Catastrpohic hard drive failure, salvaged Mac IIsi Parts, a Mac LC III Update and candy from Germany

[@thearam]

The monitor for that display card, the Apple two-page monochrome display, was a massive, massive hunk of CRT. I had the one-page monochrome Apple portrait display, which I used on a IIci for a bit. While absolutely awesome for writing papers and such, it weighed a metric ton. The two-page version was something to behold.

[@holtek86]

I had a TPD with a Radius video card. Probably still have the card someplace but I scrapped the monitor years ago. Yes that thing was a real beast!

[@Fifury161]

I regret throwing out my 2 page display - I still have the video card though!

[@jefflavenz7285]

I think the monitor for the two-page display card is still where I found the Mac Iisi machines, but I didn't send it because of how expensive it might be. That and I don't trust myself enough to wrap a monitor like that.

[@datort]

Glad to see that the Milchbären made their way to you. Enjoy! 😀

[@jefflavenz7285]

Glad you got some use out of the things I sent. Guess that's what happens when things get old enough. ^^'

[@RetroSpector78]

Getting Quantum ProDrive nightmares all over again :)

[@catriona_drummond]

*hugs*

[@sonicunleashedfan124]

And I thought quantum fireballs were the worst (I haven’t had any old hard drives from old macs, idk where I got this info)

[@tomf3150]

Or intel deskstar (Deathstar).

[@shadowflash705]

@@sonicunleashedfan124 The worst? Nope. That will be Kalok. Also Conner drives were utter garbage.

[@sonicunleashedfan124]

@@shadowflash705 I’m talking about just Quantum drives. I know Conner drives are crap from adrian’s videos

[@darkstatehk]

That crashed hdd would make an excellent alarm clock sound. Just what you need to get you out of bed in the morning!!

[@MrKanejoe1]

Adrian...you are like the Bob Ross of retro computer repair.

[@LUNATIC75]

One of my favourite tropes in retro computing videos is the HDD's inevitable failure. This is usually preceded by several minutes of fond nostalgia for the old girl, while I'm already thinking, 'Yep, she's a goner!'

[@anumeon]

That old apple floppy eject mechanism sound will always make me happy.. I frikkin love that sound..

[@ExStaticBass]

It might be time to get a degaussing tool for those old drives. I've had experience with heads becoming magnetized and when that happens they don't read disks very well anymore. As for the NewBus cards, you might try adding flux to the pins and reflowing them with a hot air reflow tool. I've had decent luck with my old Amiga 4000/060 using that same method.

[@zachz96]

Type 2 diabetic here. I think you got me addicted to Haribo candies. It's a good thing I need to ride my bike three miles round trip to get them.

[@simontay4851]

Can't you just drive the 3 miles.

[@pootispiker2866]

@@simontay4851 Waste of gas. It's a mile and a half to the store and back.

[@bradkamrath]

Amazing! Adrian is finally using appropriate bench-tech vernacular: "This drive is f'ed!"

[@Zeem4]

The cleaning sticks are called chamois-tipped swabs, the ones you've got there are made by Chemtronics.

[@grumwsmith]

Keep up the good work! Thanks from Scotland

[@pacmania1982]

I was gonna say it was a portrait display card but you got there in the end

[@MrChrisRP]

"Out of range" = usually frequency. See if you can make the card output 60 Hz definitely and take it from there, is my guess and suggestion.

[@joachimlusiardi7330]

I think Chris is right, old CRTs had higher frequencies than 60 Hz to be more eye friendly. There were also modes with 120HZ for 3D glasses ;)

[@Diggnuts]

The drive spindle hub even says "F" on it!

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

Press F to pay respects.

[@Damaniel3]

World Market has a ton of Haribo products - an entire rack of them, in fact. I don't remember seeing those ones specifically, but they have a bunch of kinds that regular stores here don't carry.

[@noanyobiseniss7462]

I did a Quantum SCSI upgrade on a SE and it took so long to spin up the system would error out so to make it boot I just turned the system on and then off and on again after spin up and the system would boot fine. Just in case you run into this issue.

[@TheJorith]

'Let's hit it' that made me laugh way too much!

[@MattSiegel]

how to disengage the external inertial damper XD

[@DavePoo]

The technical term is "percussive maintenance"

[@THEtechknight]

Theres something you have to keep in mind. System 7.1 and newer will attempt to boot and eject for the first time if you do NOT have a PRAM battery installed. Thats how this works. Stick the disk in again, it will properly boot.

