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Macintosh SE/30 won't boot

musicpyrite

musicpyrite

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 6, 2004
1,639
0
Cape Cod
Well, I know everybody doesn't get a question like this everyday.

Friday was my last day of school, and my school was going to take some old Macs to the dump. Well I offered to take them. :rolleyes: ;)
Anyways, the computers I got were a Macintosh SE, Macintosh SE/30 (two of them), Preforma 400, and a Macintosh LC III. All of the computers work perfectly. I decided that I was going to update all the OSs on the them, so I first start out with one of the SE/30s. I go to this to downlaod System 7.5. I unzip the first file, and copy the contents of the the disk image to a floppy disk. I take the floppy and put it into the SE, I start to install, and the computer eventually asks me for disk 2. So I get another floppy copy the contents of the second disk image to the new floppy, they put that in the Mac. It spits it out. After some searching on the internet, I just decide to restart it. When it boots up, I get the image of a floppy with a question mark on it. Crap. No here's where I don't know what to do.

The Questions: (feel free to PM or reply me)

1) How do I get rid of the binking question mark?
2) I've heard you can download System 7 from Apple.com. Where can I find System 7?
3) I've heard of some people installing FreeBSD on SE/30s, how do I do that? I would prefer to do this, but if nobody knows how System 7 is fine.

Macintosh SE/30
8 MB of RAM
Original OS: 7.5
80 MB HD

BTW, this machine was working perfictly in 7.5 untill I screwed with it.
 
Congrats on the new machines, haha :)

Wow, it's been a while since I've had to fix an SE/30 :D. I can't remember if zapping the PRAM goes back that far, if it does, try that first. If it manages to get past that screen, hold shift to turn off the extensions. That might be able to get you to the desktop at least. That's all I can think of at the moment :(
 
Spock said:
http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html

Has Your downloads. You are getting a Blinker becouse You restarted in the middle of an install for info on Unix I think lowendmac.com has the info and how to just about anything to these things. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Yea, I've already download that file, then I unzipped it. I put the unzipped file into the floppy drive, but it just spits it back out again, I've tryed everything I can think of:
Holding the Option key while booting up
Holding the C key while booting up (with the installd disk in the drive)
Reseting the PRAM and NVRAM
(and swearing at it)

I check Lowendmac.com, I didn't find anything about Unix on a SE/30, but I'll look again.

Any more help is welcome. :)
 
mr_mac said:
you have to "make floppy" in order to use it. copying files isn't enough.

hope thiss helps,

Mrmac
Click to expand...

What do you mean 'make floppy?'

Do you mean like reformat it everytime?
 
The SE can't identify the floppy just by name.

go in disk copy and select make floppy from the menu.

(On OS 7 and higher, but not OS X)

Hope this helps,

Mrmac
 
musicpyrite said:
Well, I know everybody doesn't get a question like this everyday.

.... I unzip the first file, and copy the contents of the the disk image to a floppy disk. I take the floppy and put it into the SE, I start to install, and the computer eventually asks me for disk 2. So I get another floppy copy the contents of the second disk image to the new floppy, they put that in the Mac. It spits it out. ...
Click to expand...


yikes floppies!!!!

so it read the first floppy fine but then kept spitting out the second one??

I'm vaguely remembering being in similar situations YEARS ago using back-up copies of software install disks and what I remember is the second disk had to be named exactly right or the install program would spit it out and ask again for the disk by name.....but once the name was corrected, then it would accept the disk and read from it
 
Spock said:
http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...osh/Utilities/Network_Access_Disk_7.5.sea.bin

Download this and put it on a floppy it should get You booted up and You may be able to repair a system folder.
What kind of computer are You using to make the floppies?
Click to expand...

iMac (FPD) with Panther.


The file you said to download, I unzip it and get the read me and the actual file. I open up Toast, but how does Toast know to copy it to the floppy? Do I just copy the zipped file to the floppy?

And another question, when I boot up the SE/30 all I get are grey virticle and horizantal lines, I can't see to do anything else. Anybody know what's happening?
 
musicpyrite said:
iMac (FPD) with Panther.


The file you said to download, I unzip it and get the read me and the actual file. I open up Toast, but how does Toast know to copy it to the floppy? Do I just copy the zipped file to the floppy?
Click to expand...


isn't Toast just for burning CDs & DVDs??

the old fashioned way of copying files to a floppy would be to drag the file's icon onto the icon of the floppy disk....just like you would copy a file from a CD to your hard drive
 
I should open up my PM6100/66, replace the PRAM battery and then play around to help y'all out.

But dangit! I'm lazy. :p

Yeah, you have to format the floppy, then drag and drop files onto it.

