Several users of PowerBase 180 clones report the return of the blinking question mark at startup problem, first described for Mac OS 7.6.1. Specifically, the problem only occurs at a warm restart (such as by selecting Restart from the Finder's Special menu). This has now been reported for the Motorola 3160MT and Performa 6360. It may affect all Alchemy-based machines.

Although not likely to be the cause of this problem for everyone, Colt West writes: "A quick call to Power Computing Tech Support revealed that the Hard Drive Toolkit (HDT) 1.7.7, bundled with the PowerBase, was incompatible with MacOS 8 and that I would need to upgrade to HDT 2.0.x."

Regarding this issue, Chris Heatherly of Power Computing informs me: "Power Computing does not recommend the FWB Hard Disk Toolkit driver for use on IDE drives. Apple's Drive Setup utility is preferred for use on PowerBase's with IDE drives. Customers who wish to install Mac OS 8 on these systems should choose to update their driver when prompted by the Mac OS 8 installer.Customers using a Power Computing system with a SCSI hard drive will not need to update their hard disk drivers if they are using Hard Disk Toolkit 2.0 or later. Customers using earlier versions of HDT should update their drivers with a more recent version before installing Mac OS 8."

Oddly, a reader claims that Power Computing tech support told him not to use Drive Setup 1.3 (the version that comes with Mac OS 8) on his Powerbase. Chris says this is no longer the case.

As to the exact cause of the blinking question mark, Power Computing is still investigating. Several readers claim that virtual memory (either on or off; it is not yet clear) can affect whether the blinking question mark problem occurs.

Note: Contrary to Power Computing's advice, Kevin Lukes found that reformating his PowerBase 180 drive with HDT 2.0.6, instead of Drive Setup, fixed his blinking question mark on warm restart problem. Reader Daniel reports exactly the same thing. Both claim the Drive Setup problem has existed since version 1.1.

If you get a blinking question mark at a cold start in a Mac 5260, 54XX, or 6360, Apple has this to say about it in a new TIL file (#30137) :

Apple has identified an issue with a limited number of IDE (ATA) 1.2 GB hard drives that shipped with Power Macintosh/Performa 5260, 54xx and 6360 computers that can cause a diskette icon with a flashing "?".

This can occur from either power on or at restart under any Mac OS version that is supported on these computers. This problem is related to the firmware used on some IDE (ATA) 1.2 GB hard drives used on these computers. This problem is NOT caused by the Mac OS.

If you are experiencing this problem after doing a clean installation of system software on your Power Macintosh/Performa 5260, 54xx and 6360 computer, you should have an authorized Apple Service Provider service the hard drive.

Still, readers are finding this to occur immediately after a Mac OS 8 update. One reader claimed that ignoring this advice led to corruption of his hard drive that required reformatting to recover. He was told by Apple Tech Support that some fix was due within a few weeks.

Regarding the previously reported problem with blinking ? on warm restarts (and sometimes even on cold starts) with PowerBase clones, Power Computing reports:

In the majority of cases, if the computer is powered off and restarted, the computer will boot properly. More importantly: Power Computing has identified an issue with a limited number of IDE (ATA) 1.2 GB hard disk drives used with PowerBase computers. This issue can occur with Mac OS 8 or a previous versions of the Mac OS. Power Computing uses the Apple IDE driver installed by the Mac OS Drive Setup utility. Drivers installed by versions of Drive Setup 1.2 or later been known to expose this issue. Customers should either contact Power Computing Technical Support or their reseller for further assistance with this issue."

This seems very similar to the issue reported for these drives on several Apple Mac models.

Meanwhile, James Baumhover says that he has seen postings from Apple that disabling the sleep function for the hard drive has helped solve this problem. I cannot confirm this.

I have received occasional reports that NuBus based Power Macs may have some special problems with Mac OS 8. Eric Belsley (of the MRP) has also forwarded me a couple of such reports he received (thanks!). But (aside from one previously posted item suggesting sound setting problems specific to these Macs) nothing was solid enough to post here - until now.

Erik Kovach was unable to enable virtual memory on his NuBus Power 120. He received a reply from Power Computing that confirmed this and suggested that it might be a general problem with all NuBus Power Macs. However...

