My FDHD just came in the mail today, has been working great all day. Now i was just on the desktop and i wanted to see what would happen if I hit the programmer's switch, so I did. The machine threw an error, i hit OK to reboot, it froze so i flicked it off an on with the power switch and now it doesn't boot. The disk crunches for a bit, I get a happy mac, then it switches back to a blinking question mark on a disk. How can i fix it?
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Mac SE FDHD Corrupted HDD?
- Thread starter Mac
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RWallmow
Veteran Member
MAYBE try booting up with shift held down if it was an extension or control panel that got hosed.
More likely is that you hosed the system file though, to fix that you will need a bootable system disk, then you might be able to just open the system folder on the hard drive, close it, reboot (properly via menu, NOT power/reset switch), and it MIGHT start working again, if not might come down to recopying/re-installing the OS.
Just like most computers with advanced OS's its never really a good idea to power off/reset while the OS is active and might write to the disk, You should always use shutdown/reboot commands, unless you know its safe, or you have no other option.
RWallmow
Veteran Member
RWallmow
Veteran Member
Ok, so if the drive is wanting to format means its more than just the system folder that's hosed. I would look into something like Norton Utilities 2.0, or another period appropriate version. Build yourself some kind of System 7 boot disk, and then probably another with Norton on it and give it a shot.
If there's nothing important on the drive, I would say chalk it up to learning, and format that bad boy, and reinstall System 7 from floppies (you can download disk images from apple.com still).
I can't write the images onto disks because they are .smi.bin, i can only write ones that are .sea.bin
I'm definately leaning towards formatting it and installing an os but as i said, i can only write .sea.bin so i wrote system 6 install disks. Then i have to find the software i lost: After Dark screensavers, Microsoft word, excel, Claris stuff etc.
I'm definately leaning towards formatting it and installing an os but as i said, i can only write .sea.bin so i wrote system 6 install disks. Then i have to find the software i lost: After Dark screensavers, Microsoft word, excel, Claris stuff etc.
RWallmow
Veteran Member
I can probably help with some of that software, I have some AfterDark files around, not sure about MS stuff, but I also have a boxed set of a few different Claris works stuff.
Aren't those SMI.BIN files just stuffit compressed diskcopy images? I am pretty sure Executor will handle those natively and let you write them out to disks. If not I can try to get them into RAW IMG files that rawwrite or winimage can deal with on the PC side for you.
RWallmow
Veteran Member
Which version of 7 are you trying to get disks for? some of those downloads from apple are actually virtual CD or Hard drive images that get mounted to install, not actual floppy images. I know the 7.0.1 images are floppy based, beyond that I don't recall.
You might need to install a basic 7.0.1 to get the machine bootable to a point where you could copy all the files for 7.5.3 or 7.5.5 to the hard disk, then open the virtual install image and install it from the hard disk.
If you haven't installed system 6 yet you can use this network tools disk to boot the machine and format the hardrive so that its totally clean before a new install.
http://www.emaculation.com/softmac/Network_Access_Disk_7.5.sea.hqx
You'll need stuffit expander to open that sea.hqf file. Once you get the .image file you can then write that to a floppy. If your on OS X there is a terminal command that will do that. Also with stuffit you can open those system 7 files on the apple site.
http://www.emaculation.com/softmac/Network_Access_Disk_7.5.sea.hqx
You'll need stuffit expander to open that sea.hqf file. Once you get the .image file you can then write that to a floppy. If your on OS X there is a terminal command that will do that. Also with stuffit you can open those system 7 files on the apple site.
RWallmow
Veteran Member
It depends if those programs are disk images, or executable programs, either way I would probably use Executor or TransMac, either one will handle the reading/writing of Mac Disks from the PC side, be they images, or files (for files, I would probably use Executor, I know it will maintain the resource forks, not about transmac on that front).
Which images to download depends on which OS you want to install, and which OS you want to install depends on the specs on your system, Assuming a fairly stock SE FDHD (that is with 1mb to 4mb RAM and 40MB HD), Personally I would stick with System 6, If you NEED 7 for something, go with like 7.0.1, because 7.5+ is a MEMORY hog, it wont run all that well on a SE (but it will run if you really want to torture yourself).
RWallmow
Veteran Member
If it doesn't have the program associated to that file that is its default behavior. An executable should execute, and stuffit files should open all just fine as that is all built in. That is unless you have already lost the resource fork that goes with the file you are trying to open, in that case with a missing resource fork it will open in tex-edit because it has no idea what to open it with.
RWallmow
Veteran Member
It sounds like you are loosing the resource fork somehow. It is really best to work with stuffit compressed files until you get to the real mac, as the resource fork should get compressed up with it into the archive, if the stuffit archive looses its resource fork, its not as big of a deal, just launch stuffit and do a "file open" and browse to the fork-less archive file.
I encountered the same issue recently. Is your main computer a PC or Mac? If your on OS X Snow Leopard then i recommend downloading MacFuse and FuseHFS. This allows you to create HFS floppys using Disk Utility. You then drag and drop the classic app onto the floppy and it is readable by the classic mac. For some reason OS X is able to see the program as a classic app and copy it to a floppy with all the resources but Windows cannot. There are a few programs like HFS explorer that let windows copy classic app programs. Also the stuffit method works and is better for some programs and works well in Windows. By copying the .sit file onto the floppy and then unstuffing on the classic mac that will work.
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