[@drstkova]

Were you in a hurry when you typed the title of the video? :D

[@GarthBeagle]

15:14 the HDD kind of sounds like the Emergency Broadcast System sound

[@mr-meek]

The sounds that came out of that drive is what my nightmares are made of

[@jammi__]

The two-page display resolution is like 75Hz and your TFT panel can't sync that high. I have the same issue with my higher end 68k systems that only do up to 800x600@56Hz on VGA ID settings and 832x624@75Hz 1152x870@75Hz for the higher res up from that, but TFTs have prolems with that. What you need is a good CRT VGA display. I have a couple of late model CRT 19" monitors reserved for that, and my late 15" ones will have no trouble either.

[@marcelofrau8818]

Awesome.. I love mini mail calls. Thank you Adrian for your great content! I love to see your techniques on soldering, replacing caps and stuff like that, you make it seem it is easy and motivate me every time I see to try doing some work on some old things that I have but don't have courage to recap or fix something. You could show more of this :D, anyway I love this channel, keep up the good work! Wish you the best :D

[@mushroomsamba82]

I've bought the milk bears at quickchek convenience stores in NJ

[@hermannschaefer4777]

The 2-page monitor was a 21" CRT that weighted some tons. It had 1152x870 resolution with 77 dpi and was used quite often for making newspapers. Refresh rate is 75Hz with horiz. rate of 68.7kHz. Some newer 21" CRTs from the 90s might display a picture. The video card has up-gradable RAM sockets für 4-bit grayscale. The first generation of cards with the IIcx had this 13w3-connector, you can get VGA-adapters, but I also have some 13w3-to-DB15-cables

[@galier2]

Quantum drives are all dead or in instance of dying. There was recently a video from RetroSpectror who opened one and try to repair and he discovered that they use stops that use rubber. The rubber is disintegrating with age and the heads then bump against the metal ring that holds the disk. Destruction guaranteed. Here the link to that video kzbin.info/www/bejne/l33TnIGLh8mZabM

[@proCaylak]

perishing rubber at the worst place possible for electronics... now I see why.

[@devil5051000]

I have an old Quantum Prodrive 40S SCSI drive here that came together with my Amiga 3000 a few years ago. It was working for three days and then suddenly stopped working. There was nothing of big worth on that drive and I gave it a place on my shelf, where it was collecting dust since that day. Inspired by the linked video (and because it is a boring corona lockdown sunday) I opened up the harddrive today and found one of that goo-ified rubber thingies right next to the r/w head assembly. The r/w arm had smashed the rubber and rubbed it over the neodym magnetos, render itself unable to move in the process. I cleaned the mess with isopropyl and put some electrical tape over the rests of the rubber spacer. There was a second rubber spacer on the other side of the arm that still looked good, but I put some electrical tape over it as a precaution, too. I reassembled the harddrive and put it into my Amiga 3000. And to my surprise it was working again. The Amiga booted right of the former dead harddrive. I don´t know how long it will work after that, so I copied everything off the drive and format it at the moment. Edit: So thank you for that link :)

[@annareismith6843]

I have them in the big Wall Marts Grocery section in Poulsbo Washington near Bremerton where I live. They have everything sold in the USA. Some I have never seen anywhere else.

[@stephenlord1539]

You forgot to record the audio..... we KNOW you said "It Freakin' Works !!!"

[@RetroTheory]

Lots of good tips on the old Mac floppy drives here.

[@dennisp.2147]

I've seen Haribo milchbaeren at the local Aldi's here in Florida.

[@mrnmrn1]

What?! Aldi is already in the US too? Is there any Lidl?

[@dennisp.2147]

@@mrnmrn1 Yes, on the East coast, but not as far South as Florida.

[@mrnmrn1]

@@dennisp.2147 Thanks, I had no idea. IIRC at least Aldi is in Australia as well, I think Dave Jones mentioned it years ago. Wonder why eg. Walmart is not present here in Europe (at least I entered most major EU capitals into their store finder, no results).

[@dennisp.2147]

@@mrnmrn1 Aldi (and lidl) were actually pretty familiar to many Americans even prior to their coming over this side of the pond. Any American who's spent time stationed in Germany knew them. I was amazed by the genius concept of requiring a locked-in one mark coin to use a cart, ensuring people would return them and requiring no bag-boys roaming the parking lot gathering them back up.

[@mrnmrn1]

@@dennisp.2147 Carts with coin operated lock are very common in Europe, practically every single store that has carts uses that system. I don't know who used it first, it might be Aldi/Lidl. I'm Hungarian, the first Lidl appeared here in 2004, the first Aldi in 2008. Coin operated carts were already common here in the first years of the '90s, right after the regime change. They might be present in the last years of communism as well, but I was too young back then to remember. 'Creative' people use washers to open the lock... :)

[@phreapersoonlijk]

LOL, you actually ran the HDD till it died completely ! That was very satisfying !

