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| Author | Restoring Performa 6205CD (Read 15872 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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bobhope2112
2 MB  Posts: 3 
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on: June 27, 2008, 04:17
Hello all--first post here. My apologies for the vague subject line. I have a number of questions. Background As a bit of diversion, I restore personal computers that have been donated to a nearby charity. These machines are definitely "as is," and sometimes present a challenge to diagnose and repair with zero financial investment. Typically the machines are DOS/Windows affairs, but I have recently collected a couple of System 7 era Macintoshes. Although I was a committed Mac enthusiast during my undergrad, in the System 6 and 7 days, I have only casually used them since. Coupled with knowledge atrophy, I have considerable catching up if I want to restore these machines. The Victim/Patient I have a Performa 6205CD that has 36MB ram, 250MB hard drive, a CD-ROM reader. The 1.44MB floppy does not appear to be working properly. (I might be able to make a replacement on that.) I have no modem or network capability with this machine. Strategy Ideally, I would like to wipe this machine, install a clean copy of System 7.6.1 on it, and restore a few of the applications that are currently on it. The machine is now running System 7.5. It appears that this machine was once in a class room, and it is fairly boogered (literally and figuratively) with files being randomly dragged and copied anywhere and everywhere. There are a couple of actual problems with the OS, like the Launcher fails on startup, and a few applications do not act right, but my principal drive for doing a clean install is just to not have spend a lot of time digging through someone else's mess. Tactics There is primarily what I'm hoping to get from the experienced users of this board. I have some suspicions about how to go about this, but will happily be corrected. One thing that I would like to be able to do is to pull the ATA drive from the Mac, hook it up to my Windows XP machine and burn a Mac-readable CD that contains that drive's contents. It sounds easy in a single run-on sentence, but it probably isn't. Also, I appear to be having some problems getting this machine to boot from my System 7.6.1 installer. Booting while holding C does not do the trick, nor does setting the Startup Disk. Unfortunately, the Command key does not appear to work on this keyboard. I'll try to sort that out shortly. Ok, I've prattled on long enough now. Your advice will be appreciated. |
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naryasece
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8 MB Posts: 12 
Reply #1 on: June 27, 2008, 07:10
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Hmm.. this might make for an interesting episode of House or Grey's Anatomy... hehe Hooking up the Mac's ATA drive to your Windows XP machine should work, although I can not say for sure the drive will be compatible, since the Performa's hardware is circa 1996 and your XP machine is circa 2008. I am no XP expert, but I would venture a guess that XP does not read Mac HFS drives with out extra software. If it wont for sure, you can use TransMac, which allows HSF drives to me mounted in the windows environment. The software has a 30 day trial (though it does not say if any features are disabled). You can even burn Mac formatted CDs and DVDs. Might just be the tool you are looking for. TransMac is here: http://www.asy.com/scrtm.htm The boot issue is quite unusual. Perhaps the C key does not work either? you could also try Command + Option + Shift + Delete, which will tell the mac to ignore the selected startup disk at boot (although you might be out of luck if you don't have the extended keyboard and your only apple key is broken...). In this case, SystemPicker may help, it is software which lets you select the System Folder to boot your computer from. I find it helps especially with external non apple CD-Rom drives. You can find SystemPicker towards the bottom of this page: http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/tidbits.html You may want to also run a few tests from Apple's support site, namely the PowerMac 5xxx/6xxx Tester. Some of these machines were released to the public with defective 603 CPU's. I know, because I used to have a Performa 6216 with a defective processor. My Performa would not run system 8 because of this, but I think system 7.6 will work. I am sure that 7.5.3 will work. Here is the link for the diagnostics: http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/CPU_Specific_Updates/52xx-53xx-62xx-63xx/ The 6200 series was a facinating machine. I had a good time reading about how Apple managed to get a 68k motherboard to work with a PowerPC chip. I think its an example of Apple trying to be a little too clever to cut costs, when really a new motherboard should have been designed. This article on Low End Mac describes the architecture pretty well: http://www.lowendmac.com/tech/x200.shtml I hope that points you in the right direction. Best of luck in restoring your Mac!
