Today I finally got my IIfx booting System 7.5.3. It has been a month long saga involving countless hours spent tweaking, much frustration and one or two accidents involving hardware and a floor. The final hurdle I jumped today was the matter of a PRAM battery. Sick of waiting for my ordered ones to ship, I did what I should have done weeks ago and built 2 battery packs out of 2 AA batteries, some scrap metal and a lot of electrical tape. Once wired up to the battery slots, the keyboard booted it fine. Problem solved! Far too easily I might add.
The second issue to overcome once my network setup disk had copied (thanks to my trusty 5500/225) was that of a hard drive. The 500mb HDD fitted had long since bitten the dust, and my 9gb IBM was far too big for it's liking. Just when I was about to give up however, fate took hold, and my nice 40mb external HDD from my Mac Plus took a trip to the floor. One test confirmed my worst fears - it no longer powered up. I decided it was time to see what was inside, so I opened the enclosure and removed the drive. Then an idea sparked. I plugged the HDD into the IIfx and booted to the network setup floppy. Success! It was still going! I backed up the data and installed 7.5.3 onto the drive via a Performa 5260. After a bit of tinkering, I had the IIfx booting off the drive! Thanks to an Apple CD 500 I've now got as much software as possible crammed onto the 40mb HDD. It may be a downgrade, but it works. However, as successful as I've been, there are still issues with the RAM. Whenever I put anything in expansion bays 5, 6, 7 and 8, I get some dreaded chimes. I'd rather have more than 4mb of RAM, as that allows a tad more freedom, so I was wondering if anyone had any solutions to that particular issue. Just to clarify, this is likely an issue with the slots, not the RAM. I'd love to be able to put this machine to good use, so a solution is much appreciated. Cheers, Nick -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