[@nyccollin]

I love old computers and all, but I’ve realized that even if they’re working perfectly, you can’t really do anything worthwhile with them. I have some really old computers though, some from the 70s even. I configured my raspberry pi to emulate a Hayes modem and connect to telnet BBSes through dos. That was fun for like 1 night.

[@RetroTechToys]

You gotta love those Quantum drives.

[@MiiaFoxx]

First you got a drive that threw a rod, and now you've got one that's rod knocking.

[@Storm_.]

Hi Adrian, you could always desolder that transceiver chip with a heat gun, clean up all the contacts and chip legs (soak in white vinegar and lemon juice) then resolder. Might fix it.

[@Codeaholic1]

Adrian's Digital Haribo! World Market definitely has it. Also HEB here in Texas carries it sometimes.

[@lemagreengreen]

Fair play to that hard drive, it definitely tried and showed absolutely no self preservation.

[@neilo3476]

I love the excitement about the candy :)

[@ulrichfrank4270]

Read a long time ago that drive heads of certain hard disks, by sliding on platters when spinning up or down, were honed so smooth that after a certain number of cycles they tended to stick to the surface of the platters by adhesion (and tended to get ripped) . This effect counteracted by "laser-textured landing zones" (also to remove carbon particles from heads).

[@AmstradExin]

WOW WTF, where did you get THIS ADAPTER!?!?!?! Holy cow!

[@ronniepirtlejr2606]

I'm born and raised in the US for 50 years now. I've never seen the candy. We do have a International Food Store 20 miles away from here. it might be possible there?

[@felixokeefe]

Makes sense. A slight misalignment between the top and bottom heads could prevent the drive from reading a high density disk properly. While a double density disk might still work. Just about.

[@briangoldberg4439]

The foreign Haribo are only available at markets that import stuff, but they are around. I know of a half-dozen shops in New York that for sure carry those, but I don't know Portland. It's a big city, so I'm sure you find them somewhere. Look for eastern European grocers, like Polish places. There's one of those I know of around here that also carries German candy.

[@aitchpea6011]

At IBM making hard drives, we used to call that "stiction". Sometimes heads just stick, and when they do, they stay stuck and it stops the spindle from spinning. That sharp tap with the screwdriver likely broke the adhesive that holds the head to the actuator arm, allowing the spindle motor to spin again.

[@krnlg]

I wonder if it could've been "saved" by taking it apart before tapping it and physically unsticking the head from the platter. Maybe only that one area would have been damaged?

[@aitchpea6011]

@@krnlg Any damage to a platter is pretty much fatal as far as I'm aware, and I don't think there's any way to release the head without damage to the platter.

[@DavidScheiber]

I think you meant adhesion not adhesive

[@aitchpea6011]

@@DavidScheiber Nope. Adhesive. Specifically a bonding agent.

[@gasmice]

Some Quantum drives in Macs of that era also had notable stiction problems. I do not remember if there was a return/replacement policy with the Apple-labeled drives diagnosed with that problem. A web search for 'quantum hard drive stiction' gives details. Expect a drive with stiction to fail, so remove any critical data while it's still spinning.

[@UmbreWolf]

We have them here in Nebraska, A candy shop stocks them here along with just about every other haribo you can imagine, though its the only store local I can find them at. (they charge 3.99 a bag too)

[@matsedererklar-bar8658]

If you will be able to visit germany when it becomes possible again and you're going to visit the mittle rhine area like Cologne and you have enough time, you have to travel to Bonn and Bad Godesberg. There, you'll find the destiny of your dreams, the one and only place to be: the factory outlet of Haribo. Haribo startet it's worldwide business there in Bonn / Bad Godesberg, and the actual factory outlet is new built, gigantic, nice to see and awesome regarding to the haribo range of worldwide products. Look for it, it's lovely!

[@darthbukowski6894]

World Market here in South Carolina carry them. That hard drive sounded like a moped😂

[@knightcrusader]

Next time I am at Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati, I'll see if they carry those candies. They have all kind of imports from a lot of countries, especially candy. The British Cadbury and Nestle bars are my weakness, especially the Lion bars.

[@ericpaul4575]

I would format disk when cleaning old mac disk drives. This would make sure the head screw was worked through its full working distance. Also it looked like there was a dirty spot on that screw which may have been causing the reading issue.

[@johnsonlam]

Hi Adrian, when removing leaky capacitors, apply some flux can help the solder braid working even better, experience from Louis Rossmann video.

