PowerBook 1400CS/133 woes...

[Project Alice]

Hey everyone!

I picked up another Bondi iMac and a PowerBook 1400CS/133 a few days ago. Both are in decent condition and seem work great. I am having problems with the PowerBook though. It was loaded with Mac OS 8.5, but the seller was a lawyer and was very adamant the drives be wiped. I wanted to freshly install 8.6 anyways. Turns out the CD drive does not work. It doesn't spin up at all, with any disc I tried. So I opened it up, thinking it would be standard ATA like every other laptop optical drive I've ever seen..Nope! It actually uses the 2.5" HDD PATA standard, I've never seen that before, and I spent an hour searching eBay and other sites to no avail.

The past couple nights I have been trying to get an OS on the PB. I got 8.6 installed on sheepshaver, then I stuck the drive into one of my TiBooks (basically used as my DIY IDE enclosure since I don't actually own an IDE enclosure) and cloned it over. Stuck the drive back into the PB1400 and it doesn't work. The drive clicks on and off with the flashing question mark floppy. I did this with both the factory 1.3GB drive, and a 30GB (I tried the 30GB first wanting an upgrade, but tried again with the original drive to see if the size was a problem). I then tried again formatting as Mac OS Standard instead of HFS+ as the original installation was Standard. That didn't work either.

I tested one more thing, to make sure I didn't ruin the drive cable or something. I have the original 2GB drive from my wallstreet PowerBook that is failing (insanely loud and sounds like it has a "rod knock" lol). I plugged it in and turned on the 1400. It actually works! Although it wouldn't actually finish booting as the drive had 9.2.2 installed on it which gives an error; the important part is it actually recognized the drive and attempted to boot an OS.

I don't know what to do. If I could find a working CD drive I'm certain that would solve all of these problems. But they apparently don't exist. I could try a floppy installation? Macintosh Repository has 8.0 install floppies (but not the Garden for some reason?) Problem is I only own like 6 floppy disks, not 27. I'm not even sure the 1400 supports booting floppies, or if it even supports regular 1.44MB disks (which is all I have).
I don't have any laptops other than the 1400 and my wallstreet that even support 8.6 otherwise I would do it that way. I suppose I could get a 2.5" IDE to 3.5" adapter and stick it in either a Beige G3 or my B&W but I still don't know if that would even solve the problem.

 

[Nermal]

The CD drive is part number 661-1358 and putting that number into Google found a few hits, including this one that claims to be in stock (I've never heard of that site though so can't vouch for its reliability).

As for the floppy drive, yes, it handles standard high density 1.44 MB disks.

 

[repairedCheese]

Now I know it's a risk, but:

Apple Macintosh PowerBook 1400 Series 1400cs Laptop M3571 for sale online | eBay

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This is NOT my auction, and maybe the cd-rom drive has the same issue, but until you can fix that, it's always going to be trouble.

But that said, given its age, I would expect it to be able to boot off floppies and also be able to read 1.44mb disks. If only Mac OS 8.5 has the nuts Windows 95 Floppy treatment. What I am curious about is how that hard drive from the Wallstreet handles in the TiBook. Is there anything different about the partitioning? Because I do know those emulators can be a little less strict about how that sort of thing works.

Edit: I see @Nermal may have found a better solution. Still, I also worry about those reliability concerns. But I'd spend the $10 trying to get one of those, if it were me.

 

[AphoticD]

The 1400 can boot from a PC Card CF Adapter. I bought an adapter on eBay for a couple of dollars and it has solved quite a few puzzles like this for me with a few PC Card capable PowerBooks (including my PDQs)

I can’t remember the specifics, but there was a slightly different “keying” between the different PC Cards ( 16-bit vs 32-bit if I recall correctly).

After some trial and error, I found that I could use a knife to “hack” my “32-bit” CF Adapter and cut out the keying in the side channel to allow it to slide into the PB1400’s 16-bit bays.

The CF adapter itself is dumb in that it simply routes the pins. So no harm in enabling it to be compatible in both a 16 and 32-bit slot.

I setup a 1GB CF Card with the Disk Tools (floppy) System Folder, Drive Setup, Disk Copy etc and the Mac OS 8.0 + 8.1 installation img’s so I could erase and reinstall without a CD drive.

