[comp.sys.mac.hardware] Floppy infinite eject problem

simoni@strat.Stanford.EDU (Richard Simoni) (06/06/90)

I have been trying to connect an 800K Sony floppy disk drive up to the
external drive port of a Mac Plus.  When I turn on the computer the disk
drive immediately begins to infinitely cycle through its eject sequence.
Has anyone else seen this problem?  And of course, does anyone know what the
problem might be?

Thanks,

Rich Simoni
simoni@strat.stanford.edu

paryavi@harris.cis.ksu.edu (Saiid Paryavi) (06/07/90)

In article <9848@lindy.Stanford.EDU> simoni@strat.stanford.edu writes:
>
>I have been trying to connect an 800K Sony floppy disk drive up to the
>external drive port of a Mac Plus.  When I turn on the computer the disk
>drive immediately begins to infinitely cycle through its eject sequence.
>Has anyone else seen this problem?  And of course, does anyone know what the
>problem might be?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Rich Simoni
>simoni@strat.stanford.edu

This happend to me once.  The way I fixed it was to hold down the mouse button
while switching the Mac on (just as you would to eject a stuck floppy).  You
should hold the mouse down until the drive stops ejecting.

Hope this helps.


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In article <9848@lindy.Stanford.EDU> simoni@strat.stanford.edu writes:
>
>I have been trying to connect an 800K Sony floppy disk drive up to the
>external drive port of a Mac Plus.  When I turn on the computer the disk
>drive immediately begins to infinitely cycle through its eject sequence.
>Has anyone else seen this problem?  And of course, does anyone know what the
>problem might be?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Rich Simoni
>simoni@strat.stanford.edu

This happend to me once.  The way I fixed it was to hold down the mouse button
while switching the Mac on (just as you would to eject a stuck floppy).  You
should hold the mouse down until the drive stops ejecting.

Hope this helps.


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Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Floppy infinite eject problem
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In article <9848@lindy.Stanford.EDU> simoni@strat.stanford.edu writes:
>
>I have been trying to connect an 800K Sony floppy disk drive up to the
>external drive port of a Mac Plus.  When I turn on the computer the disk
>drive immediately begins to infinitely cycle through its eject sequence.
>Has anyone else seen this problem?  And of course, does anyone know what the
>problem might be?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Rich Simoni
>simoni@strat.stanford.edu

This happend to me once.  The way I fixed it was to hold down the mouse button
while switching the Mac on (just as you would to eject a stuck floppy).  You
should hold the mouse down until the drive stops ejecting.

Hope this helps.


Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: 
References: 
Sender: 
Followup-To: 
Distribution: world
Organization: Kansas State University, Dept. of Computing and Information Sciences
Keywords: 

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Floppy infinite eject problem
Summary: 
Expires: 
References: <9848@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
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In article <9848@lindy.Stanford.EDU> simoni@strat.stanford.edu writes:
>
>I have been trying to connect an 800K Sony floppy disk drive up to the
>external drive port of a Mac Plus.  When I turn on the computer the disk
>drive immediately begins to infinitely cycle through its eject sequence.
>Has anyone else seen this problem?  And of course, does anyone know what the
>problem might be?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Rich Simoni
>simoni@strat.stanford.edu

This happend to me once.  The way I fixed it was to hold down the mouse button
while switching the Mac on (just as you would to eject a stuck floppy).  You
should hold the mouse down until the drive stops ejecting.

Hope this helps.


--
Saiid Paryavi                      			CIS Department
Internet:  paryavi@harris.cis.ksu.edu			Nichols Hall, KSU
UUCP:      {rutgers, texbell}!ksuvax1!harry!paryavi	Manhattan, KS  66506

francis@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (RD Francis) (06/07/90)

In article <1990Jun6.184414.6765@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> paryavi@harris.cis.ksu.edu (Saiid Paryavi) writes:
>In article <9848@lindy.Stanford.EDU> simoni@strat.stanford.edu writes:
>>I have been trying to connect an 800K Sony floppy disk drive up to the
>>external drive port of a Mac Plus.  When I turn on the computer the disk
>>drive immediately begins to infinitely cycle through its eject sequence.
>>Has anyone else seen this problem?  And of course, does anyone know what the
>>problem might be?

