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System 7.5 destroyed my PM6100AV

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Eric Hauh Cheng

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Oct 16, 1994, 4:53:51 AM10/16/94
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After switching to system 7.5, I was quite happy with all of the new
"toys" that were included, even though my PM6100/60AV ran a little slower
than usual. I was testing out a finger and talk daemon -- that happenned
to make my computer unable to restart or shutdown -- and decided that I'd
take my chances and just leave my computer on all the time. One morning,
I came into the room, and my mac had frozen at some point in the night.
Oh yeah... AFterdark 2.5 was behaving strangely too. VERY slow during
the first twenty or so seconds of a screen saver coming on. Anyway...
Now, I can't boot my Mac. IT won't boot with SHIFT held down, won't boot
with a CD-ROM, or FLoppy. I don't know what's wrong... I get a flasing
finder bar at the top of the screen. It flashes from a blank, white line
(cursor turns into a clock), to "File Edit, etc" on the title bar in 1 or
2 second intervals. I can't force quit the finder and have it load
again either. Nothing works!

Any suggestions? Please mail ech...@Leland.stanford.edu
Thanks...
Someone todl me it might be the ROMs, but I"m not sure.

Aidid Chee Tahir

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Oct 16, 1994, 1:29:05 PM10/16/94
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In article <37qpmv$s...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, ech...@leland.Stanford.EDU
(Eric Hauh Cheng) wrote:

> After switching to system 7.5, I was quite happy with all of the new
> "toys" that were included, even though my PM6100/60AV ran a little slower
> than usual. I was testing out a finger and talk daemon -- that happenned
> to make my computer unable to restart or shutdown -- and decided that I'd
> take my chances and just leave my computer on all the time. One morning,
> I came into the room, and my mac had frozen at some point in the night.
> Oh yeah... AFterdark 2.5 was behaving strangely too. VERY slow during
> the first twenty or so seconds of a screen saver coming on. Anyway...
> Now, I can't boot my Mac. IT won't boot with SHIFT held down, won't boot
> with a CD-ROM, or FLoppy. I don't know what's wrong... I get a flasing
> finder bar at the top of the screen. It flashes from a blank, white line
> (cursor turns into a clock), to "File Edit, etc" on the title bar in 1 or
> 2 second intervals. I can't force quit the finder and have it load

Try holding down the option key at start up. It could be that the file
containing al of your open windows information is damaged. Thus the finder
hangs when it tries to redraw or reopen all those windows. Pressing the
option key tells it not to.

Gene

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Oct 16, 1994, 9:31:42 AM10/16/94
to
> After switching to system 7.5, I was quite happy with all of the new
> "toys" that were included, even though my PM6100/60AV ran a little
> slower than usual. I was testing out a finger and talk daemon -- that
> happenned to make my computer unable to restart or shutdown -- and
> decided that I'd take my chances and just leave my computer on all the
> time. One morning, I came into the room, and my mac had frozen at some
> point in the night. Oh yeah... AFterdark 2.5 was behaving strangely
> too. VERY slow during the first twenty or so seconds of a screen saver
> coming on. Anyway... Now, I can't boot my Mac. IT won't boot with
> SHIFT held down, won't boot with a CD-ROM, or FLoppy.

If you cannot boot from a floppy, it has nothing to do with System 7.5,
since the floppy's OS would be the one to load.

My suggestion is that you power down, disconnect any external SCSI devices
and try to boot from the original Disk Tools or InstallMeFirst CD that
came with your 6100. If it still doesn't work, call your dealer or Apple
Customer Assistance to have the unit checked (it may be a hardware
issue--but you're under warranty, so don't worry about it).

Peace,
Gene Steinberg
America Online Forum Leader, Macintosh Multimedia Forum
Author, "Using The Macintosh/Special Edition"

Miguel Cruz

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Oct 17, 1994, 4:21:48 AM10/17/94
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In article <37r9vu$2...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, Gene <ge...@aol.com> wrote:
>If you cannot boot from a floppy, it has nothing to do with System 7.5,
>since the floppy's OS would be the one to load.

That's not strictly speaking true. It's possible to have an internal hard
drive with basic structures corrupted to the point where the machine will
not boot, even from another (non-SCSI at that) device.

