Macintosh Plus - Startup Issue Advice

[CorkSeries]

Hi,

I have a Macintosh Plus and I am hoping someone could give me advice on the best way to proceed. It was working fine up until a few days ago, now when I turn it on I hear the chime and see the normal disk icon on the screen however I am unable to get the machine to boot into System 6.

I have 2 Startup disks and get repeatable but different behaviour between them:

Disk 1: Genuine disk, the machine recognises the disk and attempt to boot into 6.0.8, it gets nearly all the way but then Mac bombs with ID03 error.
Disk 2: Copied disk, the machine used to boot into this, it contains System 6.0.0. Now the machine attempts to read it and then immediately spit it out and shows a question mark on the screen. I assume it does not recognise it as a startup disk.

I have removed the drive and cleaned the heads, same behaviour.

Now to my question, I suspect this is a drive issue or both my startup disks have become corrupt. Instead of sourcing a replacment I would like to order a FloppyEMU as this will be far more useful - https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/

Since this device is expensive I am looking for a way to give me more assurance that the issue is not related to something else with the machine? Are there any tests I could perform or things I should try before spending money on the FloppyEMU?

Thank you for any help. Really enjoying playing with the old machine.

 

[velocityg4]

ID=03 is an legal instruction. Try holding the shift key during boot.

Mac Error Codes

www.macwizard.com

I’d assume that there is something wrong with the floppy drive or your floppies are corrupt. If these are newer cheap floppies from the late 90s or later. There’s a good chance of corruption.

I bought an unopened pack of Sony floppies from the early 90s to avoid the crappy disks made later.

I can’t find anything more about the error. Maybe try Internet archive. The other possibility is consider is a bad RAM module. Don’t know if RAM has to be installed in sets like some early Mac II. So, you may not be able to pull one at a time.

 

[CorkSeries]

ID=03 is an legal instruction. Try holding the shift key during boot.

Mac Error Codes

www.macwizard.com

I’d assume that there is something wrong with the floppy drive or your floppies are corrupt. If these are newer cheap floppies from the late 90s or later. There’s a good chance of corruption.

I bought an unopened pack of Sony floppies from the early 90s to avoid the crappy disks made later.

I can’t find anything more about the error. Maybe try Internet archive. The other possibility is consider is a bad RAM module. Don’t know if RAM has to be installed in sets like some early Mac II. So, you may not be able to pull one at a time.

Thanks for the help, I am hoping the floppies have become corrupt. I don't know how old they are as they came with the machine. However the machine was last used in 94 and they don't appear to be high quality ones.

I have ordered a new startup disk (tested before they send it). I will report back once it arrives.