Update: Chris Heatherly (of Power Computing) writes: "We have confirmed reports that with Mac OS 8 installed on a Power 120 that Virtual Memory may not be available in the Memory control panel or in About this Computer. We have identified the source of the issue and are working with Apple to resolve it. To correct some earlier statements, this issue does not affect the Power Macintosh 8100. In addition, we have seen that RAM Doubler is unaffected by this issue."

Update: While I have gotten some confirmation of a more general issue with NuBus based Macs (as well as still other reports of NuBus-specific problems), several readers report that they have no virtual memory problem at all on their NuBus Apple Power Macs (consistent with what Chris says). It may be that problems are specfic to using a certain disk driver. Stay tuned for more details as they develop.

Previously, we reported a problem with virtual memory not working on certain computers after updating to Mac OS 8. Well, here's sort of the opposite problem: computers that won't startup unless virtual memory is on! [I still haven't figured out why this affects some computers but not others.]

Eric Stebelton writes: "When I turned off virtual memory and restarted my Power Mac 9500/200 with 72Mb of RAM, I got an alert that said the Finder could not start up because 'not enough memory was available.'" Reinstalling a new System Folder or starting up with extensions off was no help.

Similarly, Marc Tucker could not start up with virtual memory disabled (again even with all extensions also disabled). In his case, he got an "Illegal Instruction" error. The only work-around he found was to hold down the space bar at startup, bringing up Extensions Manager, and then continuing with his normally selected extensions enabled. He has a Performa 5300CD with 32Mb of RAM. He notes that a PRAM zap solved the problem for the next restart or so, but the symptom soon returned.

Update: Marc now informs me that this problem turned out to be due to a corrupted StartupScreen file.

Joseph Williams was at least able to start up his PowerBook 5300cs (with 48 Mb RAM) with virtual memory off. However, he gets "severe memory fragmentation problems. I can run only a handful of applicatio.ns (3 or 4) before I get 'Out of Memory' warnings. When I use Memory Mapper 1.3.5 to view memory usage, I am seeing large chunks of memory between applications that is essentially being wasted. However, when I turn ON Virtual Memory and set it to 1 MB, the fragmentation disappears."

All of this may be related to continuing reports of Mac OS 8 system software using increasing amounts of RAM over the course of a session.

We have previously reported on startup problems on Power Computing and Apple Macs that appear to be related to certain IDE drives and/r Alchemy logic boards. Apparently, we can now add UMAX clones to the list of machines with similar startup problems.

Two readers who have UMAX clones have reported similar statements coming from UMAX tech support: "I informed the tech support person I was running OS 8 he said that UMAX was advising customers not to use it as it may be bring about a failure to start and eventually physical damage to the hard drive!" While the "physical damage" may be an exaggeration, caution is still advised.

Regarding the report last time on Mac OS 8 incompatibility with UMAX computers: Reader replies were not all that consistent. Some confirmed getting similar statements from UMAX tech support. Others claimed that they were told simply not to let the OS 8 Installer update their hard disk driver on a IDE drive; otherwise, Mac OS 8 was fine. In that regard, a few readers reminded me to clarify that the problem does not involve the 900 series clones; UMAX told them only the 500/600 series was under investigation. Still others claimed that UMAX told them "there are no problems" at all.

For the final word on this, I turn to Jordan P. Ruderman, UMAX Product Support Engineer, who wrote me as follows:

"Regarding Mac OS 8 and UMAX C500 and C600 computers: From our preliminary investigation, the problem appears to be with the Apple Drive Setup included with OS 8. This affects Alchemy based computers only.
As a temporary solution, Drive Setup 1.2.3 (Mac OS 7.6, 7.6.1) may be used to initialize or update the drivers on a IDE drive. While running the Mac OS 8 installer, skip directly to "step 4" thereby bypassing updating the IDE driver to 1.3.
S900, S910, and J700 users should update their drives with FWB 2.0.6 before installing Mac OS 8.
The use of Mac OS 8 in no way will cause "physical damage" to the hard drive on any UMAX computer."

Drive Setup has had problems through several versions - especially with IDE drives. A look through the MacFixIt archives reveals some key examples:

February 97: Chris Heatherly (of Power Computing) wrote: "We have seen issues where customers who have updated their IDE driver with Drive Setup 1.2.2 (the version that ships with Mac OS 7.6) find that their IDE drive does not remount on restarts, often resulting in a flashing ?. Our initial tests indicate that reinitializing the drive with Drive Setup 1.1 resolves this issue. This is the only fix we have seen so far." The problem may affect all Mac OS machines with IDE drives, although they are not yet certain of this.