There is some key combination you can hold down to have the machine try
to ignore the internal drive but I'm not sure even that will work in this
case.

It's very annoying, but the best approach seems to be to disconnect the
drive power cable (inside), start from an emergency floppy, load a HD
util program, and re-connect the power cable.

While I doubt System 7.5 causes this sort of thing on a regular basis,
it's certainly possible for this type of corruption to have been
coincident with the new system software installation.

miguel

L.H....@student.lut.ac.uk

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Oct 16, 1994, 7:19:54 PM10/16/94
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In article <37r9vu$2...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> ge...@aol.com (Gene) writes:
(attribution of original poster missing from Gene's post)

>> After switching to system 7.5, I was quite happy with all of the new
>> "toys" that were included, even though my PM6100/60AV ran a little
>> slower than usual. I was testing out a finger and talk daemon -- that
>> happenned to make my computer unable to restart or shutdown -- and
>> decided that I'd take my chances and just leave my computer on all the
>> time. One morning, I came into the room, and my mac had frozen at some
>> point in the night. Oh yeah... AFterdark 2.5 was behaving strangely
>> too. VERY slow during the first twenty or so seconds of a screen saver
>> coming on. Anyway...

There's no such thing as After Dark 2.5.

Make sure you're using After Dark 2.0x or later. There's an updater to
2.0x in info-mac/gui/ad, last I looked.

L.

--
L.H....@student.lut.ac.uk ____ Email me for a copy of the Mac screensaver FAQ

Gopi D Flaherty

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Oct 17, 1994, 9:33:13 PM10/17/94
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Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.mac.hardware: 17-Oct-94 Re: System 7.5
destroyed my.. by Wes Sim...@ccwf.cc.utex
> In article <mncCxt...@netcom.com> Miguel Cruz, m...@netcom.com writes:
> >In article <37r9vu$2...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, Gene <ge...@aol.com> wrote:
> >>If you cannot boot from a floppy, it has nothing to do with System 7.5,
> >>since the floppy's OS would be the one to load.
> >
> >That's not strictly speaking true. It's possible to have an internal
> >hard drive with basic structures corrupted to the point where the machine
> >will not boot, even from another (non-SCSI at that) device.
>
> No; Gene is right. The internal floppy drive is the first potential
> startup volume checked; at that stage in the game the internal hard drive
> hasn't even crossed the logic board's mind yet. My guess is that the
> disk he tried either wasn't set up right for his machine, which is quite
> possible, or that he inserted it too late after powering up.

Well, I recently ftp'd some freeware disk formatting utilties, and one
of the warnings concerned incompatibilities with disk drivers. If the
driver is incompatible with your Mac, you must physically unplug the
drive, boot off a floppy, and reconnect the drive again. A corrupted
SCSI driver can prevent you Mac from booting at all. Now, it's probably
unlikely that System 7.5 corrupted the driver, but it is possible to
have that type of problem.

gopi.


[ Gopi Flaherty | The optimist proclaims that we live ]
[ gf...@andrew.cmu.edu | in the best of all possible worlds; ]
[ Computer Science major | the pessimist fears this is true. ]
[ GCS r++>+++ n+ d++ H s g+ p1>!p !au a18 w- v+ C++ ?U+ ]
[ P? L 3 E- N+ !W--- M++ !V po@ Y+ t- !5 !j R- G' !tv ]
[ b>++ D+ B e+>++++ u+ h>--- f+ y? ]

Charles G. Williams

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Oct 16, 1994, 10:26:22 PM10/16/94
to

Once I had a Mac that required you unplug the internal hard
drive before it would boot from floppy.

Of course I was greeted with a sad Mac when I booted my machine -- not
a freaky finder.


