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Macintosh Plus External Drive Recognition Issue

HunterCupp

HunterCupp

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 13, 2014
140
8
Columbus, OH
Hello, all.

Today, I picked up a Macintosh Plus with an external DirectDrive 20 by Jasmine drive. The Mac had supposedly not been touched for at least 15 years and still had everything plugged in the right places.

I powered the drive on and waited about 10 seconds, then powered the Mac on. I was greeted by the 'Happy Mac' icon, and assumed there was an OS installed. About 15 seconds later, the screen flickered somewhat and the 'No Disk' icon was shown instead.

Not sure why this is happening, but hopefully someone else can help me out here. I put in a system disk and the drive doesn't appear to show anywhere. Also not sure why this would occur, as I'm pretty sure that the drive was formatted at some point in the past to work with the Mac. (I've never used an external HDD on an older Macintosh before, so this is new to me.)

I've attached photos in case they may help.

Thanks,
-Hunter
 

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I don't have any experience with that drive, but the first thing that catches my eye is that the drive does not appear to be terminated. Normally, there would either be a switch on the back of the drive to turn termination on/off, or there would be an external terminator plugged into the other port 50-pin Centronics port on the back of the drive.

Look through the "stuff" you got with the computer and see if there's a small metal or plastic block with the 50-pin connector on it. It may or may not say "SCSI Terminator" on it, or words to that effect. If not, these are not difficult to find on Ebay.
 
bunnspecial said:
I don't have any experience with that drive, but the first thing that catches my eye is that the drive does not appear to be terminated. Normally, there would either be a switch on the back of the drive to turn termination on/off, or there would be an external terminator plugged into the other port 50-pin Centronics port on the back of the drive.

Look through the "stuff" you got with the computer and see if there's a small metal or plastic block with the 50-pin connector on it. It may or may not say "SCSI Terminator" on it, or words to that effect. If not, these are not difficult to find on Ebay.
Click to expand...

Hello, bunnspecial!

I couldn't find anything that matched what you described. I looked up "SCSI Terminator" and now know what they look like. I called the guy that I purchased the Mac from and he said that he didn't recall anything like that. He said that he knows "for sure" that everything worked at the time it was last used. (Probably the early to mid 90s) Nothing was left out that he knows of, but will take a second look around.

I'm hoping that the SCSI terminator is the issue.

Thanks,
-Hunter
 
keysersoze said:
I think you need to insert a terminator between the cable and the drive-- kind of like the third picture that shows the terminator hanging off the back. Yours is missing that?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DirectDrive...053?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c4dd5750d

At least that's how my external SCSI drive works with my Plus.
Click to expand...

Hello, keysersoze!

I am indeed missing a SCSI terminator. As seen in the picture am uploading, I do not appear to have one of these. I will in the near future, be purchasing one of these and will update from there.

Thanks,
-Hunter
 

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The terminator might be your problem. But it also might be the case that the drive isn't able to overcome the static friction of hardened lubricants... so-called "stiction" that keeps the drive from ever spinning up. It's hard to tell if the case the drive is in also has a fan, so you have to listen for distinct drive spin-up sounds (probably similar to a jet engine spooling up, given the drive's age). I have resorted to halting to fan by mechanical means (i.e. something small like a tooth pick or my finger) so I can listen specifically for the drive. If it's not spinning... you get a blinking question mark.
 
David Schmidt said:
The terminator might be your problem. But it also might be the case that the drive isn't able to overcome the static friction of hardened lubricants... so-called "stiction" that keeps the drive from ever spinning up. It's hard to tell if the case the drive is in also has a fan, so you have to listen for distinct drive spin-up sounds (probably similar to a jet engine spooling up, given the drive's age). I have resorted to halting to fan by mechanical means (i.e. something small like a tooth pick or my finger) so I can listen specifically for the drive. If it's not spinning... you get a blinking question mark.
Click to expand...

Hello, David Schmidt!

I'm pretty sure that the drive can spin up fine! Sounds like it to me, anyway. I've attached a one minute audio clip link of the startup of the drive, if you want to listen for yourself.

Thanks,
-Hunter

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2lrb38zhn8etbmr/Macintosh HDD.m4a?dl=0
 
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Sounds like the drive is spinning up fine.

I would suggest turning the drive on FIRST, then waiting until the drive stops the calibration sounds and settles, then turn on the Mac.

The Jasmine formatter notes that some partitions may not be 'automounted' unless the Jasmine control panel is installed in the system you're booting from.

