Save a PowerBook 5300!!!

Read all of the reply answers to the posts you refer to. here's one reply:

+The MACDISK.EXE diskette you created does not contain a System File and will not boot your Mac. It has the important "missing link" Stuffit Expander, which is needed to de-compress any other Mac files you download from the Internet.+

+A diskette inserted at startup has top priority, so if it does not contain a bootable system, it will be ejected.+

You need a CD/floppy copy of the OS you intend to install.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Gabriel,

Yes, as Tom (and Grant Bennet-Alder, earlier) indicated, the MACDISK.EXE file is only supplying you with a fully functional Mac version of StuffIt Expander directly on the PC (to be used for decoding and decompressing on the PowerBook 5300 once it has an operating system). In order to get this to work, it is important to freshly format (the full option) a 1.44 MB PC diskette before you make the floppy. The resulting floppy is not a startup disk.

And, as has been mentioned, (unless your PowerBook 5300 is able to boot to the Desktop on its own, from the internal hard drive) you do need a startup floppy. Have another look at my reply to you under the referred link. It should be possible to create a bootable floppy on a PC from the AtEase-IDE Utility Disk disk image. In that case, as an exception, you will have to use StuffIt (Aladdin) Expander for Windows (e.g. version 2.0) on the PC to decode and decompress the downloaded file. When the disk image is visible, an appropriate disk image utility for Windows should be able to create a correctly sector-copied floppy disk. Once again, use a freshly formatted PC diskette to begin with.

Jan

Drive Setup substitutes spare blocks for ones that cannot hold the pattern of zeroes. Sometimes the replacements have gone bad, too and initialization fails.

Run the Write Zeroes one more time. If it does not work, then you need a new drive.

Hi Gabriel,

Good work.

There should be a sound of a spinning hard disk (but a hard drive can be quite quiet, too).

Also, remember that the Drive Setup version on that floppy is an early one. It is possible to download Drive Setup 1.7.3 and (using a special technique) modify a tools disk; but it will be very difficult without a functioning hard drive in the Mac.

One more thing. The PowerBook 5300 is equipped with two PC Card slots for 16-bit PCMCIA. It is a very good idea to buy an inexpensive PC Card adapter (such as the one here) for CompactFlash memory cards. A CompactFlash card will appear to the PowerBook as an extra hard drive. The CF cards are normally PC-formatted but can be reformatted to Mac.

Jan

Gabriel,

Have a look at the hard drive specifications and dimensions in the PowerBook 5300 document here.

Jan

Addendum

Just to rule out a rather unlikely effect in this very case, try resetting the PRAM and the Power Manager (see KB article # 58416).

BTW, if you need a user's guide for the PB 5300, it can be found here.

Jan

Hi,

A 40 GB hard disk drive capacity should not be a problem per se (see KB article # 11333 about maximum volume size). However, according to Technical Note TN1116, it will not be possible to use SCSI disk mode (i.e. HD Target Mode).

Jan

Hi...I'm trying to wipe the start up hard drive so that I can give this computer to someone but cannot seem to find instructions on how to do this...the "?" says to consult the manual, which, of course, I no longer have :-/
Can someone help me do this? Thanks.

See my reply under your PowerBook 5300cs Question topic.

See also the PowerBook 5300cs OS install topic (link above). There you will find additional information about how to create a bootable floppy using a PC.

Of course, if the PowerBook is fully functional at the moment, you can use it to create a Disk Tools PPC floppy.

A free System 7.5.3 is available for download from Apple (e.g. the North American English version here).

Jan