Repairing a CD drive? Performa 630CD working, but CD won't spin

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Hi all. Got my hands on a working Performa 630CD. This thing has a lot of sentimental value to me as it was the first Mac I ever had as a kid.

It's running 7.5.3 and has 8mb RAM & a 250 MB drive. I'm hoping to upgrade to 7.6.1, add a 32 MB stick of RAM, and plop in an older IDE drive I have laying around (like an 80 GB one).

however, I'm stopped in my tracks with upgrading to 7.6.1 and installing the new IDE drive because although the CD tray opens, nothing happens. I've put in multiple different CDs, nothing revs up or appears on the desktop. In fact, the disk is in the same position as I left it when I put it in. It does have a floppy, but I don't have any blank floppies or other Macs to make floppies with.

Does any one have any insight into repairing an Apple internal CD drive? Seems these things are expensive on eBay, and I'd rather not put more money into this project than I already have (just about exactly $200 - performa itself, monitor, kb, mouse, RAM).

 

[MacTech68]

What model CD drive is in it? Originals appear to be 2x drives - Sony CDU-8004 or Matsushita CR-503-C

Either way, these drives do contain the usual surface mounted electrolytics which leak, degrade and etch copper.

However, depending on how brave you are, you might be able to do some simple troubleshooting.

Do you have SCSIProbe Control Panel or SCSI drive formatter with which to query the SCSI BUS ? Let's first see if it is showing up.

BTW, the 250MB hard drive appears to be the original capacity drive:

Macintosh Performa 630 (CD) (PC) Specs: EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the Macintosh Performa 630 (CD) (PC). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.

everymac.com

 

[guzhogi]

If you replace the CD drive, if I remember correctly, some CD drives do NOT support booting Mac OS discs. Don't quote me on that since I'm not 100% sure on that.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

So I took it out, fiddled with it a bit… literally, just “exercised” the mechanisms I could press on after taking the bottom shield off the drive, and then put it back in fully expecting the drive to not open. But then it actually spun the disc and mounted to the desktop! But then after that one successful run, it stopped working again. A few more restarts later (without taking it apart a second time), it also loaded a CD. But now we’re back to nothing.

no clue what I’m doing…

it’s an AppleCD 300i

 

[MacTech68]

On this case style, all devices plug into a wiring harness via slotted connectors (no doubt you've seen the plugs attached to the back of the CD drive).

I would suggest that connectivity of these connectors could be the issue, either on the CD drive or the motherboard edge connector. A contact cleaner might help on these. I did see some of the 6200/6400/5200/5400/5500 machines with these issues (same wiring harness type).

The connectors internally at the back of the CD bay and motherboard bay may need attention.

The edge connectors plugged into the back of the CD drive should be removed and have some contact cleaner applied there too.

Otherwise, you would need an external PSU and SCSI cable (50 pin for the drive to DB25 pin for the rear external SCSI port) to check if the drive is still intermittent.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

I got the Performa to boot from the CD. How? No clue. Just kept it in the drive, and on one boot it decided to go for it. Then, on boot from CD, it couldn't find the HDD. Imagine my disappointment!

Took the CD out, booted fine from HDD.

Then, put CD back in and restarted and it booted again from CD and this time saw the HDD. I was able to successfully upgrade to 7.6.1. Worked for a couple days.

Now, the latest: the hard drive has started clicking. And is no longer booting. The CD drive is also not wanting to work right now. And, as I wrote this, I tried restarting again and the hard drive booted.

The inconsistencies of this is very confusing.

Clearly, it needs a new hard drive. I went to the basement, and I was wrong - there are no IDE drives down there. Just old SATA drives. Damn. Need to get one. Would rather not spend $40 on amazon for what is likely old stock.

In terms of the CD drive... I'll try cleaning the connectors.

@MacTech68 - I do not have SCSI control panel items. Here's the thing, though: when I go to the Apple CD audio player, and I go to Options -> Startup CD drive, it shows "SCSI ID 3" - making me think it does see the drive? Well, as I wrote this, I realized that 7.6 brought the Apple System Profiler, and it sees it under devices! It is a MATSHITA CD-ROM CR-6004a.

Anyone have any additional thoughts on this strange behavior...?

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Well, looks like a neighbor is willing to give me an old 40gb IDE drive that I can use. How would I go about formatting this for the Mac? It was originally used in the original Xbox.

edit: I have a 20gb IDE drive ready for this beast! Trying to figure out how to format it.

 

[MacTech68]

On the 7.6.1 CD there should be a Utilities folder. Within that should be "Drive Setup" - Use that to initialize the hard drive.

EDIT: however, it will only work with an 'Apple-badged' hard drive.

FWB's "Hard Disk Toolkit" should be able to format an IDE drive - I just can't recall which version supports IDE drives (possibly v2 or later).

BTW, SCSI ID 3 is standard configuration from the factory for CD drives.