 

[galgot]

Hey everyone!

I picked up another Bondi iMac and a PowerBook 1400CS/133 a few days ago. Both are in decent condition and seem work great. I am having problems with the PowerBook though. It was loaded with Mac OS 8.5, but the seller was a lawyer and was very adamant the drives be wiped. I wanted to freshly install 8.6 anyways. Turns out the CD drive does not work. It doesn't spin up at all, with any disc I tried. So I opened it up, thinking it would be standard ATA like every other laptop optical drive I've ever seen..Nope! It actually uses the 2.5" HDD PATA standard, I've never seen that before, and I spent an hour searching eBay and other sites to no avail.

The past couple nights I have been trying to get an OS on the PB. I got 8.6 installed on sheepshaver, then I stuck the drive into one of my TiBooks (basically used as my DIY IDE enclosure since I don't actually own an IDE enclosure) and cloned it over. Stuck the drive back into the PB1400 and it doesn't work. The drive clicks on and off with the flashing question mark floppy. I did this with both the factory 1.3GB drive, and a 30GB (I tried the 30GB first wanting an upgrade, but tried again with the original drive to see if the size was a problem). I then tried again formatting as Mac OS Standard instead of HFS+ as the original installation was Standard. That didn't work either.

I tested one more thing, to make sure I didn't ruin the drive cable or something. I have the original 2GB drive from my wallstreet PowerBook that is failing (insanely loud and sounds like it has a "rod knock" lol). I plugged it in and turned on the 1400. It actually works! Although it wouldn't actually finish booting as the drive had 9.2.2 installed on it which gives an error; the important part is it actually recognized the drive and attempted to boot an OS.

I don't know what to do. If I could find a working CD drive I'm certain that would solve all of these problems. But they apparently don't exist. I could try a floppy installation? Macintosh Repository has 8.0 install floppies (but not the Garden for some reason?) Problem is I only own like 6 floppy disks, not 27. I'm not even sure the 1400 supports booting floppies, or if it even supports regular 1.44MB disks (which is all I have).
I don't have any laptops other than the 1400 and my wallstreet that even support 8.6 otherwise I would do it that way. I suppose I could get a 2.5" IDE to 3.5" adapter and stick it in either a Beige G3 or my B&W but I still don't know if that would even solve the problem.

Maybe the 8.6 system you cloned is not "blessed" ? If you can mount that drive back in sheepShaver, move the Finder file from the 8.6 System Folder on to the desktop, then drag it back to the System Folder (the icon should show an happy mac, which means its "blessed" for boot).

CF card is also a solution.

Or if you already have a Wallstreet, there is a way to boot the PB1400 in disk mode and the HD will mount on the Wallstreet desktop, But you need a scsi cable and these HD30 scsi adapters for PowerBook.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I actually have this exact model of 1400. I can confirm it is able to boot from HD floppies. What I did to get both 8.1 and 7.6 installed was to boot from the disk tools floppy for the respective version of the Mac OS and use an image of the install CD that I put on a CF card to install the OS.

I stuck the install disc image on a CF card along with this utility, which allowed me to mount the image easily: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/virtual-dvd-romcd-utility

I just checked and it appears there isn't an 8.6 disk tools, but the 8.1 disk tools should work fine: http://obsolete.macfixer.com/vintage-software/

 

[Project Alice]

I finally got it to work.
I hooked up my B&W, and the TiBook to it in target disk mode. Just formatted it again in OS 9 to Mac OS Standard (I don’t know if that makes a difference or not) and ran the 8.6 installer right from OS 9. I couldn’t actually get the B&W to boot 8.6 for some reason, it is pretty heavily upgraded with a G4 and a Geforce 5200, and also has an ATA133 card so that could’ve been why. But it let me run 8.6’s installer from within OS9.

I wonder if it was a ‘bless’ problem like one of you said. But it seems happy now with the 30GB drive. I forgot to copy carbon lib 1.6 so I’m gonna have to take it apart again later but at least it takes 30 seconds to do.

I might invest in a CF card to use as a means of file transfer like you guys suggested. I already have a reader, no idea if its 16bit or not. If I can find the original drive that was inside my iPod Mini I could probably just use that...

I am really happy I got it working though. This is my first Pre-G3 powerbook (I do have a powerbook 190 that I got at an ewaste center but it has no power cable and looks pretty bad) I’ll probably end up buying that CD drive because that would make life a lot easier if it works. A CD drive is massively important as I found out when I used to own my 6500. It’s even nice for my desktop G3; 10mb ethernet is useless connecting to my NAS it’s literally faster to put stuff on a CD lol

Does 8.6 have USB support at all? I know it does on an iMac. I have a USB 2.0 card that I normally share between my Pismo and TiBook, I’m pretty certain it was recognized in OS9. When I stuck it into the 1400 it thought I plugged in a 2MB disk and offered to initialize it. And system profiler doesn’t show anything about the cardbus slots.

 

[Amethyst1]

Does 8.6 have USB support at all?

Yes, since it's the default OS for the Lombard and that also has USB ports. You need an update to use USB mass storage devices though. However, I have no idea what the state of affairs is with regards to pcmcia usb cards.

 

[weckart]

I've been here before. The 1400 if IIRR uses a Teac CD-224E optical drive. You will have to bridge two of the contacts on the adapter to set it from master to slave or the CD drive won't be recognised.

Also, that drive is notorious for the azimuth to go off, so you could try adjusting the screw on your existing drive near the laser but it is laborious having to guess which direction and shutting down your PB every guess to pull the drive out to fiddle with the screw.

[edit]
Found a guide as most have died and you get to practise your French, too. Win/win. I made a booboo earlier - the PB wants to see a master drive. Some 224E drives are configured that way, some as slaves. If you cannot boot from your drive, you will probably need to short pins 45 and 47.

Un lecteur de CD-ROM 24x dans un PowerBook 1400 - Le journal du lapin

Le journal du lapin, mon espace personnel ou je parle de trucs retro, d'expérimentations et de produits Apple. Et évidemment de prototypes.

www.journaldulapin.com

and the guide it referenced from (in English)

| macdan | PBs 1999 + 2000 optical EBM sled |

 

[galgot]

@weckart , Teac CD-224E yes it is, forgotten what model it was, I had mine from an old Toshiba Satellite wreck.
All the others original PB1400 cd drives I have wouldn't work.

Another cool thing to have for the PB1400 is a 3com etherlink iii lan ethernet pc card 3c589d :

Can be found cheap on the bay. Carefull though, it *needs* the plastic Ethernet adapter shown on the pict to connect the cable. Some sell the card without it (the plastic adapter is the most fragile piece, and easy to lose, after years peoples only find themselves with the card only...pretty useless). So better ask the seller if the adapter is included before buying.
Then get the driver Cameron Kaiser hacked to make it work properly :

EtherLink III PCMCIA cards and the Mac Powerbooks

www.floodgap.com

Works fine on my 1400s from System 7.6 to OS9.

 

[Nermal]

You need an update to use USB mass storage devices though.

In my experience they don't work 'nicely' in 8.6 even with the update. If I try to eject my flash drive it just immediately remounts. If I unplug it without ejecting then it pops up a modal window asking me to plug it back in. Having to reboot to eject the drive got old quickly.

 

[AphoticD]

I bought a Lucent ORiNOCO Silver 802.11b Card which works well in the PB1400 under Mac OS 8.6 and at 11Mbps is technically faster than a 10baseT Ethernet Card

The “Gold” model Card is also available, not sure of the difference. Both have drivers for System 7.6 (which might be 7.5.5 compatible?)

It feels a bit special to be able to wirelessly point the old ‘book to sites like http://www.system7today.com (which recently made a comeback)

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I bought a Lucent ORiNOCO Silver 802.11b Card which works well in the PB1400 under Mac OS 8.6 and at 11Mbps is technically faster than a 10baseT Ethernet Card

The “Gold” model Card is also available, not sure of the difference. Both have drivers for System 7.6 (which might be 7.5.5 compatible?)

It feels a bit special to be able to wirelessly point the old ‘book to sites like http://www.system7today.com (which recently made a comeback)

I have a Silver too and it works amazingly for my uses

 

[Project Alice]

I've been here before. The 1400 if IIRR uses a Teac CD-224E optical drive. You will have to bridge two of the contacts on the adapter to set it from master to slave or the CD drive won't be recognised.

Also, that drive is notorious for the azimuth to go off, so you could try adjusting the screw on your existing drive near the laser but it is laborious having to guess which direction and shutting down your PB every guess to pull the drive out to fiddle with the screw.

[edit]
Found a guide as most have died and you get to practise your French, too. Win/win. I made a booboo earlier - the PB wants to see a master drive. Some 224E drives are configured that way, some as slaves. If you cannot boot from your drive, you will probably need to short pins 45 and 47.

Un lecteur de CD-ROM 24x dans un PowerBook 1400 - Le journal du lapin

Le journal du lapin, mon espace personnel ou je parle de trucs retro, d'expérimentations et de produits Apple. Et évidemment de prototypes.

www.journaldulapin.com

and the guide it referenced from (in English)

| macdan | PBs 1999 + 2000 optical EBM sled |

I tried purchasing from the link nermal posted but the site isn't working. I get to checkout and it forces me to create an account, but keeps telling me I have to provide an email address even though I've already typed it in.
I don't think my drive is having a jumper problem as it doesn't spin up at all. An optical drive connected to power but nothing else will always spin up a disc when inserted.

@weckart , Teac CD-224E yes it is, forgotten what model it was, I had mine from an old Toshiba Satellite wreck.
All the others original PB1400 cd drives I have wouldn't work.

Another cool thing to have for the PB1400 is a 3com etherlink iii lan ethernet pc card 3c589d :
View attachment 1744191
Can be found cheap on the bay. Carefull though, it *needs* the plastic Ethernet adapter shown on the pict to connect the cable. Some sell the card without it (the plastic adapter is the most fragile piece, and easy to lose, after years peoples only find themselves with the card only...pretty useless). So better ask the seller if the adapter is included before buying.
Then get the driver Cameron Kaiser hacked to make it work properly :

EtherLink III PCMCIA cards and the Mac Powerbooks

www.floodgap.com

Works fine on my 1400s from System 7.6 to OS9.

I have been unsuccessful at getting 8.6 on my Beige G3 to connect to my NAS or my Mini, as much as ethernet would be nice I don't think I'd get any use out of it unless I installed 9.2. I ordered a CF card and a FireWire reader for it. I think that will be a good way to get files back and forth on the device.

Yes, since it's the default OS for the Lombard and that also has USB ports. You need an update to use USB mass storage devices though. However, I have no idea what the state of affairs is with regards to pcmcia usb cards.

In my experience they don't work 'nicely' in 8.6 even with the update. If I try to eject my flash drive it just immediately remounts. If I unplug it without ejecting then it pops up a modal window asking me to plug it back in. Having to reboot to eject the drive got old quickly.

If my PowerBook had more than 32MB of RAM I'd consider installing 9.2 on it. That would definitely increase compatibility. Aside from a few older versions of the built in apps and tools I don't really see much of a difference between 8.6 and 9.2..And why Apple made 9.2 the same requirements as Mac OS X is beyond me, when 9.2 runs far better than 9.0 and 9.1 do.
9.2 ran great on my old PowerMac 6500/250. I think it also had 32MB but I can't remember. But 250MHz is significantly faster.

All in all this is cool little machine. It has a clear plastic cover on the front. I heard somewhere that there's a version of Clarisworks that has a template for it. Anybody know which version that might be?

 

[RogerWilco6502]

All in all this is cool little machine. It has a clear plastic cover on the front. I heard somewhere that there's a version of Clarisworks that has a template for it. Anybody know which version that might be?

Not the Claris files, but an archive of the template and pack-in pictures: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/powerbook-1400-cover-templates

Have fun! I put a lovely anime wallpaper in mine.

One thing to note is that the template is ever so slightly too big for a standard 8.5"x11" sheet of paper, so I went to Staples to get it printed and it worked fine.

 

[weckart]

I tried purchasing from the link nermal posted but the site isn't working. I get to checkout and it forces me to create an account, but keeps telling me I have to provide an email address even though I've already typed it in.

