spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (07/31/90)
A friend has told me that this problem sounds familiar, and it may not
be hardware-related, but he doesn't remember the cure when it happened
to his machine some time back. I'm hoping someone out there has heard
of this.
This is on a SE/30 running 6.0.5 with 4MB of memory and a 40MB
internal hard disk (Apple-supplied).
The machine comes up with an alert box that claims that I have an
uninitialized disk in an external drive on the Mac. Unfortunately, I
don't *have* an external disk on the machine! If I click on the
"eject" button in the alert box, it goes away and comes back in
another few seconds.
I've tried rebooting from a clean system disk, and still get the same
problem. I removed my AppleTalk and scanner cables, and the same
thing happens (the only things plugged in being the keyboard and
mouse). I rebuilt the desktop, and zapped the PRAM, and it still
happens. I managed to run disk first aid, but it gave no reports of
problems. I run Gatekeeper and Disinfectant all the time, so I'm sure
it isn't a virus. Besides, the problem happens with a write-protected
emergency boot diskette I have that has been clean for months.
We tried hooking an external diskette drive to that port, and the same
alert message comes up, whether there is a diskette present in the
drive or not. Clicking on the "initialize" button in the alert box
results in another alert message that the disk is write protected and
the initialization failed (regardless of the diskette's writability).
I can send my Mac off to our hardware folks, but I need it in the next
day or so. If it gets sent off, I may not have it back for weeks.
Anything you can suggest or point me to will be greatly appreciated.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf