On 12/29/01 Sam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Thanks for the reply, but I'm pretty sure I didn't break the hard drive
> cable.
> Besides, I started getting the Sad Mac BEFORE I opened the 2300 to reseat
> the RAM.
> Any other suggestions?
<snip>
>>> Then I did something completely by mistake... I had inadvertantly
>>> unhooked the hard drive ribbon cable.
>>> When I went to boot up... I no longer had a sad mac. I had a flashing
>>> question mark instead.
>>> I'm afraid the hard drive might be completely lost. When I boot up from
>>> floppy in my dock, I can't "see" the hard drive at all.
It appears your Disk Directory is probably totally blown out--a not uncommon
computing phenomenon. Try hook up the 2300 in SCSI mode to another Mac, same
OS or higher. Run Disk Warrior or Norton or Tech Tools Pro and Disk First
Aid. The art of drive recovery is a long discussion on preferences,
combinations and techniques for use--but that's a major article. In short,
all are fallible. Over the past year we've had a rash of HD "failures" but I
have been able to recover non-initializable drives, a couple that appeared
and sounded like controller card problems or terminal throes of hardware
death but were not, and one with 128000 crosslinked files (courtesy of
Norton) that all disk utilities were then choking on (the latter my own 2400
30 gb HD main partition!). I had to drop down to resource level to get that
(not fully backed up) baby back. Sweat, curses and lessons (re)learned!!!
Live dangerously and dodge bullets at your own risk.
DW=best of lot, my favorite, but can still (often) fail when HD remains
fully restorable.
Norton=fast, versatile, maligned because it can hopelessly screw up by
unnecessarily cross-linking files (so I usually use "Undo" function), but
useful in combo w/DW (which does choke on really messed up directories)
TTP=good, most versatile, but agonizingly slo-o-w
DFA=weakest of lot but won't hose your drive like the others can
If the 2300 drive won't mount on another Mac, try Mount Everything 1.5.5,
SCSIProbe 5.1.2 or some other disk mounting utility (these are probably on
Version Tracker and some others are commercial (Silver Lining, HDT, HDTK,
Charis etc. If HD still not mounting try Norton Utilities ("Show Missing
Disks" command in the menu). If HD still doesn't mount remove it and put it
in an external PCMCIA case (or SCSI case if the 2300 is using internal SCSI
too) and hook to another PB and try it that way. If you cannot restore it
but it shows up then re-initialize the drive. I don't recommend a low level
format but try that if initialization fails.
If your data is really important and you are not backed up, send it to Drive
Savers. If your budget doesn't allow for that and your data is still
terribly important, contact me offlist.
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