I had boxed and stored away for a number of years in my garage a full system including NeXT Cube, 17" monitor, laser printer, and CD-ROM. I connected everything, and after a million tries it will not boot up, says it has disk segment failures. My question is can I purchase a replacement disk drive with NeXTStep v3.3 and from what I have read the YK2 patches already installed. And can I just mount this drive in place of the old one, will/should the system start up and go thru all the initiation processes without any chanaging. Also The rubber tractor feet on the monitor were all melted. I have removed the goo, and am wondering if one can purchase just the tractor feet. Also The CD-ROM does not have a CD-Caddy for the insertion of CD's, van this also be purchased. Thank you in advance. Guy
matrix01
Thank you for the prompt reply. I have sent e-mails and left phone messages to BlackHole, Inc and have not received any replies. The item that you sent me the ebay link to appears to be what I need. Question, If I do purchase this item, and I will today if you think that I can do the physical replacement myself, and that the item will fit ( without modifications ? ) in place of the old one, and once installation of drive is finished, it will it boot up automatically or will I have to change something. Please forgive the questions, as it has been at least fifteen years since I have seen anything NeXT related, and have just recently re-discovered it.
Thanks in advance. Guy
It should come in like a fresh install I would guess, you would have to ask the guys @ BlackHole. It seems like a standard SCSI drive which should fit and be the same form factor, again, I am not the seller, just a direction pointer.. So, validate before making a purchase that you could regret if you are not 100% certain.
Cheers.
matrix01
Thanks again, I will wait until I hear from BlackHole, Inc. One more question, is there a manual somewhere ( all my documentation, manuals, along with modem & stand-alone 2.88" floppy were lost in a moving van, somewhere between 4-5 moves ). I have taken off the back cover, but at this time, cannot see how to access the disk drive, let alone how to replace it. I will try google, if in the mean time, there is a place to go on the web, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks Guy
Quote from: "guydestefano"matrix01
Thanks again, I will wait until I hear from BlackHole, Inc. One more question, is there a manual somewhere ( all my documentation, manuals, along with modem & stand-alone 2.88" floppy were lost in a moving van, somewhere between 4-5 moves ). I have taken off the back cover, but at this time, cannot see how to access the disk drive, let alone how to replace it. I will try google, if in the mean time, there is a place to go on the web, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks Guy
Good luck waiting for a reply from Rob at Blackhole, he does not respond to email. Apparently your best bet is to call him on the phone, as he apparently does answer that.
Chef
Guy,
Hmmm, the hard drive should be quite easy to see once you remove the back cover of a Cube. Obviously, unplug the power cord for the fan in order to fully remove the cover. The hard drive, and any other mass storage devices, are in the upper half of the central 'column' of the Cube, with ribbon cables running to the appropriate connectors on the motherboard, and power lines running down to the PS (which occupies the lower half of the column, enclosed in its own cage).
There are screws on either side of the column that hold the hard drive in place, and you'll need to remove the motherboard in order to get at the screws on that side.
A service manual exists for the Cube but is very rare. In any case, it's quite easy to service the machine on your own...
crimsonRE
Thank you for the reply. I still have the hard drive ordered from Rob @ BlackHoleInc. Hopefully it will be here soon. Since I have Only once taken off the four back screws of the cube, and looked inside, I believe I will be able to change it. Just a few questions If you don't mind, Do I just slide the motherboard straight out, ( Not forcefully ? ), and you stated ribbon cables, do they reach out to uncable while the board is out / part way out? I am supposedly replacing an original 380MB large 5 1/4" drive with a probably much smaller 2GB 3 1/2" drive, I hope there will be reduction mounts, as In my e-mail, I forgot to mention this fact. Hopefully upon reciept next week, I will attemp this change. A have also ordered 32MB memory. Will let you know the result.
