rs4u#@ANDREW.CMU.EDU.UUCP (03/24/87)
The reason your 800k drive won't work on your old 512K is that you need a copy of the Hard Disk 20 startup software. It's a single file called "Hard Disk 20". Put it on a normal disk, and boot up with that disk. The system will then recognize your 800K external drive. You should try to find version 1.1 of this file, if you can. It's much less buggy than version 1.0. Note that your troubles come from a lack of proper software and not because of any power-supply weaknesses. Hope this helps... --Rich Richard M. Siegel Mail Stop 231 Nasa/Langley Research Center Hampton, Va. 23665 (804) 865-3036