SCSIProbe might be able to do the same and will also tell you if the drive can be seen on the SCSI Bus.

The Jasmine formatter allows setting partitions to 'automount' or 'manual mount'.

The Jasmine formatter also allows for setting a partition as a 'startup partition'.

It's also possible that the designated 'startup partition' does NOT contain a valid 'System Folder'.
 
scsi termination

You are missing a terminator, maybe because he had another scsi device and it was terminated like a zip drive.

Without the terminator the plus won't boot from the drive "IF" the system software is still on the drive. He may have copied and wiped said drive when put away. Lots of people know not what they do to these things until its too late. Just look at all the idiots who ruin newer iMac to remove the hard disk and kill the glass, the temp sensor and video cable to get a 50 dollar hard drive out of it. Why not just format the damn thing and be done?
 
MacTech68 said:
I would suggest turning the drive on FIRST, then waiting until the drive stops the calibration sounds and settles, then turn on the Mac.
Click to expand...

Hello, MacTech68! (Long time no see, eh?)

Here's a link to a video I made following your suggestion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UejCCYXLyNA

Sorry about the 360p quality. Not sure why it uploaded like that :/

Thanks,
-Hunter

EDIT: Fixed the quality issue. Back to good ol' 1080p haha!

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havokalien said:
You are missing a terminator, maybe because he had another scsi device and it was terminated like a zip drive.

Without the terminator the plus won't boot from the drive "IF" the system software is still on the drive. He may have copied and wiped said drive when put away. Lots of people know not what they do to these things until its too late. Just look at all the idiots who ruin newer iMac to remove the hard disk and kill the glass, the temp sensor and video cable to get a 50 dollar hard drive out of it. Why not just format the damn thing and be done?
Click to expand...

Hello, havokalien!

I'll definitely be purchasing a terminator off of eBay then.

I get what you mean about that. It'd be a lot easier to just format it instead of basically ripping the thing apart damaging it in the process.

Thanks,
-Hunter
 
I don't think it's a termination issue, I've never seen a termination issue start to boot. I think it's a bad system install.
 
plus termination

The plus has no internal termination because it has no hard drive. He needs termination. A bad install it could be but that does not change the fact it needs terminated. The Apple SCSI HD20 came with a terminator so thats a first issue regardless.
 
I still say you need to get a boot floppy with SCSIProbe on it to check what the mac is seeing.

I does sound like it's an old Seagate ST-225 drive but whether it's a ST-514/506 interface with a SCSI interface or a plain SCSI drive, I'm not sure.

Looking at a current sale on eBay, the cases can be fitted with a 5 1/4" or 3.5" drive.

The problem is, I saw many external boxes modified over the years (and even did plenty myself) where the original drive was swapped out with a newer one. It depends on how much attention the tech paid to detail as to what was done. Some hard-wired the SCSI ID, some laboriously hooked up the SCSI ID wiring. Some were internally terminated with no external indication that it was.

So, it depends on what you've got - original or modified.

ALSO note: I can't find any reference, but some drives had a SCSI ID switch that had more than 7 positions - the upper 7 (7-D) were termination on, and the lower 7 (0-6) were termination off or something similar.

It certainly won't hurt to try an external terminator, but I suspect the system folder on the drive is hosed in some way. As such, a boot floppy with a SCSI mounter might help to find out what's going on.

I have the original Jasmine formatter program (Jasmine Driveware v2.1.1) which is system 7 compatible but I DON'T have the control panel - essential for mounting a non-automount drive and performing some of the tests within Driveware. :(
 
MacTech68 said:
I can't find any reference, but some drives had a SCSI ID switch that had more than 7 positions - the upper 7 (7-D) were termination on, and the lower 7 (0-6) were termination off or something similar.

It certainly won't hurt to try an external terminator, but I suspect the system folder on the drive is hosed in some way. As such, a boot floppy with a SCSI mounter might help to find out what's going on.

I have the original Jasmine formatter program (Jasmine Driveware v2.1.1) which is system 7 compatible but I DON'T have the control panel - essential for mounting a non-automount drive and performing some of the tests within Driveware. :(
Click to expand...

MacTech68

I have (not on hand at the moment) an external 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive to USB and some 400K/800K/1.44MB floppies.

Could I find the image somewhere, "burn" the software and 7.1 to a 800K floppy through my MacBook and the USB Floppy Drive, then run it on my Plus? I'm not sure if that is something that I can do or not.

Thanks,
-Hunter

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catzilla said:
I don't think it's a termination issue, I've never seen a termination issue start to boot. I think it's a bad system install.
Click to expand...