On the other hand, what makes you think system7.5 will work on an SE/30? That model came out in 1989 and 7.5 was thereabouts 1994. The ROM's on the old machine might not "take" the new os.
 
pimentoLoaf said:
On the other hand, what makes you think system7.5 will work on an SE/30? That model came out in 1989 and 7.5 was thereabouts 1994. The ROM's on the old machine might not "take" the new os.
Click to expand...

If you don't believe, go here and download a copy of Mactracker. It will tell you almost every thing about all Macs ever made, and you know what? I think it has the SE/30 in there. Go figure. :p

Original Mac OS: System 6.0.3
Maximum Mac OS: Mac OS 7.5.5

Thanks for the help anyways.
 
so it seems you've corrupted the system file on the SE30.....does that assumption seem correct to you???.....that means you're going to have to actually install a working system file on a floppy so that you can boot from that floppy and then run the installer program to install a system on the SE30's hard drive.

An operating system that will fit on a floppy?? yep, that's how they came in the days before CDs. Usually the first disk in the install set had a minimal version installed on it that would allow you to boot up and run the install.....you ended up swapping floppies in and out, in and out, in and out.......blah

the old SE I had years ago didn't even have a hard drive, just two floppy drives and the whole installed operating system fit on one disk leaving the other one free for applications and data

I see you "salvaged" a second SE30? Once you get the installer program onto floppies I think maybe you should use that second SE30 to create the floppy with the system on it - then you can see if the bad SE30 will boot from the floppy

good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Macky-Mac said:
I see you "salvaged" a second SE30? Once you get the installer program onto floppies I think maybe you should use that second SE30 to create the floppy with the system on it - then you can see if the bad SE30 will boot from the floppy

good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

How exactly does the SE/30 know to boot off the floppy? Hold the C key on boot up? ;)


Anyways the computer is totally unresponsive now. When ever I turn it one, all I get are white and black horizontal and virticle lines across the screen. Anybody know what to do?
 
musicpyrite said:
How exactly does the SE/30 know to boot off the floppy? Hold the C key on boot up? ;)
Click to expand...

no you don't hold down the C key.

the SE30 knows to look on the floppy because it's built-in to the start up sequence of the machine....it'll look for a system folder on both the floppy and on the hard drive....I forget whether it looks at the floppy first or the hard drive first but once it finds a system folder it loads the OS.

as for holding down the C key at start up, that's to tell the computer to load the system from a CD drive
 
musicpyrite said:
..... When it boots up, I get the image of a floppy with a question mark on it....
Click to expand...

musicpyrite said:
.....Anyways the computer is totally unresponsive now. When ever I turn it one, all I get are white and black horizontal and virticle lines across the screen. Anybody know what to do?
Click to expand...


ack, not good.....what did you do to the machine after the first post? other than cussing at it? whatever it was, I hope it didn't involve a hammer and violence
 
Macky-Mac said:
ack, not good.....what did you do to the machine after the first post? other than cussing at it? whatever it was, I hope it didn't involve a hammer and violence
Click to expand...


After I got the qustion mark thing, I tryed what everybody said to do, boot from floppy, put this on a floppy, ect. Then one time when I startd it up, I got the gery lines. So I don't know what the problem is/was.

And I was kidding when I said I cussed at it...I love my Macs too much to do such a mean thing to it. ;)

I'm starting to think about just replacing the whole hard drive...I'll head over to newegg and get a 10,00 RPM SCSI drive, a couple of gigs of RAM, and maby put a mirroring external 19" CTR monitor, Radeon 9800 Pro, and I'll be all set! :D
 
O.K I got my old SE out I am done playing around. The file that I told You to download contains a Readme and a Disk Image, open the image file and place the System folder on a floppy disk and pop it in Your SE. My SE booted up fine Yours should too or You are not telling us some thing. Ae the lines in the middle of the grey screen?
 
As far as the lines go my SE did the same thing. It had lines all over and let out a horrible noise. It scared the crap out of me and I never turned it on again, it's a shame too, it has two nice floppy drives and me and a friend painted it all nice too.

As far as your problem the ? on the floppy meens the Mac can't find the system software it needs to startup. You have to start up from a floppy that has a system folder on it. I have the original System 7.1 floppies, if all else fails and you need them badly just IM me on AIM, first e-mail me ur SN so I know who I'm talking to, I'll IM you.

I know how it feels, this has happened to me millions of times. I also have a copy of the Mac SE series service manual, it will tell you all you need to know as far as horizontal lines and such. If I remember correctly it meens you have to install a new board. Well anyway just e-mail or AIM me for the information. I'll be glad to help.
 
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