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S.o.s!

1K views 11 replies 8 participants last post by  rgray 
#1 ·
Please help me out guys!

I know I'm not Canadian - BUT, I have really grown attached to the Mac Quadra I got at a resale shop and I'll admit it.

I'm not a Mac guru as of yet like I am with Windows, DOS, older oddballs, etc.

The Quadra 660AV I got for about 15 dollars including a keyboard and mouse and I took it home and hooked it up to my TV and I had to turn it on and off about two or three times to get video (I heard the hard drive spin up and all the normal Mac sounds) and I determined that I needed to replace the PRAM battery as the AV series evidently have some issues with their video when the battery is low. The battery checked out at 1.8v. Very low. System clock said it was 1953 or something of the like.

I went to Radioshack. Got a battery. Came home. Pulled the old one out and placed the new one in it's stead. Booted the Mac back up and now all I get is the floppy disk icon with a flashing question mark. That means it can't find a valid OS. It worked before and had System 7.5.3 to be exact. Do I need a disk with a new OS or do I need to have my nose rubbed in something? I zapped the PRAM as well to no avail. It will boot with a network access disk but I can't get anything else.

Help! :confused:
 
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#2 ·
Geez! A Quadra.... Man, I am so old I can remember, sorta, using one of those. I think you paid about $50 to much.... Just about anything could be the problem. The ?-floppy thing could mean bad OS or bad hard drive. I wish you luck but I wouldn't put any time and certainly no more money into it... Sorry, but dead is dead and sometimes it is wise to just leave it that way...
 
#3 ·
rgray is right. :clap:


I would fix it up because i would want to play around with it, and i expect that's what you bought it for. So have fun :D
 
#4 ·
Not having fun with it is why I'm here.

I need some kind of help or explanation of steps to take to possibly make it work or can I use a normal IDE HD in it?

Does anyone have a copy of System 7.x.x or anything of the like they could make an ISO of for me or anything? I'm a high school geek and I don't have the cash to pay $50 on eBay for a copy that doesn't look like it's been urinated on and used as a backscratcher.

As stated before -

Help!:confused:
 
#5 ·
okay man

I kinda understand where you're coming from
1- yeah it could be the hard drive
2-go to apple.ca and under older software is system 7.5, which I think is free
as is system 8 (maybe)
3- replace the hard drive first. I think it's IDE, then go to the apple.ca website, d/l
the system you need and burn a cd. I think it's only HFS, not HFS plus.
4- don't expect much, it's a quadra
5-when you put in the battery, there may have been a little button on the motherboard. Push it a few times before putting the battery in
6- I guess you tried zapping the pram (Apple Option, P+R all held down for 3-4 chimes) and rebuilding the desktop on startup (just Apple+Option, until you see
"rebuilding desktop" and the progress bar)
check out lowendmac.com for more help, system info, etc

good luck

John B
 
#8 ·
Hmm so you are saying it was working at one point?

I would check a few things first,

-did you accidentally bump the SCSI ribbon cable connecting the hard drive to the motherboard?
-did you do the old 4 finger salute to reset the PRAM which is power on and hold down the command (apple key), option, P and R all at the same time?
-if you have added anything to the SCSI bus it could be an ID conflict.
-or it could be that the hard drive is pooched, is it actually spinning up?

Kevin
 
#10 ·
It really sounds like your Hard Drive is shot. You wont be able to use an old ide drive in it. You will need a 50 pin SCSI drive built by Apple unless you use a patched HD SC disk utility.
You can however download a free copy of System 7.5.3 from Apple here. I don't believe OS 8 is free yet though. Here's a great site for a bunch of older Mac stuff. It would most likely be quite useful for you. This one and this one might be quite useful as well. After digging around in these sites I think you will find pretty much everything you need to get that old Quadra running again. :)
 
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