June 1997 -1 and -2: Drive Setup 1.2.4 is out. However, beware using this new version. When several readers updated their hard drive with Drive Setup 1.2.4, their hard drive would no longer mount. Instead, the blinking question mark appeared at startup. Apple now confirms that they have duplicated the problem in their labs. Most instances of the problem appear limited to "drives originally initialized using HD SC Setup 7.3.5."

August 1997: Jordan Ruderman (of UMAX) wrote: "Regarding Mac OS 8 and UMAX C500 and C600 computers: From our preliminary investigation, the "failure to start" problem appears to be with Drive Setup 1.3. This affects Alchemy based computers only."

Why can't Apple find a permanent solution to this clearly serious bug?

To be fair, other disk formatting utilities, such as HDT, have also had problems with IDE drives (see June item and Mac OS 8 item). And some blinking question mark startup problems seem related to hardware problems with specific, especially IDE, drives (see June item and Mac OS 8 item). Still, cleaning this up remains primarily Apple's responsibility.

Regarding the item last time on Drive Setup, several readers inquired how they determine if they have an IDE drive or an Alchemy logic board. Some clone vendors also sent in some news and views.

What's an IDE drive? How do I know if I have one? Keeping it simple here, IDE drives are an alternative to SCSI drives. IDE drives have long been used on PC machines. The Mac traditionally has used SCSI drives. However, recent Mac models have shifted more and more to IDE drives - especially on PowerBooks, Performas and entry level Power Macs (such as the 4400). You should be able to tell if your drive is an IDE drive by selecting Get Info for the drive icon: if it is an IDE drive, the letters ATA should appear in the Where line (ATA means IDE; I know, these acronyms can get confusing, but that's show biz).

How do I know if my Mac has an Alchemy logic board? We have covered this issue before. There are two web sites that provide the details you want.

The PowerPC Mac Hardware Info Page has this information for Power Macs.
The Macintosh Evolution page covers similar ground in a useful collection of tables.

UMAX advice on Drive Setup and IDE drives Jordan P. Ruderman (of UMAX Computer Corporation) informs me that UMAX has posted an item that contains "MacOS 8 and Drive Setup 1.2.3 procedures for UMAX C500 and C600 computers. It is recommended at this time that users with C series computers do not use the Drive Setup 1.3 update option within MacOS 8 until this problem has been rectified."

Motorola Starmax advice on Drive Setup, HDT and IDE drives Rob (from Motorola Starmax tech support) chimes in with the following: "I can confirm that Starmax IDE drives have serious problems when customers update the drivers when upgrading to 7.6 or OS 8. Problems range from the disk not mounting to blinking question mark to severe crash problems. The first thing we always ask is if the hard disk drivers were updated. If so we immediately tell them to initialize and reload. FWB Hard Disk Toolkit problems can be more severe. Problems arise here when someone partitions the drive with FWB. After partitioning they will crash on bootup, even with extensions off. They also crash when booting from the CD ROM, just as the hard drive is about to mount on the desktop. In most cases we must dispatch a new hard drive; so this problem is very serious. We have discovered a fix for the problem that only seems to work sometimes. The user must pull the IDE ribbon cable from the hard drive and boot from the CD. Then, plug the ribbon cable back in and run drive setup and initialize the drive. This fix has only worked on maybe 1 or 2 of my calls. I think that the high failure rate of this fix may be due to the user's inability to follow the instructions properly...maybe.
Anyway, I hope this info is useful. I just wish Apple had included a sign for clone users to not update the hard disk drivers. In 7.6 there is a message that you may not need to update if you don't have an Apple hard disk. This helps some people; a lot just do it anyway. On OS 8 updating the drivers is selected by default. This is more of a problem.
So in a nutshell the good word for clone users w/ IDE drives is to never update hard disk drivers and never partition with FWB (you can initialize and create a single volume though)."

FWB has a statement about this partitioning issue on their web site (Thanks, MacInTouch).

And from readers... Several readers noted that almost all of the reports of blinking question mark and related problems posted to Apple's Performa Discussion Board involve computers with a 2.3 Gb Quantum Fireball _TM2550A drive. However, as one reader noted: "This, of course may just be a measure of the frequency of installation of this drive in these computers." Meanwhile, Daniel Knight has started a page on Drive Setup 1.3 compatibility.