Teac Cd224e for sale | eBay

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Fill your boots. Loads on sale but do remember the azimuth issue. I have four PB1400s and the optical only works on one. I got fed up adjusting and just use a CF to PCMCIA adapter, which is my go to for all pre-Lombard PowerBooks.

All in all this is cool little machine. It has a clear plastic cover on the front.

Most 1400s had those. The rest had a removable opaque grey cover, which I didn't quite understand. I have a full set of inserts for two of mine but never bothered with them as they were a tad too much on the garish side for my liking.

 

[galgot]

There was a number of specific PB1400 updates. Seems all were for System 7.5.3 to 7.6.1. But I don't know if the stuffs were all addressed with "universal" installs of later OS 8 to 9...
Here they are attached if of some help and for the sake of collection ;
- pb1400flash was to fix bug with certain pcmcia cards.
- pb1400floppy was to fix floppy drive not reading dos formate floppies under 7.5 ( pretty useless...)
- pb1400pmu was to fix problems with the contrast and brightness control buttons.
- pb1400vm fixed stability issues with virtual memory under 7.6.
- climatecontrol was an extension to fix unexpected movements of the pointer caused by moisture on the trackpad or humidity. The extension is designed for the Macintosh PowerBook 190, Macintosh PowerBook 1400, and Macintosh PowerBook Duo 2300.

 

[Project Alice]

Teac Cd224e for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for Teac Cd224e at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

Fill your boots. Loads on sale but do remember the azimuth issue. I have four PB1400s and the optical only works on one. I got fed up adjusting and just use a CF to PCMCIA adapter, which is my go to for all pre-Lombard PowerBooks.

I did order a 32GB CF card that I'll use for at least getting files to and from it easily.

I also ordered series of adapters..I'm going to attempt to connect either a standard ATAPI laptop drive to the PowerBook, or a SATA one. I'm hoping it works. We'll see.
Even the drive matching the model number on eBay have an atapi, not the 44 pin IDE the PB1400 has on it's drive. So I'm gonna try this. In theory it should just be a matter of going from the 44 pin IDE in the PB's enclosure to either SATA, ATAPI, or 40 pin IDE.

 

[weckart]

I did order a 32GB CF card that I'll use for at least getting files to and from it easily.

I also ordered series of adapters..I'm going to attempt to connect either a standard ATAPI laptop drive to the PowerBook, or a SATA one. I'm hoping it works. We'll see.
Even the drive matching the model number on eBay have an atapi, not the 44 pin IDE the PB1400 has on it's drive. So I'm gonna try this. In theory it should just be a matter of going from the 44 pin IDE in the PB's enclosure to either SATA, ATAPI, or 40 pin IDE.

I take it that you have ordered SATA adapters? The CD-224E is an ATAPI drive IIRR. The PB mount contains an ATAPI adapter. The only reason to plump for that particular drive is that the eject button lines up with the cover for the PB1400. Conceivably, there may be others that will work just as well and may be a bit more reliable in their lasers' not going out of true.

 

[Project Alice]

I take it that you have ordered SATA adapters? The CD-224E is an ATAPI drive IIRR. The PB mount contains an ATAPI adapter. The only reason to plump for that particular drive is that the eject button lines up with the cover for the PB1400. Conceivably, there may be others that will work just as well and may be a bit more reliable in their lasers' not going out of true.

I got one of those and also 44pin to 40 pin IDE. I'll be doing some experimenting when it all gets here.

I tore my drive apart..It is not ATAPI. It is 44pin IDE. If it had a way to connect an ATAPI drive to it I'd just pull one out of one of old ThinkPads or something. The problem is I've never seen an optical drive use 44pin IDE in my life. They've all been ATAPI or that weird mini-SATA port.

 

[MichaelLAX]

I did order a 32GB CF card that I'll use for at least getting files to and from it easily...

Please link to this CF card; thank you.

 

[Project Alice]

Please link to this CF card; thank you.

It’s a Lexar Pro 1066x model. I have the same one in a 128GB varient in an iPod Mini.
I think I got it from Amazon. They’re readily available on most sites that sell that kind of stuff.