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Weird Problem on an old Macintosh

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg40634] Weird Problem on an old Macintosh
  • From: Technicians <jeffa at NOSPAM.chem.usyd.edu.au>
  • Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 02:05:32 -0400 (EDT)
  • Organization: The University of Sydney, Australia
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I am helping out a retired friend with a registered version of 
Mathematica v2.1

Yes; I know it's old but so is his computer, (a Macintosh SE20HD). It 
worked for him so he kept using it. The inevitable happened and the old 
beast went belly up just as he had a deadline.

No prob he thought, "I'll reinstall it on another machine and work from 
the backups of my work". The other machine is also old, a Macintosh LCI, 
and working with compatible system software. The first disc in the drive 
coughs up a "This disk is unreadable:" dialogue. It never read a floppy 
disc again. Okay, he's unlucky, the floppy drive has died.

This is where I come in; when he referred to me for help. I'm definitely 
no expert but I'm no slouch either. I've got a spare floppy drive, an 
old working Macintosh Classic I which I use as a diagnostic machine in 
such circumstances, the skills/software to test his Mathematica discs 
and change the drive over. But, when I put the first of the Mathematica 
discs into the drive of the Classic "this disk is unreadable:" etc! nor 
can I read any other floppy now either.

I cannot see how locked 800k floppies can be back written with code to 
prevent reinstallation (the way some of those older protection schemes 
worked) nor do I believe (as my friend does) that there is malicious 
code to 'kill' attempted reinstalls on the discs. But after having two 
different machines go belly up with the same discs I am beginning to wonder.

Anyone got any ideas or seen a similar type of problem? I am NOT trying 
to get around any copy protection scheme that may be there but I AM 
trying to find out if there any history of such problems. And if there 
is any cure/fix.



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