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Finally, an actual computer problem!

This PowerMac 8600 has been as predictable as New Mexico sunshine until a few days ago. The funny thing is, I never would have discovered anything was wrong if I hadn't tried to optimize the hard drive. We're supposed to do these things once in a while, right? And after some major housecleaning, I thought it would be a good idea, ahem. . .

You see, there was a time when I thought that merely having certain software programs would confer some sort of blessing, if not actual skills, and so over the years I had gotten my hands on just about everything. I still collect applications, but nowadays I'm more realistic about the benefits. I care more about having some free space, too, because while most of the world has humongous hard drives for stashing all sorts of things , my 8600 is equipped with a second 4GB drive that cost an arm and a leg a while back. I bought it to use for storage and as a high-speed startup disk, and so far it has served me well. Of course, when I added the 7200rpm whiz-bang, I never thought it would fill up so fast (hahaha!). As you can imagine, things quickly got to the point where I was using the original "Macintosh HD" as my primary back-up unit. Using a second internal drive for this purpose saves having to insert a Zip disk or CD, and copying files to the drive is much faster than doing the same thing with removable media.

You know what they say about all good things, however, so when the free space on the original 2 GB hard drive shrank to a dangerous level, I knew something had to be done. My first strategy was to trash several hundred megabytes worth of graphics apps I never use. ("Wow, Ray Dream Studio is that big?!") After the trashing, I decided to optimize the drive so I could revel in all the liberated free space -- you know, collect it all into one nice, big pile I could brag about.

I fired up Norton Speed Disk, lined up the Macintosh HD in its sights, pulled the trigger, and went to make a cup of coffee while the dreaded "media check" part of the pre-optimizing phase proceeded at its usual snail-like pace. But when I returned, the program had turned itself off due to a "disk error" or something equally arcane. Did I want to run Norton Disk Doctor to repair the disk, Speed Disk helpfully inquired? Well, I guess so, but this was ridiculous -- and tedious!

Since I always disable the "Check Media" option that goes over the drive itself with a big magnifying glass, to do what was needed required me to set new preferences. After making sure the media check was activated, I started up Disk Doctor, which prompty stopped after examining only a third of the disk. I carefully noted which files were being examined at the moment the program hung, quit Norton Utilities, and threw the corrupted nasties in the Trash.

("Hah! Mess with me, will you?")

Except the Trash wouldn't empty! And I'm not talking about locked files, I'm talking about "The Trash could not be emptied due to a disk error," or words to that effect. Before the error message appeared, the old 2GB drive went into a tap-dancing routine, drumming out the same rat-a-tat-tat over and over and over again -- not a good sign, I decided. Somehow I got it unstuck and had the brilliant idea to restart using another boot partition, only to find that no matter how I restarted the 8600, the Trash continued to attempt to empty itself and hang up the machine! Only after starting up from the Norton Utilities CD could I open the trash window and drag the offending folder back to its home. And it turned out that putting the folder in a different place on the hard drive rendered it trashable. I'm sure this makes perfect sense to thousands of you, but to me it's just voodoo.

Nonetheless, four hours later (3:30 a.m.) I was still at it. I tried everything in the book: I ran Disk Doctor and Disk First Aid, I rebuilt a dozen desktops, and restarted so many times I lost count. I even at long last hit upon the idea of attempting to optimize the hard drive without running the media check first! Ha-ha, brilliant! -- except that it didn't work. Aaarrrghhh! Should I initialize the drive, I wondered? Wipe it clean and start over? I had extra copies of everything on it, didn't I? But the drive still mounted normally on the desktop. I could still open the hard disk window, examine folders and files, copy items to and from the drive. I just couldn't CHECK THE MEDIA. What, was the darned thing literally cracked in the middle or something?

I still haven't tried to initialize the original "Macintosh HD" because I imagine whatever's physically wrong with it will also prevent a successful wipe. In other words, I'll need a new hard drive, probably sooner rather than later. At least they're cheap now: for considerably less than the cost of the 4GB second drive I bought 2 years ago, I can get an adapter card and a whopping big drive. Not all that exciting, considering how easy swapping drives is on the 8600, but sometimes boring is good! No 3:30 a.m. bedtimes, for example.

To put an end to this misery, I'll tell you that I have so far elected to forget about the whole thing. If I hadn't tried to optimze the hard drive, I never would have encountered the alleged damage. And yet, the defect has so far not caused any problems, other than the non-emptying Trash. Or has it?

Somewhere in this process, for reasons totally unfathomable to me now, I disconnected the scanner that I almost never use. Naturally, I soon thought of a use for it and reconnected the gizmo. Now the 8600 hangs in the beginning of a cold startup and needs the three-fingered salute to get rolling! But this is a SCSI issue, right? I did the unforgiveable: it wasn't broke, but I touched it!

And now I'll have to touch it again. . .

[UPDATE: Performing the famous SCSI Voodoo Dance -- otherwise known as kissing & stroking the cable before plugging it back in -- and installing the latest version of Speed Startup may have solved the startup hang...]

[NOTE: The content, theme, and direction of this column is currently under examination by the author. Expect an important announcement very shortly. -- JHF]

John H. Farr also edits the news for Applelinks.com and invites your comments. The Farr Site Archives will take you to the past three years (!!!) of columns. John also writes a monthly op-ed page column called "El Emigrante" for Horse Fly in Taos, NM and has an ongoing project called Zoozone News.

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