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Re: Help With Symbiotic 42 MB Hard Drive Unit



Harvey Staples wrote:

Hi all,

           Can anybody help me with my Symbiotic external hard drive unit
for the Apple II or does it only work on an Apple II e ?
I plugged the controller card in slot #7 which is the correct slot for
drives, when powered up the screen displays:

 "Symbiotic Computer Systems"

   Loading Please wait

And at the same time there is a regular beep from the loudspeaker on the
Apple. The only thing is you can wait forever and nothing else happens. The
drive is a 42 MB version. Please Heeeeeeeelp !!!


  Thanks all,

    Harvey


It would be usefull to know how much memory your II has and what's in
the slots. Also are the ROMs the original integer basic ROMs
I'm not familiar with this HD, still a couple of questions come to mind.
You wondered if it only works on the IIe, have you had it working on a IIe?

Hardware

If you have then it might not work on a II for a varity of reasons.
Some  cards just won't work on a II or II+, the ramfast is one.
Some cards only work with a computer containing a 65C02. The Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card is one though it will work in a II or II+ if the 
6502 has been replaced with a 65C02 or a 65802.
The card or boot program may not work if you don't have 64k RAM

Software

If the drive is trying to boot into ProDOS then that could be a problem.
A II+ with 16k card will only boot ProDOS 1.9 or earlier. It's been a
while since I booted a II from a HD. I know it would boot some versions
of ProDOS but I can't recall offhand which versions work.
If the boot program is in Applesoft then it won't work on an integer basic machine. 

You could also try booting off a floppy and seeing if any programs can
catalog or read the HD.

Wayne