>This happend to me once.  The way I fixed it was to hold down the mouse button
>while switching the Mac on (just as you would to eject a stuck floppy).  You
>should hold the mouse down until the drive stops ejecting.

This happened to me once, too.  I had a hard disk, and I got it to
mount off the hard disk instead of a floppy by holding down the mouse
button for a while (which forced the drive to try to mount the
non-existent disk a little harder, I think -- it wouldn't try to eject
as often) and then letting up on the mouse button.

However, this wasn't a solution, just a way around the problem.  Once
I got booted up off my hard disk, it still thought that there was a
floppy disk in the drive, and told me that it wasn't a Mac disk.  I
had to insert a disk to get any work done.

In addition, doing work off the hard drive took somewhat longer than
usual, and doing work of the floppy disk was, essentailly, impossible.

I took my Mac to the Apple technician where I worked.  He fixed it for
me (of course, since we were an authorized Apple repair place, he had
to give me a new drive, which cost something like $140).  If these are
your symptoms, you have my pity....
--
R David Francis   francis@cis.ohio-state.edu

long@mcntsh.enet.dec.com (Rich Long) (06/07/90)

In article <9848@lindy.Stanford.EDU> simoni@strat.stanford.edu writes:
>I have been trying to connect an 800K Sony floppy disk drive up to the
>external drive port of a Mac Plus.  When I turn on the computer the disk
>drive immediately begins to infinitely cycle through its eject sequence.

I've seen this too, with a Cutting Edge external floppy and a Mac SE.  It's
happened with 6.0.3, .4, and .5.  I haven't the foggiest idea what's causing
it, but sticking a floppy in the drive will usually cure the problem.  Very
weird.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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/''\  /,,  /,,  | ...!decwrl!mcntsh.enet.dec.com!long | seriously; you won't
Richard C. Long | long%mcntsh.dec@decwrl.enet.dec.com | get out alive anyway.

vturner@nmsu.EDU (Vaughan Turner) (06/08/90)

We had a problem similar to this once too.  One of the macs out in the
lab wouldn't take a disk in the external drive to boot up off of.  I
put it in the internal drive, and it still wouldn't take the disk.  I
tried another disk.  Same deal.  I thought it was really serious until
someone noticed that the mouse button was stuck down.

Sometimes the answers to problems can be really dumb.

Hopefully your problem is equally silly.

Hope this helps,

Vaughan
--
Vaughan Turner                               BITNET:    mcswvt@nmsuvm1.bitnet
Box 3AT Computer Center        preferred-->  INTERNET:  vturner@nmsu.edu
Las Cruces, NM 88001

esmith@apple.com (Eric Smith) (06/08/90)

In article <9848@lindy.Stanford.EDU> simoni@strat.stanford.edu writes:
>I have been trying to connect an 800K Sony floppy disk drive up to the
>external drive port of a Mac Plus.  When I turn on the computer the disk
>drive immediately begins to infinitely cycle through its eject sequence.

Disclaimer:  I work for Apple, but my job has nothing to do with disk
drive hardware.  I discovered this information empirically prior to my
employment at Apple, in the process of getting an 800K drive to work on
a Lisa.

I believe that later revisions of the 800K drive (not sure about 1.4M
drives) use one of the signal lines of the 20 conductor ribbon cable as a
dedicated eject line (probably for use in the UniDisk 3.5).  That line was
formerly used as one of the power or ground lines.  Unfortunately, I'm not
sure which line it is.  Anyhow, if you cut that line the drive might work
correctly (it solved the problem for me).  If you look at the ribbon cable
Apple supplies with internal drives, that particular conductor is MISSING.
Just insulation, no copper.

Eric Smith
esmith@apple.com

Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of my
employer, family, friends, computer, or even me!  :-)