Re: Apple IIgs not recognizing 3.5 drives

[George Rentovich <Grent@home.com>]

Obsbedia2 wrote:

> << o- When you say eject does not work, do you mean the 3.5" drives on both
> computers do not eject disks when the eject button is pushed?
> --YES
>
> If not, are you
> talking about doing an eject from the GS System Finder?
> --NO, I'm not currently running the GS/OS on the computers at school--although
> one of my students mentioned Thursday that he missed playing the math game
> SurfBurgers.
>
> o- Did you test the 3.5" drives from both of the bad systems on a known-good
> IIgs?
> --NO, Yes, maybe...  both were good computers which were able to use the 3.5"
> drives until they were tried a few weeks ago.  I popped in some word processing
> program disks, but no 3.5 devices were recognized.
>
> o- Were the 3.5" drives you swapped in known to be good drives?
> --NO, they were some drives that were donated from another school and I don't
> know their history.  Two of the drives had program disk still inside and two
> others were empty, but I had to use a paper clip to raise the disk mechanisms
> to accept disks.
>
> Were they
> tested on a known-good IIgs after being connected to the bad systems?
>
> --NO,  I was ready to write off the drives as bad when I tried one without the
> 5.25" Unidisk drives attached.  The 3.5 was recognized.  Hurray!  I tried it
> with the 5.25s and again it worked.  I tried two more of the 3.5s and they all
> worked.  Next, I set them up for Thursday's 11:20 lesson--only the 5.25" drives
> worked.  The 3.5s were no longer recognized!
>
> o- When you tested the 5.25" drives on the bad systems, were they plugged into
> the 3.5" drives or directly into the Disk Port.
> --DIRECTLY into the disk port, with the 3.5 drive plugged into the second 5.25"
> drive.
>
> o- Are there any networking or similar kinds of Slot cards in the defective
> machines?
> --NO, but I threated to network the computers if the 3.5s didn't cooperate ...
> and I will, too.
>
> o- Were the two bad machines on the same power line?
> --90% chance YES
>
> Were the machines
> connected to the power line via a surge suppressor or UPS?
> --NO surge, unless it's a minor one built into the multi-outlet stick.  Never
> heard the term UPS, except for the nice truck that delivers Apple II treasures
> to me.
>
> Jay Edwards

Hi,
 First, lablel the suspected drive.  Sometimes  a chip goes bad and will not let
it 3.5 drive continue the daisy chain. But if it is put last in the chain and it
works fine.  Now if you put it the (suspected drive) first and it does not
continue the daisy chain, the next drive in the chain will seem dead. But it is
fine, it is the first 3.5 that has a problem. I have seen this a few times.
 Second if the above does not answer the problem then I would suspect a broken
wire inside the drives cables. It will sometimes make a connection and sometimes
break the connection. If it works then moving it causes a problem  then it is a
broken wire in the cable. It will get worse until it fails and the drive fails
completely. The only problem is it may short to another wire or the ground. Drive
Ports are not fused as far as I know. This could take the motherboard out.

Take Care
        George