I recently got my first NeXT - an early "slab". I managed to bypass the login (had no password) and do the single user boot trick to change the passwords. I could load the OS and everything was fine.
The next day when I tried it, it kept getting stuck on "Loading from disk...". I set it to boot into ROM monitor to see what was going on and saw that it was looking for the drive. It said "waiting for drive to come ready..." and I could hear the drive clicking.
Is the harddrive dead? If it is, what can I do? I've got plenty of 50-pin SCSI drives, but no NeXT install software. What can I do? (...besides screaming)
What are the odds that the drive would die one day after I could finally log on to the damn thing? (I didn't change anything on the drive except a couple password changes)
Help!
(posted using a Commodore Amiga)
Luckily you have us! :)
Actually my Amiga 3000 did pretty much the same thing.. It comes down to OLD DISKS DIE EASILY. I even ordered a bunch more of disks to have them show up DOA. As someone has done elsewhere on here, I'm going the SCSI-IDE bridge to Compact flash route.. while not the 'fastest' way out, the fact it's on new media will hopefully make a big difference.
As for sourcing your way to NeXTSTEP 3.3 (someone *ALL* black hardware users are entitled to) I'm sure someone can help you out, assuming you haven't found it via google...
Don't worry, you are not alone, but with 10-20 year old machines, I guess it's to be expected.
neozeed, In a month or two, I'll have all the bits I need to test out my CF conversion. Hopefully it'll be very fast. I'm using UDMA capable parts for the adapter and storage pieces. Should be pretty darn quick for a NeXT.
mr_a500, if you can't get a copy of the OS, I can install 3.3 or 4.2 on a scsi drive and ship it to you for a nominal fee :P
btw, welcome to the forums! :)
Quote from: "neozeed"Luckily you have us! :)
Actually my Amiga 3000 did pretty much the same thing.. It comes down to OLD DISKS DIE EASILY. I even ordered a bunch more of disks to have them show up DOA. As someone has done elsewhere on here, I'm going the SCSI-IDE bridge to Compact flash route.. while not the 'fastest' way out, the fact it's on new media will hopefully make a big difference.
Yes, flash drive sounds like the way to go. I've got a 2Gb CF and CF-IDE adapter on my Amiga 500 and it works nicely (and I didn't have to worry about SCSI-IDE bridge because my A500 already has IDE.)
A CF with NeXT installed would be safer and cheaper to send by mail than an old SCSI harddrive. If anybody's interested in Amigas, maybe I could even do a trade - an installed and configured Amiga CF for an installed and configured NeXT CF. (see my Amiga setup here (
http://flickr.com/photos/21619734@N06/))
Has anybody tried a SDHC adapter on a NeXT? Those SD things are even smaller and cheaper than CF. I bought a 4Gb SDHC for my A500, but never got around to getting the adapter.
QuoteAs for sourcing your way to NeXTSTEP 3.3 (someone *ALL* black hardware users are entitled to) I'm sure someone can help you out, assuming you haven't found it via google...
I have (or actually, "had" now that the drive is dead) NeXTSTEP 2.1. It would be interesting to see the differences between that and 3.3.
Quote from: "helf"btw, welcome to the forums! :)
Thanks. :) This seems like a friendly place.
cool setup.. Have you taken a look at AROS? I was thinking of installing it natively....
I did try an SD-IDE adapter with a regular 60x 2GB SD card. There were some funny hiccups during bootup -- something about needing to retry access to block 0. The setup still boots up and works, though I'm not sure about stability. It also could be just my cheap SD-IDE ($10) or my cheap SD card ($10).
Performance was not stellar. DrivePerformance reports 1x write and 2x read speeds.
http://picasaweb.google.com/simplepractices/Posts#5262210825120531266