[@stevesmusic1862]

Catastrpohic ? Catastrophic perhaps! But as always, you do the best mail days!

[@angrydove4067]

I hope you will try further to fix the LC III power supply, I have one which is clicking too.

[@UpLateGeek]

A quick google suggests the video card runs at 75Hz, so it's definitely not going to work with a standard 60Hz LCD. Should work with an old CRT, although a 14" might struggle with the resolution. From memory 14" monitors typically topped out at 800x600 or 1024x768 (although the resolution of the phosphor dots wasn't that high).

[@andredixon2743]

The Mac iisi was my first computer, you need drivers for the radius stuff to be accelerated. System 7.5.5 came with drivers for some of that stuff including day star digital accerators. 7.6 was a speed bump and the end of the road. You would get better results with 7.5.5 than 7.1,

[@GaryED44]

I've haven't seen that type of haribo in georgia, just the regular gummy bears

[@robsprokholt8831]

Only 33 minutes? I want more mini..

[@benbaselet2026]

Some plastics get brittle when they dry too much. I wonder if boiling those plastic gears in water for some time will prevent them from cracking? It works with RC car parts, makes the plastic a bit more "bendy" and less brittle.

[@00Skyfox]

Hey Adrian, a quick C64 question for you. In your opinion, what would be better for a VIC: keeping the metal lid on its shield can with the built-in heat sink tab and thermal paste, or removing the metal lid and sticking on dedicated adhesive heat sinks? (I have some small ones, and 3 would fit on the VIC.) BTW, a couple months back I recommended silver or gold Sharpies for marking chips. I recently found silver, gold, and white markers at my local Dollar Tree that do an even better job marking chips, and at $1 each instead of $1.50 for a Sharpie, it seems like a better deal.

[@Schooner316]

That hard drive sounded like a Yamaha dirt bike I had as a teen! LOL

[@mrnmrn1]

The color of the screws on the HDD suggests corrosive atmosphere. Either high (condensing) humidity, or battery fumes. The disk inside also looks patchy, corroded/moldy. The machines might be stored in a damp basement.

[@retrogameon]

I've had that "out of range" error with Asus monitors too trying to display DOS games that use odd resolutions. Plugging in an OSSC seems to do the trick

[@jocool7370]

Milchbären and Froschi are my favourites!!

[@luther99flame]

Watching this reminded me to tell you not to get the glass fibre pen you mentioned in a video or two ago. They are amazing but the fall out will be zillions of virtually invisible broken off glass fibres that will stick in your hand and drive you insane. I know this from previous experience from where I used to work. There is a slightly inferior version that has brass bristles instead, not as effective but safer for the user and more importantly for when you go back to the desk and put you down.

[@dereketnyre7156]

You should come to Des Moines, Iowa for a meet and greet - once COVID cooperates.... :)

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

I suppose the hard drive went kapoot, is the SCSI ports in the Apple machines SCSI LVD 160 connectors if so what about a SCSI-2-SATA adapter, The power people might be working on a Substation near to you.

[@mybigfatpolishlife]

He don't live in new York

[@catriona_drummond]

These Quantum harddrives :D I've seen too many attempts on youtube of people unsuccessfully trying to fix them recently.

[@marco_foco]

@Lassi Kinnunen 81 Oh the bigfoot. I bought one new at the time, it literally lasted a couple of minutes.

[@senilyDeluxe]

@Lassi Kinnunen 81 I remember back in the late 90s early 00s when it was still legal to help yourself to the containers at the local e-waste, I found so many Quantum hard drives with like 500MB or even a gig and I was so happy at all that space and took em home and they were all making these weird white noise noises and of course being dead.

[@bloeckmoep]

@8:22, nice idea. I gotta do this with my 120 or so 1GB DDR1 sticks.

[@thegreene3]

I love the shirt you are wearing, where did you get it from? I think my friend Tammy might like it. LOL :D

[@nickc7494]

Your videos are so relaxing

[@VinceValenti]

"This whole drive is just F'd." LMAO 🤣

[@mousefad3673]

@14:50 lol, sounds like when I used to fold the mud-flap against the tyre on my Grifter. :D

[@paulluce2557]

Hello Adrian.. With so many donations from your Mail Calls... You're going to need a Bigger Basement!

[@fumthings]

Hi Adrian, if you were thinking of taking the math chip off the faulty nubus adaptor anyway, why not try removing the transceiver chip and cleaning under it before calling it quits. (i mean you could check all the traces as well and repair but understandably that may not be worth the time)

[@DerekWitt]

Introducing the Quantum FUBAR! Goodbye, hard drive!