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bobhope2112
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2 MB Posts: 3
Reply #2 on: June 28, 2008, 02:14
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Quote from: "naryasece" Hooking up the Mac's ATA drive to your Windows XP machine should work, although I can not say for sure the drive will be compatible, since the Performa's hardware is circa 1996 and your XP machine is circa 2008. I've had mixed success with this. My PATA card can spot the drive, but reports its capacity as 0. Acronis TrueImage follows suit, so I don't get to see if that program supports HFS as it claims. There is a jumper on the drive to control AT and/or ISA modes, but the specs are a little confusing. System 7.5 identifies the drive as ATA, so I didn't really want to mess with that. At any rate, I said "screw it" to the backup. About the only programs worth saving were ClarisWorks 2.1 and a couple of games. I got them spirited off onto floppies. My only regret is that I've lost AHED. Quote from: "naryasece" The boot issue is quite unusual I swapped in a working SuperDrive, and was able to put together a System 7.5 boot disk with CD-ROM support. It also looks like this machine is actually a Performa 630, so it might not even support CD booting. I don't really know the history on that, but the 630 is an earlier machine (by about a year) than the 6205. Quote from: "naryasece" You may want to also run a few tests from Apple's support site, namely the PowerMac 5xxx/6xxx Tester. Some of these machines were released to the public with defective 603 CPU's. I know, because I used to have a Performa 6216 with a defective processor. My Performa would not run system 8 because of this, but I think system 7.6 will work. I am sure that 7.5.3 will work. Although that doesn't apply to me now that I know what machine I really have, it turns out that I may have a defective CPU anyhow. Apparently there's a problem with the 68LC040s. Quote from: "naryasece" I hope that points you in the right direction. Best of luck in restoring your Mac! Thanks for your comments. Even if they don't specifically address my condition, it's interesting nonetheless. Do you know of any piles of Mac abandonware on the web? I thought I might try to find a few old favorites like NumCrunch and Toxic Ravine.
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naryasece
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8 MB Posts: 12
Reply #3 on: June 29, 2008, 05:46
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Ah. That is an unusual twist! I thought a 250mb hard disk was a little light for a PowerMac of that era. My favorite site for Macintosh Game Abandonware is the Macintosh garden, at this link: http://mac.the-underdogs.info/ It has a huge collection of old games which are available for download. I checked and they have Toxic Ravine and NumCruncher. Sorry, but I have to ask the silly question: What kind of install disk are you using? If my memory serves me right, I don't think Apple released a System 7.6.1 install disk, just a 7.6 disk. I could be wrong, but I just thought I would make sure.
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bobhope2112
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2 MB Posts: 3
Reply #4 on: June 29, 2008, 21:32
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Quote What kind of install disk are you using? I'm using the Network Access 7.5 disk, with the addition of the CD-ROM extension. I have a 7.6.1 installation disc that looks to have been intended to boot, but those sectors were apparently discarded somewhere in the imaging process. I've moved on to working on the other salvage operation--a Power Macintosh 5260. Things are generally looking up: 1) I managed to desolder the Command key, discover its defect, and reassemble a fully working keyboard. If only I could be so effective with my dud floppy drive. 2) I've put System 8.6 on the 5260, and it appears to be running fairly well. That doesn't really fit with the spirit of this site, I suppose, but it seems logical to go with the more PPC-specific OS. 3) It's been a lot of fun to re-experience the computing of my undergrad days. Quote My favorite site for Macintosh Game Abandonware is the Macintosh garden... Do they have an archive I've overlooked? I found a lot of great archives linked from there, but didn't notice any files of their own.
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DaveRhodes
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32 MB Posts: 43 
Reply #5 on: June 30, 2008, 16:28
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Quote from: "naryasece" If my memory serves me right, I don't think Apple released a System 7.6.1 install disk, just a 7.6 disk.I can confirm that there is a 7.6.1 install disc. I have such a disc. (http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/6315/f7ea1yo1.jpg) (Image from this ebay auction. ($20 BiN)(not my auction))
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dpaanlka
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1024 MB Posts: 1646
Reply #6 on: June 30, 2008, 18:33
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I also have such a disc.
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naryasece
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8 MB Posts: 12
Reply #7 on: July 03, 2008, 00:48
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Quote from: "bobhope2112" Do they have an archive I've overlooked? I found a lot of great archives linked from there, but didn't notice any files of their own. Macintosh Garden does host abandonware. This link should direct you to all the games: http://mac.the-underdogs.info/index.php?show=all They have two download servers, one in the US and a mirror in the UK. You can chose which server to download the games from. Let me know if the link does not work.
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