In a previous article, st00...@brownvm.brown.edu (Aidid Chee Tahir) says:

>In article <37qpmv$s...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, ech...@leland.Stanford.EDU
>(Eric Hauh Cheng) wrote:
>

>> After switching to system 7.5, I was quite happy with all of the new
>> "toys" that were included, even though my PM6100/60AV ran a little slower
>> than usual. I was testing out a finger and talk daemon -- that happenned
>> to make my computer unable to restart or shutdown -- and decided that I'd
>> take my chances and just leave my computer on all the time. One morning,
>> I came into the room, and my mac had frozen at some point in the night.
>> Oh yeah... AFterdark 2.5 was behaving strangely too. VERY slow during
>> the first twenty or so seconds of a screen saver coming on. Anyway...
>> Now, I can't boot my Mac. IT won't boot with SHIFT held down, won't boot
>> with a CD-ROM, or FLoppy. I don't know what's wrong... I get a flasing
>> finder bar at the top of the screen. It flashes from a blank, white line
>> (cursor turns into a clock), to "File Edit, etc" on the title bar in 1 or
>> 2 second intervals. I can't force quit the finder and have it load
>

>Try holding down the option key at start up. It could be that the file
>containing al of your open windows information is damaged. Thus the finder
>hangs when it tries to redraw or reopen all those windows. Pressing the
>option key tells it not to.
>

--
Where have all the John Galt's, Howard Roark's, and Dagny Taggart's gone?
If you're out there, persist -- you're not alone.

Chuck Williams ---> ab...@detroit.freenet.org

Wes Simonds

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Oct 17, 1994, 5:19:29 PM10/17/94
to
In article <mncCxt...@netcom.com> Miguel Cruz, m...@netcom.com writes:
>In article <37r9vu$2...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, Gene <ge...@aol.com> wrote:
>>If you cannot boot from a floppy, it has nothing to do with System 7.5,
>>since the floppy's OS would be the one to load.
>
>That's not strictly speaking true. It's possible to have an internal
hard
>drive with basic structures corrupted to the point where the machine
will
>not boot, even from another (non-SCSI at that) device.

No; Gene is right. The internal floppy drive is the first potential

David Shaw

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Oct 19, 1994, 12:35:24 PM10/19/94
to
m...@netcom.com (Miguel Cruz) writes:

>In article <37upp1$e...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>,

>No, Gene is wrong (nothing personal, Gene). It's happened to me, it's
>happened to lots of people. The SCSI software is initialized before the
>floppy drive is checked. I've seen this documented in print somewhere; I
>just checked the tech notes at ftp.apple.com but couldn't find it there.

Yes, but all you have to do is hold control-option-shift-delete to bypass
all internal SCSI devices. You have to hold it until you are completely up
and running off a floppy though.

--
David P. Shaw ___________________ / ---/ / ---/ / --- / ___ _ __ _________
gt0...@acme.gatech.edu /____ /____ / / / / / _ \ | / /
Georgia Institute of Technology / _ / / _ / / /_/ / / _ / |/ /
______________________________ /____/ /____/ /_____/ /_//_/|___/ ____________

Kevin Armstrong

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Oct 17, 1994, 7:29:48 PM10/17/94
to
I can suggest a couple of things:

1) Make sure you are booting from a floppy that will actually boot your
mac. And make sure you insert this floppy immediately after you turn it
on. Don't wait for a happy mac, by that time it is too late.

2) Try zapping the P-RAM by holding down the command-option-p-r keys. Or
maybe it is command-shift-p-r. Hmm, I haven't done it in a while so I
can't remember. I know it is command-something-p-r so try some keys. The
machine should give you another boot beep if you do it sucessfully.

Good Luck!

--
Kevin Armstrong
ka...@mail.utexas.edu

Karl A. Erickson

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Oct 18, 1994, 2:08:29 AM10/18/94
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In article <37qpmv$s...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, ech...@leland.Stanford.EDU
(Eric Hauh Cheng) wrote:

Could you please clarify... it won't boot at all (you get the disk with a
flashing "?", or a sad mac), or it boots up through all your extensions to
the finder, where it "cycles" the menu bar. If it's option #2, try to hold
Option down while you boot up (all the way until you get to the finder).

Let us know how it turns out.....!

-Karl
______________________________________________________________________

Karl A. Erickson eric...@gold.tc.umn.edu
University of Minnesota
______________________________________________________________________

Miguel Cruz

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Oct 18, 1994, 3:42:33 PM10/18/94
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In article <37upp1$e...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>,

No, Gene is wrong (nothing personal, Gene). It's happened to me, it's

happened to lots of people. The SCSI software is initialized before the
floppy drive is checked. I've seen this documented in print somewhere; I
just checked the tech notes at ftp.apple.com but couldn't find it there.

miguel

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