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 = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = 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