Powerbook 100

Joe,

Have you been able to verify that the 2.5" SCSI hard drives are working (e.g., by installing them into yet another PowerBook)? It could, although it sounds unlikely, be something wrong with all three hard drive controller cards. By "both of the resets" I presume that you mean the Power Manager and the PRAM.

One cause could possibly be some time-related issue, for instance, electrolytic capacitors (in or near PowerBook circuits handling signals to the hard drive) leaking and/or drying out. It might be a good idea to carefully inspect the boards.

Jan

jrw046,

Make a copy of a boot floppy with hard drive setup. Boot from it and see if drive setup can see the drive and format it. That will tell you how far along the diagnostic trail the CPU is going. Can disk first aid see the drives?

Jim

jrw,

We seem to be on at the same time. Years ago I spent several hours on two PB100s to get them back in shape. Sometimes simple connectors do not seat properly so start checking connections if Disk First Aid and Drive Setup do not see the drives.

Jim

Hi Joe,

The disk controller card that you talk about , where is that .

I was thinking of the controller in the hard drive itself.

Circuits in the PowerBook controlling the hard drive are not on a separate board.

I agree, this is confusing. All three hard drives being bad is not very likely. Two bad PowerBook computers; also unlikely. Software on several hard disks suddenly changing during storage; unlikely. However, obviously something has happened. Electrolytic capacitors and batteries are just about the only components affected by time, and you have replaced the batteries.

So, you would have to proceed step by step. Test another disk utility on a floppy. Test the existing hard drives in another PowerBook. Alternatively, test another (known) working hard drive in your PowerBook computers.

Jan

Joe,

The drive can be externally attached to a SCSI port, but you would need a suitable 2.5" connector and a power supply. There were portable enclosures (with DB-25F output) available for such drives; typically with said hard drive connector, a SCSI ID switch and a power jack (an external supply provided 5 V DC).

You could make a Network Access floppy from the download here, if you have access to another older Mac (with a built-in floppy drive). This floppy is bootable. It can be modified to hold Apple HD SC Setup 7.3.5 ( here) or Drive Setup 1.7.3 ( here).

You could also use the Network Access floppy unmodified as intended. A Mac printer cable MiniDIN-8M to MiniDIN-8M can be connected between one of your PowerBook computers and the other machine (the Printer Port). If you boot the PB 100 (with its non-working hard drive installed) from the Network Access disk, you could then use programs (e.g., various disk utilities) placed on the hard disk of the other computer, and should thus be able to run further tests. Alternatively, you could of course use the other SCSI drive that you mentioned above for all this.

Jan

How to test an old PowerBook SCSI drive? Way way back you could buy external cases for these drives. APS used to sell them, they came with an RC car 7.2v battery so they could run portable without AC. Not sure if/where you could find these now other than in a box in our basement...

But it sounds to me like the drives have crashed, that clicking sound is the clue. Although I have seen this with Portables and it turned out that the stock dongle was not putting out enough juice 2A vs 3A of later dongles for the 165c/180c so the drive would not spin up.

PowerBooks weren't an exact science back then and I have a feeling that the designs needed the extra kick from a good battery when plugged into the wall.

Kevin