[@DerekWitt]

It’s a good day when Adrian wears the Chicken Pot pie shirt. :)

[@jimmydelagarza3208]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned but they have Haribo candy at CVS in Texas at least, Goodbears, Sour Streamers, Starmix and a few others

[@MatroxMillennium]

I've never seen the Milk Bears in the US but I've seen the Frogs (which also have the white foamy layer) at Dollar Tree.

[@sq1rlsqu4d]

Catastr....cpastrop...catstrap...Catastrpohic :-D Typos FTW :)

[@tomf3150]

Cat ass trophee ?

[@macartm]

Yeah I think Adrian is just going through a bad spell

[@sq1rlsqu4d]

@@macartm A cstrapto...catstra...yes, one of those bad spells :-D

[@uncreative_name48]

Hello from your viewers in Iowa

[@Impossiblah]

An out of range error on a VGA monitor generally means that the horizontal scan frequency is outside the supported range of the monitor. Most often this happens when the signal is around 15kHZ, typical of a lot of older pre-VGA computers and SD Television signals. However I don't think that's the case here. Based on the resolution and vertical refresh rate this card is supposed to have, it is instead likely that your monitor doesn't accept a scan rate this *high*-somewhere around 65-68 kHZ.

[@deathcube2006]

The power flickered! thanksfully i thought for a sec i had a stroke

[@geezerdiamond]

Could you steal the transceiver chip from the worse adapter board, or was that also ruined?

[@RetroBytesUK]

Your lucky having an LCD that supports sync on green, I have to use the original CRT with my SGI machine, as none of my LCDs support sync on green.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Yeah it's funny I have several that support it, it seems. The Acer, an Asus and a Dell all do. (All the screen I have mounted around my benches.) The Asus is pretty new too with HDMI, VGA and DVI inputs (1080p IPS) -- only when I tried connecting something to my old NEC 4:3 and it didn't work did I realize the Mac and the SGI were SOG.

[@pb7379-j2k]

I ran a company’s entire outgoing fax system with GlobalFax!

[@douro20]

Wasn't the IIsi the first to have the Superdrive?

[@minty_Joe]

No, it was the Mac IIx in 1988.

[@DiazFelix]

This HDD seems an two stroke motorbike :lol:

[@Natures_Intentions]

Cool vintage computer part's

That hard drive wanted to say something encoded into Morse by pulses of strange noises :-O

[@Zerkbern]

Hey Adrian. I'd love to see a video on what to check before you boot up an old commodore system. I have an old Commodore 64, 1541 Drive, 1571 Drive andof course the associated power supplies. What should I look at before I try and boot up my old computer?

[@stephendouglas9355]

Check power supply with multimeter before using! C64 power bricks are killers! Sorry to butt in...didn't want you to get burned! Adrian's repairathons are awesome for c64 fixin'!

[@retropuffer2986]

Two page monitors were highly desirable for DTP.

[@tylerpferrari]

@16:50 The drive is effed and the piece of metal holding the platter also says "F". It's a sign.

[@Dukefazon]

You are a walking ad for Haribo. A couple of weeks ago I went to my local store and bought all kind of Haribo products just because I was watching you having a feast on them :) I really want to buy 2x 168pin 256mb pc66-100 sdram or 3x the same but 128mb... 21:25 - I read that there are some caps on the floppy drive boards that can be replaced and if you do it (and the read head has no issues) can bring back a bad drive to life. 31:50 - did you try deoxit or something on the pins too? It might just be a bad connection between cards.

[@Megabobster]

Rammy Malloc, esteemed Hollywood actor.

[@chemmerling]

Cost Plus is so expensive. It's where I get my Clearly Canadian drinks from, since the only supermarket that carries them here in the US is either East Coast or Idaho.

[@Renville80]

Hey Adrian, why not try getting ahold of the Foreign Candy Co. in Iowa? Maybe they can hook you up with a steady supply of goodies. 😉

[@MikeHarris1984]

Haribo, I have not found in store the German imported ones. Only on Amazon can I find it and they are amazing.

[@PINKBOY1006]

You know what that head cleaning “stick” is? It’s an eyeshadow sponge! I just looked at it a little closer and it clicked!

[@Zeem4]

They're not made of sponge, these cleaning sticks are made of synthetic chamois leather.

[@PINKBOY1006]

@@Zeem4 oh, I see. So it's the same stuff that those auto detail cloths are made of (autospa makes chamois ones). I could see how that would be better for the heads.

[@truckerallikatuk]

Adrian, you probably won't see the liquorice Haribo in the US either. That may be a Netherlands/German exclusive.