Regarding previously reported startup problems with Power Mac 6400: As it now develops, this issue appears to affect some, but not all, Power Mac 5400/6400/6500 models. Apple recommends that affected users downgrade back to Mac OS 7 until this problem is solved. Here is Apple's official statement, as noted on the Performa Discussion Board:

Q. I installed Mac OS 8 on my Performa 6400. It ran fine for a few days, but then the computer booted to a flashing ?. I was able to start up from the Mac OS 8 CD, but Disk First Aid detected that the hard drive was damaged and I had to initialize the hard drive. I initialized my hard drive and reinstalled Mac OS 8 but the problem came back after a few days. What should I do?

A. We have received several customer reports similar to yours. We have collected information from customers on this issue and we are currently investigating them to determine the cause and provide a resolution. So far the symptom seems to appear only on certain Performa 5400/6400 and Power Macintosh 6500 computers. It's important to note that not all Performa 5400/6400 and Power Macintosh 6500 computer's are having this problem.

If you have one of these systems and you plan on installing Mac OS 8, we recommend you backup any important files before installing Mac OS 8.

If you have installed Mac OS 8 and you are having this specific problem, you may want to temporarily revert to Mac OS 7.6.1 or Mac OS 7.5.5 (depending on what you were running before) until a solution is available.

If you need to install Mac OS 8, you may want to consider partitioning your hard drive with Drive Setup. Install Mac OS 8 on one partition and store your important files on another partition. Several users have noted that this method has allowed them run Mac OS 8, without jeopardizing any of their files (since the problem only trashes the startup partition). [However, note that there may be other problems associated with a partitioned drive in Mac OS 8, especially if you use HDT, as noted the other day.]

Another response from Apple noted that, since the problem seems linked to cold starts, leaving your computer always on can can be a temporary work-around. Again, note that this problem is separate from the similar cold start problem, previously reported, that appears to be due to certain 1.2Gb drives. Finally, there is some indication that this problem may also occur on Power Mac 5300s. (Thanks, Larry Kahan.)

Rod Hagen informs me that Apple continues to post updated information on its Discussion Boards regarding the previously reported issue regarding blinking question mark problems at startup (caused by corruption of the startup partition) on some Alchemy-based Macs and Mac clones (such as Performa 6400 and 6500) after installing to Mac OS 8 (as also noted on MacInTouch). They now confirm that the problem is not limited to any one drive size or particular hard drive (such as a Quantum Fireball), as had been previously suggested. While not all users of these models will experience the problem, it is a serious one if you get it - as you will likely be unable to recover data from the damaged partition. As Apple has still not isolated the cause of the problem, the safest course may be not to update to Mac OS 8 until this gets worked out. Never turning off the computer (as the damage only occurs after a shutdown) is a (possibly risky) work-around.

Update: Scott Rogers reports that if he restarts his Mac and then immediately shuts down, he avoids the blinking ? that would otherwise occur following the shutdown.

MacTools Pro repairs blinking question mark problem? Rodney Simon claims that he was able to repair his PowerBase 240 that had the now infamous corrupted partition and blinking question mark at startup by using MacTools Pro, even though Norton Utilities and Disk First Aid were unsuccessful. He set up Mac OS 7.6 on an external drive to run MacTools.

Blinking question mark and Energy Saver On a related note, Benjamin Fiore had blinking question mark problems in Mac OS 8 that only occurred after a restart following waking his Mac 7300 up from sleep mode. He found that disabling the Energy Saver extension (or setting its auto-sleep time to Never) got rid of the problem. He claims that Apple has acknowledged this conflict with Energy Saver in Mac OS 8.

New info on the 1.2 Gb blinking question mark issue Previous reports of a blinking question mark specific to 1.2 Gb drives on certain Macs noted that the problem was due to a firmware bug and that a firmware updater would be released soon. A September 10 note on Apple's Discussion Board now says: "A firmware updater will not be released to service providers, a problem was found making the application, and we decided to just have the drives replaced. If your provider is not aware of this issue affecting 1.2 Gb drives, please have them either call Apple's dealer tech support, or check online in the Service Source Online area (a private web site for Apple dealers)."