Quote from: "guydestefano"crimsonRE
Just a few questions If you don't mind, Do I just slide the motherboard straight out, ( Not forcefully ? ), and you stated ribbon cables, do they reach out to uncable while the board is out / part way out? I am supposedly replacing an original 380MB large 5 1/4" drive with a probably much smaller 2GB 3 1/2" drive, I hope there will be reduction mounts, as In my e-mail, I forgot to mention this fact. Hopefully upon reciept next week, I will attemp this change. A have also ordered 32MB memory. Will let you know the result.
1. Open up the back cover - unhook the fan wire from the fan. Set the cover aside.
2. Slide the motherboard out about two inches. This will give you access to be able to unplug the ribbon cables on the motherboard coming from the hard drive and the OD [if you have one]. When you pull on the motherboard - be firm [but gentle] - as you are pulling it out of a socket on the "backplane". Remove the ribbon cables - and then slide out the motherboard completely. Be careful that the RAM modules are not the "high profile" type - because if they are, you cannot slide the motherboard out easily at this point.
[note: if you have this "high profile" RAM - and the motherboard won't slide out reasonably easy - you must remove the motherboard and the "cage" simultaneously [see #3].
3. Look at the bottom of the power supply/drive "cage". There are two allen screws holding this to the frame of the Cube. Remove these screws. Grab the whole "cage" and pull it out from the Cube. This may take a little effort because it is also plugged into a socket on the backplane.
Now you have the whole cage out - and you can remove and install drives easily.
Most likely you will need reduction mounts [5 1/4" to 3 1/2"]. The older Cubes all had the big sized hard drives. I am certain that Black Hole wouldn't send these with the new hard drive - unless you asked them for it specifically.
kenjay
Thanks for the reply. I have printed your reply, With the instructions, I don't think I will have a problem. I may have the problem with the drive mounts, It takes a while to get in touch with BlackHoleInc. I will be ready, and take the old unit out tomorrow. The drive will probably be here next week. Thanks again. Guy
kenjay
Thank you very much for the detailed instructions on how to replace the disk in my NeXT Cube. This week, I finally received from BlackHoleInc, my order which included new feet for the monitor, a CD disk caddy, and a 4 GB Disk Drive to be loaded with OpenStep 4.2. Today I followed the instructions, and had no problems at all. Now when I closed everything back up, it starts up, seems to load ok, but comes to a page that I had never seen before. A page that asked for a UserName and a Password. I am sorry to say that I don't have that information, and do not have until Christmas 2007 or later for Rob ( BlackHole ) to supply the information. Is there any way to reset or find the UserName / Password. While it was apart, I installed a new battery. I have also read that someone stated take out the battery, and short the connectors. This I have never done, and don't want to short out the motherboard. Is there an easy way, or if it is the shorting route, can you please explain what I use, and how is it done. thanks agin for all of your help.
Guy
I really doubt that Black Hole would set a password other than root.
So try try typing in root - for both the user and the password.
If that doesn't work - see this page:
http://www.bangmoney.org/nextstep/root_password.htmlThese instructions are a little unclear to a novice. Don't forget to hit the enter key after each command. After you get to the place where you typed # passwd root - it will ask you for your new password - twice [the second time to confirm].
After that is done - Then type reboot. It will boot back into the single user mode. Then shut the Cube off - by hittting the power key, and typing y. Wait a minute - and start it up again. Hopefully ... it will work w/ your "new" password". Then you will type in user: root [and] password: [whatever you set it to be].
You definitely don't have to remove the battery. That would only be if someone had set a "hardware" password [stored in ROM] for extra security - and there is NO possible way that it could have "survived" with the battery removed for a couple hours.
kenjay = Resident Genius
Thank you very much. I tried root / root and it is now up and working.
I really appreciate the prompt reply, and the clarity of your help.
Thanks again.
Guy
Quote from: "guydestefano"kenjay = Resident Genius
Thank you very much. I tried root / root and it is now up and working.
I really appreciate the prompt reply, and the clarity of your help.
Thanks again.
Guy
kenjay is a helpful dude, all right. He and brams came to the rescue when I confessed my lack of nextstep networking skills.