Hi Christopher, I'm a 170 guy myself and I know what you're talking about with those rare SCSI drives. I'm going to be putting a few of them (two 40's and an 80) up for sale on eBay pretty soon for pretty cheap if you're interested. Anyhow, as to whether your drive is dead, have you tried booting off a floppy and running some disk utils? That's really the only way to know if it's dead or not. Hopefully it just needs to be formatted and have an OS installed. BTW, I strongly recommend running 7.1 on a 170 instead of 7.5. It's significantly faster and with a few addons you don't feel like you're missing anything. Also, get RAM Doubler because the maximum RAM on a 170 is barely adequate.
Ryan --- "Christopher Suleske" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >greetings. i figure there must be a support group for old powerbooks as >well, but since: > >1. the powerbook 170 is certainly a low-end mac and >2. i already read this one and >3. i'm sure one or more of you have some idea what i'm talking about, here >goes... > >recently obtained a 170 with what seems to be a dead 40MB SCSI-2 2.5" hard >disk. at boot, it makes 2 seeking noises then the floppy disc icon flashes >with a question mark. i figure this to be one of 2 things: 1, the disk has >no OS or 2, the disk is dead. > >assuming the latter, i looked around ebay for a replacement (thinking i >might find a larger one for a pittance). well, it seems these are rare. i >didn't find one that didn't already have another laptop wrapped around it. >apparently, apple quickly dropped laptop SCSI drives and went to IDE. i'm >guessing the marketplace took them this direction. > >so - is the disk dead? and if so, any clue how to replace it at a cost as >close to free as possible? > >on another note, has anyone heard of taking a 3.5" drive and converting it >for use with an old powerbook? i figure i can adapt something that DOES >exist in ample quantities for use with it. of course, it will never fit IN >the laptop, but i could make an interesting desktop out of it. :-) > >i have the pinouts from an IBM tech doc on the drive itself. > >since i'm branching into another subject here, any idea what maximum SCSI-2 >drive size the 170 can support? i imagine more than a gig doesn't make >sense anyhoo. > >thanks! > >christopher > > >-- >Vintage Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... > > Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | > -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | > > Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> > >Vintage Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml> >The FAQ: <http://macfaq.org/> > --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; >Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/vintage.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> > >Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com _____________________________________________________________ What? Still using Hotmail? Upgrade! Get a free, permanent, email address at http://freemail.nucleargopher.com! _____________________________________________________________ Select your own custom email address for FREE! Get [EMAIL PROTECTED] w/No Ads, 6MB, POP & more! http://www.everyone.net/selectmail?campaign=tag -- Vintage Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Vintage Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml> The FAQ: <http://macfaq.org/> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/vintage.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
