How to boot Power Macintosh (Performa) 6200 from a floppy?

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Level 1

16 points

How to boot Power Macintosh (Performa) 6200 from a floppy?

Just found in my parent's house old Power Macintosh 6200/75, 16 MB of Ram, no CD, some custom Ethernet card (something like Dyna), apple 500 MB hdd.

It runs Mac OS 7.5.1 and has At Ease for Workgroups 3.0.1 installed with everything locked except KidPix and Claris Works.

I want to get rid of At Ease, but administartor password is gone.

Recently I found an article in internet with advice to boot from floppy.

I've created a boot floppy from System 7.5 Network Access image with DD command in Terminal, but when I try to boot it says that "This startup disk will not work on this Macintosh model. Use the latest installer to update this disk for this model." Then I found, that there is a special boot floppy for At Ease 3, but with it I still get the same message. Floppy drive is OK and reads and writes disk perfectly.

Is there any way to boot that crap? (It reminds me about my childhood when I used it).

Power Macintosh 6200-OTHER, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier

Posted on Mar 2, 2012 12:35 AM

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Answer 1

kurt188

Level 4

1,340 points

Mar 2, 2012 5:55 AM in response to RainbowLynx

You may have to just wipe the whole drive and reinstall the OS version of your choice.

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Answer 2

RainbowLynx Author

Level 1

16 points

Mar 2, 2012 5:56 AM in response to kurt188

The problem is that I can't install OS without booting from floppy. Macintosh boots into At Ease.

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Answer 3

kurt188

Level 4

1,340 points

Mar 2, 2012 6:05 AM in response to RainbowLynx

You can't even boot from the System Utilities disk, used to format the hard drive?

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Answer 4

kurt188

Level 4

1,340 points

Mar 2, 2012 6:09 AM in response to kurt188

Check out this Apple Knowledge Base document: https://support.apple.com/kb/TA29978?viewlocale=en_US

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Answer 5

RainbowLynx Author

Level 1

16 points

Mar 2, 2012 6:16 AM in response to kurt188

I can't find it's image. All disk tools images from Apple, that I've tried became non-readable after writing them on floppy.

At Ease Bypassing doesen't work. Only Guest account is avaliable, and I can't change any settings, or even access hard drive, except user folder.

I ordered CDROM for Power Macintosh, but it will be here only in a few weeks.

I also tried to connect Apple IDE hard drive to my PC, but it doesen't work. Bios recognizes it, but Windows and Linux hang on booting with it. Probably Marvel 61xx is too new to work with old disks. I'll try to find old PC to test it with it and MacDrive to delete At Ease Preferences file, but again it can be not soon(

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Answer 6

kurt188

Level 4

1,340 points

Mar 2, 2012 6:30 AM in response to RainbowLynx

I ordered CDROM for Power Macintosh, but it will be here only in a few weeks.

Do you mean you ordered a CD-ROM Drive, or a CD for Power Macintosh? If you need a CD image for that model, I can find one, because they aren't available from Apple anymore. If that's what you need, send an email to nil DOT bureau DOT bitbucket AT gmail Dot com

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Answer 7

RainbowLynx Author

Level 1

16 points

Mar 2, 2012 3:08 PM in response to kurt188

A CD-ROM drive. Now I'm waiting for it and adaptor, because of non-standart connectors.

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Answer 8

Jeff

Level 6

12,058 points

Mar 2, 2012 11:34 PM in response to RainbowLynx

The 6200's 4x SCSI optical drive slides into the computer's chassis from the front, so it has blind connections for power, data, and sound. That's why it requires those plug-in, blade-like adapters that you found on the old drive. They are supposed to be transferred from the old drive to a new one, so you must be careful to apply even force when disconnecting the longer adapter. Although the 6200 shipped with the 4x drive, you could also use the slightly newer/faster 8x drive. Hopefully, you bought an Apple/Sony or Apple/Matshita optical drive having the Apple ROM. This ensures bootability from the "C" key at startup.

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Answer 9

RainbowLynx Author

Level 1

16 points

Mar 3, 2012 12:35 AM in response to Jeff

I bought package of 2 drives. One is Apple-Matsushita 24x drive (CR-508-C) and second is Apple-Matsushita 8x drive (CR-506-C).

I found adapter but it is only for power and data, and no audio connector (seller told mr that it was separate) so it's time for DIY audio adapter))

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Answer 10

Jeff

Level 6

12,058 points

Mar 3, 2012 12:09 PM in response to RainbowLynx

You may have better luck with the 8x drive in a 6200. The faster 24x drive may cause data overrun problems, because the very slow 603/75 MHz processor and the 6200's Mickey Mouse system bus architecture may lag behind the optical drive's output. I assume that your parents (at the time) ran the "5xxx/6xxx Tester" on that Performa. It checked for known hardware issues, that were covered by a limited warranty extension. The download can be found here. The Older Software Downloads page has updates to programs that may be installed on your 6200.

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