Subject: Re: mac IIci (again!) serious (possibly fatal) problems :(
To: ayeats <ayeats@ne.mediaone.net>
From: Frederick Bruckman <fb@enteract.com>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 01/17/1999 12:19:20
A corrupted partition map will cause the machine to fail to boot. Of
course, no partition map at all is fine; that's what you expect to be
on a brand new drive--but if this drive has DOS, or otherwise bogus
partitons on it, it could do as you describe.

You need to try a low-level format on the new, old drive. This
presents a catch-22, in that you can't boot at all with that drive
attached. You might try first booting from a floppy containing a
minumum system and the formatting utility, and then plugging in the
drive. (I would do scsi first, then power.) It's a bit riskier to boot
from another drive, since in that case, if the scsi bus locks up, the
mac will appear to hang, and you won't then be able to access the
formatter's menus to unlock the bus. A low-level format can also be
done on a PC.

On Sun, 17 Jan 1999, ayeats wrote:

> On my mac IIci which I have been talking about,and was soon to be a 
> netBSD box
> I tried to do some upgrading. I
> stuck in a  new (old, but newer than the one in there) hard drive,
> upgraded the ram and put in a nubus card
> (ethernet) I closed the thing up and turned it on. 
> 
> Bing-
> 
> Ba-Boo-Ba-Ba-Bing
> 
> The monitor is slightly darker than the standard grey and it sits there.
> 
> I believe that these are the dreaded chimes of doom, are they not?
> 
> But then I remember that the ram I put in is many different types of simms
> so I take all of them out except for 4 2mb simms, I also take out the
> nuBus card, and check the connection to the harddrive. I start it up and
> it goes 
> 
> Bing-
> 
> and then the monitor comes on and displays that dismal looking grey again.
> It sounds like the drive is working and it sounds like it is starting up 
> normally,
> but from the monitor's prespective... Nothing...
> 
> 
> So I fiddle witht the brightness, contrast, and turn every knob i can find
> on the darn monitor to no avail.
> 
> 
> Now I start getting angry with my troubleshooting and decide to post to
> the group.
> 
> NOTE: The machine has not yet gotten netBSD installed. (Although that is 
> the plan)