alpert@cs.bu.edu (Richard Alpert) (04/12/91)
A friend of mine is having a problem booting his machine. He doesn't have
access to the net, so I'm posting for him (read as: I don't know all of the
details). He says..... (quote):
I have a MAC SE with a 40MB internal Apple drive (which I believe is
a Quantum drive). Sometimes, when I power on the Mac, the hard drive
is not recognized, and the Mac asks for a floppy to boot from. This
problem is more likely to occur if the Mac has been idle for several
days.
The problem can sometimes be cleared by rebooting one or several times.
The problem can always be cleared (so far) by booting from a floppy
with a SCSI-control CDEV installed. The SCSI CDEV can see the drive,
and mounts it on command. A restart then correctly finds the hard
drive.
The drive always passes Apple diagnostics.
I have been told that "once upon a time" there was a ROM-swap for the
controller board to fix such a problem. The problem was that the
lubricant for the arm in the disk is too thick, and the ROM-swap
exercises the arm on each reboot, thus freeing the arm. Supposedly,
this fix was free "once upon a time".
Any advice on what could really be wrong, and especially on a really
reliable repair facility in the Boston metro. area would be most
appreciated.
Anybody have any idea what his problem might be? Thanks in advance for any
clues you might be able to share.
Peace.
-- Rich
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Richard Alpert
Department of Computer Science
Internet: alpert@cs.bu.edu Boston University
uucp: ...!harvard!alpert Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA
Fax: (617) 353-8100 Telephone: (617) 353-5228