The report last time that MacTools Pro may be able to repair at least some disks that fall to the blinking question mark startup bug in Mac OS 8 - even when other utilities (such as Norton Utilities) fail - stimulated a good deal of reader response.

Jason Cowart writes that he was not surprised to learn about MacTools Pro's success: "In the past six months we've had three machines go down with different problems that Norton was unable to repair and that MacTools Pro was."

Damion Michaels echoed similar sentiment: "I wholeheartedly confirm that MacTools Pro has consistently repaired problems that neither Apple's disk utilities and Norton Utilities could repair."

Brian Hartmann specifically confirmed the success of MacTools in fixing the blinking question mark problem on his Power Mac 6500 running Mac OS 8. [Note: this is not a cure of the cause of the problem; just a way of recovering the disk after the problem has occurred.]

However, as has been noted previously, you may have problems getting MacTools to run on Mac OS 8. Dave Camp (author of the DiskFix part of MacTools Pro) writes: "Versions of MacTools Pro beyond 4.0.4 do not run under Mac OS 8. That's because it was thought that 8.0 would be Copland, which would have a different file system. But, versions before 4.0.4 should work just fine. I use version 4.0.3 on my PowerCenter Pro 180." Matt Riley adds: "The only changes to the product between 4.0.2 and 4.0.4 were some minor interface tweaks and system emergency disk updates."

As you may know, Symantec (the vendor for Norton Utilities) now owns MacTools. It stopped distributing it last year. Perhaps it is time to request that Symantec either incorporate some of the MacTools technology in a new update to Norton Utilities or sell the rights to MacTools so that some other vendor can market it (Dave Camp affirmed that he would be happy to work on making it Mac OS 8 compatible).

A while back, we reported a warm restart blinking question mark problem that was especially prevalent in PowerBase clones running Mac OS 8. At the the time, Power Computing said it was investigating this and had no sure solution (although it appeared related to disk driver software).

Wes Ferguson sent me a recent follow-up on this matter: "I have a PowerBase 603e/200 with a 1.2 Gb Seagate IDE (ATA) hard drive. It had the warm start blinking question mark problem. I contacted Power Computing yesterday and was told, after providing the serial number of my computer, that my drive was one that needed to be replaced because of faulty firmware and that they would ship me a replacement drive."

This is essentially the solution offered by Apple for a similar problem with some of their models (as similarly reported here on MacFixIt).

The Power Mac 5400/6400/6500 blinking ? problem I continue to get reports as to the status of Apple's investigation of the various blinking question mark problems seen in Mac OS 8 (mentioned numerous times on MacFixIt in the past few weeks). As to the problem on Power Mac 5400/6400/6500 models, Apple is quoted as saying:

"The issue is being intensely investigated right now by Service & Support Engineering, and they have not yet determined the root cause. They are leaning toward a software problem with the Drive Setup software since the problem can be reproduced on different hardware platforms and IDE drives of different vendors. Because of this, customers should not be replacing or reformatting the hard drives. They also need to be backing up files frequently as there have been reports of data loss on the drives.

Until a root cause is identified and the problem fixed, we recommends that users use the Sleep command rather than Shut Down when done with the computer. They should not downgrade to OS 7.6.1."

This is similar to advice previously posted on Apple's Discussion Boards. However, this advice may be partially superseded by new information posted on the Discussion board that implicates two new possible causes of the problem:

"We have two possible theories being tested at the moment. One of them involves the 5500/6500 ATA Update extension (separate extension under Mac OS 7.6/7.61, but rolled into OS 8). If you have reverted back to 7.6 or 7.6.1 to avoid this issue, please make sure you do not have this extension installed.

The other is that virtual memory seems to trigger it as well. If you do not want to leave your computer on all the time, then turn virtual memory off. We have several computers running now with virtual memory off that previously saw the error, but have not failed since we turned virtual memory off."

I have gotten email from several readers confirming both of the 5500/6500 ATA Update extension and virtual memory as possible causes. It looks like Apple is on to something here. Finally, Brian Hartmann offered an (unconfirmed) suggestion that having a CD-ROM disc in the drive at startup appeared to increase the likelihood of the startup problem occurring.

Related virtual memory issues This virtual-memory-off work-around is of course separate from the problem some users have reported (see previous item), where virtual memory cannot be enabled at all. It is similarly separate from some startup problems attributed to virtual memory being on (as described previously)!! Is this complicated enough for you?

