elon@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Elon Danziger) (06/26/91)
Greetings. I have a question regarding the problems a friend of mine is
having with a Mac SE. About four months ago, his Mac SE (with 40 meg
Quantum Hard Drive) crashed. What happened was that the hard drive was not
recognized--he'd get the icon of a Mac with a question mark upon startup.
He then brought the computer to his dealer, and had the hard drive replaced.
The dealer told him the old one had been defective. Some time later, the
same thing happened--no recognition of hard drive. He brought the computer
to my house, in hopes that *I* could do something. Surprisingly, when he
brought it to my house, it worked perfectly, and all data was intact. Now,
finally, he is again suffering from the same problem.
It seems that this has happened too many times to be a coincidence, and
I'd like to know if it is possible that somehow other pieces of hardware can
be doing something to his Mac. He has an Apple //c, ImageWriter II, 1200
baud modem, 2400 baud modem, and a ScanMan scanner all clustered near his
Mac. He has an IBM across from the computer, but got that AFTER the first
occurrence. Finally, he has a large stereo with speakers about ten feet
from the computer. Is this a problem which could only be caused by misuse,
or could the hardware be the culprit. Help would be greatly
appreciated--please respond in E-Mail.
Thanks in advance.
-Elon
Elon Danziger, Managing SysOp PHSBBS Princeton High School
DNS: elon@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us UUCP: ...!princeton!phsbbs!elon
US Mail: 17 Chestnut Street / Princeton, NJ 08542
DISCLAIMER: Author bears full responsibility for this message.biesty@ide.com (Bill Biesty) (06/27/91)
In article <miH542w164w@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us> elon@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Elon Danziger) writes: >[describes problem with friend's Mac SE not recognizing hard disk on boot up. > works fine at his house. Mentions lots of electronic equiment near by.] Sound to me like a power drain. With all of that electron equiment sucking up amperage, there probably isn't enough to get the drive spinning. Just because the electronics are plugged into different outlets doesn't mean they all get their own line from the main source. Check the circutry in your building. An easy solution would be to run an extension cord from a socket in another room (and is on another circut!) into the room where the Mac is. You can also get a circut tester from a hardware or electronics store. You might be able to rent one for a day. Turn on all the stuff you usually have on and test the circut. If you are not getting the recommneded amperage, you know why. A cheaper solution than the extension cord might be to power up the mac with all of the other stuff off. The amperage requirements drop off once the drive is up to speed. Then turn the other stuff on. You may still be at risk though with all of the drain on the circut: bad bits, seeks, reads, etc. The safer thing to do is to run another line, but the extension cord ought to do it if its plugged into another circut. Bill Biesty
adchen@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Anthony Dunyeh Chen) (06/27/91)
In article <miH542w164w@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us> elon@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Elon Danziger) writes: [Mac SE won't recognize HD.] >I'd like to know if it is possible that somehow other pieces of hardware can >be doing something to his Mac. He has an Apple //c, ImageWriter II, 1200 >baud modem, 2400 baud modem, and a ScanMan scanner all clustered near his >Mac. He has an IBM across from the computer, but got that AFTER the first >occurrence. Finally, he has a large stereo with speakers about ten feet 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) Here's what you do. Take a good power drill in one hand, the IBM in the other. Using a really, REALLY long drill bit, drill a hole all the way through the monitor. Feed a nice strong cable through this hole. Arc weld the ends of the cable together, drag the assembly out the door and into the yard or some suitably wide space. Don't worry about the rest of the computer, they're all permanently attached to the monitor by their cables, so they'll follow nicely. By calling upon the powers of Greyskull (ala He-man), now swing the unit above your head and throw it into the Pacific Ocean. This does absolutely nothing to help your Mac recognize the hard drive. It does however, make you feel much better 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) Okay okay, I'm going...8-) -Tony Chen adchen@phoenix.princeton.edu