Huge Problem

TheUnknown

TheUnknown

Registered
Ok, I have a Performa 6116CD, and it was on one of my desk after weeks of no use. So, I decided to fiddle around on it, and I went ahead and start it up. It gave me a flashing question mark, then I looked in the case, the harddrive was disconnected somehow. I plugged the plugs in, then tried again. It kinda worked, but it didn't have the hard disk icon on the desktop screen, I popped in the restore disk then used First Aid Disk. It said no harddrive can be found. Can anybody tell me what is the problem?
 
If you have the system restore disk, then try Drive setup (should also be on that CD) If no device shows up, that's a bad sign! Or you may be able to reinitialize the drive (formats, which erases everything on the drive) this step may fail with an error. The drive may have been disconnected for a reason!! Recheck the drive connections, both of them (wide ribbon, and 4 wire connection). Also check the connections to the CD-Rom (if one is installed) Make sure you unplug each connector and then seat firmly back into its respective socket. Listen for the harddrive to start when you push the power switch. There's a fan (inside the little power supply) and the hard drive will be the only items making any noise. If you can't hear the drive start, it is likely not usable (dead) Do you get past the blinking mac icon, and boot to the Finder? What happens? This model eats batteries for lunch, and the system won't do much with a dead battery, with a variety of symptoms, usually no video, but it might not boot either.
 
I'll try unplugging and plugging it back in. And, I have to boot up from the restore CD. I'll try everything you suggested.
 
First, the unit will boot up even if the battery is dead. It will tell you the date and time is wrong at start up. It will work with no problem.

Now, you need to start it up, then immediately insert an OS CD...You can use OS 9. That's as far as it will upgrade. You can max the RAM at 136 MB.

Once it starts, go to the Utilities folder and use Disk First Aide... in one of the menus is scan again or find all drives... something to that effect (I can't remember right now). If it still does not see the drive, try Drive Setup. If it still does not see the drive, I suggest you try using Norton Utilities or an other third party utility. It should see the drive and try to repair it.
 
Cheryl, the 6100 series powermac (the performa 6116 and others with this 61XX series, the pizza box models) will refuse to boot if the battery is dead, you will not get any video, and without video the system will just sit there with the hard drive running and will not even show the flashing question mark, (the battery in this series is used to initialize the video, the system will not proceed in the boot sequence if the video can't initialize) The system will seem totally dead, and all it takes is replacing the battery 90% of the time. Batteries get a max of 2 years because of the small amount of juice used at each boot. Most older Macs do not exhibit this type of behavior (no video, no boot) and will boot regardless of the battery.
 
Off-topic: DeltaMac you amaze me at the amount of info you know about Macs! where did you learn so much?


Sorry for the Off topic post
 
Get an OS CD... It can be OS 8 or 9 but it must be the general installation CD. Not one that has a specific model listed on it unless you have Performa 6100 series.

Delta - thanks for the info. Are all Performa's like that or just that model?
 
The pizza box models are probably the worst that way. I worked as a Mac tech and ran an in-house Mac shop for a state agency for about 5 years; they had a hundred or so of these models, so I have a good memory of some of their quirks.
 
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