Hello, catzilla!

That is what I was thinking at first as well, but eh.

The drive doesn't even show on the desktop. I have no idea how to go about repairing the install if it is damaged.

Although, like MacTech68 said, it would do me some good to use that software 'SCSIProbe' to figure some stuff out.

Thanks,
-Hunter
 
HunterCupp said:
MacTech68

I have (not on hand at the moment) an external 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive to USB and some 400K/800K/1.44MB floppies.

Could I find the image somewhere, "burn" the software and 7.1 to a 800K floppy through my MacBook and the USB Floppy Drive, then run it on my Plus? I'm not sure if that is something that I can do or not.

Thanks,
-Hunter

----------
Click to expand...
No. You can't create 800K disks from a USB floppy drive. Do you have another Mac ? :eek:
 
HunterCupp said:
MacTech68

That's unfortunate :(

Luckily, I do! I have several!

I've got three more Plus(es), a Classic on the way, and a 512k.

Thanks,
-Hunter
Click to expand...

The Classic will be your 'bridge' machine - you'll be able to put software on a 1.4 MB floppy disk via the USB drive - then copy it on the Classic from 1.4 MB to 800k or 400k floppy.

One big note: Only use 1.4 MB disks in a 1.4 MB-capable drive, don't try to reformat a 1.4 MB disk as 800k or 400k. It will be very unreliable at 800k/400k, and will never be reliably usable at 1.4 MB again, either.

Find 800k (also called 720k, also called 1 MB, also called DSDD,) disks for the 800k/400k use. (You can format an 800k disk to 400k no problem.)
 
Anonymous Freak said:
The Classic will be your 'bridge' machine - you'll be able to put software on a 1.4 MB floppy disk via the USB drive - then copy it on the Classic from 1.4 MB to 800k or 400k floppy.
Click to expand...

Hello, Anonymous Freak!

Since I don't have the Classic at the moment and it would probably be a couple weeks until I receive it. Is there another way?

Thanks,
-Hunter
 
HunterCupp said:
Hello, Anonymous Freak!

Since I don't have the Classic at the moment and it would probably be a couple weeks until I receive it. Is there another way?

Thanks,
-Hunter
Click to expand...

No. No "standard PC" 1.4 MB drive can write to Mac 800k or 400k disks. There are other ways to do it, but the require special hardware. Since you're already getting a Classic, you might as well just wait for it.
 
Anonymous Freak said:
No. No "standard PC" 1.4 MB drive can write to Mac 800k or 400k disks. There are other ways to do it, but the require special hardware. Since you're already getting a Classic, you might as well just wait for it.
Click to expand...

Anonymous Freak

I have a SCSI Terminator in post and should receive it by this weekend. Hoping that fixes the issue. If not, I guess we'll just have to wait for the Classic.

I'll try contacting the guy I'm purchasing it from to see if we could do it sooner than originally planned. I'll see if I can get it sometime this week.

Thanks,
-Hunter

EDIT
------
Upon further inspection, the "Classic" appears to actually be a Classic II! Hopefully that won't be an issue.
 
Last edited:
UPDATE

Since my last post, I've contacted the seller of the Classic II and he mentioned something I completely forgot about; This particular Classic II has a problem in which there are "vertical bars" across the screen when you power the Mac on.

Knowing very little about this issue, I ask for help with this, also.

Should I start a new thread for this specifically, or could we work on it from here?

I should be acquiring the Classic II on Thursday (as now planned) and will post pictures of the problem once I get the chance.

Thanks,
-Hunter

EDIT
------
After a bit of research, I've read that literally soaking the board in soap-water will help/temporarily resolve the issue. I have heard of washing old Mac boards, but didn't know it was for this specific problem. I may consider doing this, but personally would like to do more than just "temporarily resolve the issue".
 
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To all,

I got bored and decided to make a 'process graph' of sorts on how to get software transferred from a newer computer to my mac, via floppy.

PC+USB Floppy+1.4MB > MCII+1.4MB(copy files to)800K > MP+800K

Is this process correct?

Thanks,
-Hunter
 

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HunterCupp said:
To all,

I got bored and decided to make a 'process graph' of sorts on how to get software transferred from a newer computer to my mac, via floppy.

PC+USB Floppy+1.4MB > MCII+1.4MB(copy files to)800K > MP+800K

Is this process correct?

Thanks,
-Hunter
Click to expand...
Yup. That's exactly it.

(and I'd start a new thread for the classic II)
 
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