The 1.2Gb IDE drive blinking ? problem Another recent posting on Apple's Discussion Boards now indicates (contrary to a previous Board posting, as reported here) that a firmware updater for a different blinking question mark problem, this one related to certain 1.2Gb IDE drives on some Mac models, will be released after all. It adds: "The firmware updater has a good chance of preventing data loss, so if you have a drive suffering this issue that has critical data on it, or if you do not need to get the drive up and running again, you can wait for the updater and get the drive back that way. If you have a good backup, or need to get up and running now, go ahead and have your service provider replace the drive now."

Energy Saver involved? Readers continue to point to Energy Saver as a cause of some of these problems. However, exactly how to enable or disable Energy Saver to avoid the problem is still a bit unclear to me. Having Energy Saver extension installed seems to be recommended however.

Drive Setup 1.3: why it may cause problems Randy Rightmire offers one explanation as to why Drive Setup 1.3 may cause more problems than previous versions: "Versions 1.0.4 through 1.2 had a nice delay between the user issuing the Shut Down command and when the computer actually shut off, allowing the disk cache to be flushed and the drive to spin down before cutting the power. Drive Setup 1.3 no longer has this feature in its driver."

PRAM zap work-around? A reader claims that the following procedure cured his blinking question mark problem:

a. Zap the PRAM at least 4 times before allowing startup to proceed (Mark Rippy offered similar advice, saying that this alone fixed his problem).
b. Hold down the Shift key to start up with extensions off.
c. Move the System file out of the startup volume's System Folder (make sure no other startup volumes are online).
d. Restart from the 7.6.1 CD-ROM disc.
e. Unmount all volumes (important!) except for the startup CD-ROM .
f. Run Drive Setup (off the CD) and Initialize the drive.

Don Dickey writes with his explanation for and solution to his blinking ? problem (as also posted on the MRP):

"I have experienced and solved this mystery! It occurred with my Performa 637CD. The machine originally shipped with a 350Mb IBM IDE hard drive and 8 meg of RAM. I upgraded the ram to 36 meg. Later, I upgraded the hard drive to a Maxtor 1.6 gig. I recently sold the unit and wanted to remove the 32 meg SIMM I had added and replace it with the original 4 meg SIMM that was in the memory slot. When I did, I experienced the above flashing question but only on a cold start! If I forced a restart with Command+Ctrl+Power the machine would boot normally. Replacing the 4 meg SIMM with my 32 meg SIMM fixed the problem.

Now, here's what happened! The original 350 meg IBM hard drive spun up very fast. The bigger 1.6 gig hard drive takes much longer to spin up and be ready for access. With 36 meg of total ram, the system ram test took long enough to let the drive become ready, but with only 4 or 8 meg of total RAM, the system was ready to boot before the large hard drive was ready. I was able to find a faster 1.6 gig drive from a different manufacturer that solved the problem and booted successfully with only 4 or 8 meg of total RAM. A Western Digital I tried did not work, but a Seagate did! I ended up selling the system with a Seagate 1.6 meg drive and 8 meg of total ram.

Note that this startup problem can occur with any machine having an internal IDE drive and NO other available bootable SCSI drives. If a bootable SCSI drive is available, the machine will boot off it even if the IDE was selected as the startup drive because the Mac will search the SCSI chain for a bootable device as soon as it tries and fails to boot off the internal IDE drive.

You can solve it by either putting in enough RAM to slow the bootup process (due to the longer RAM test as part of startup) or get a drive that spins up faster."

Jim Mellema came to a similar conclusion as did Mr. Dickey (see preceding item). He describes the source of the problem as the Mac not waiting long enough for a drive to spin up. More importantly, he suggests using the shareware program Timeout to solve the problem. He writes: "This program allows the user to modify a parameter in PRAM that determines how long the Mac waits for "Drive Ready" to be true, before assuming there is not a drive at a particular ID#. It's a 'run once and forget it' kind of thing."

Running HD Timeout and setting it to 25 seconds completely eliminated a blinking question mark problem he had been having.

Conrad Klahn of Apple Technical Support Online writes that Apple is on the verge of posting an update to Drive Setup that should fix this issue once and for all.

He also assured me that the report last time, which suggested that there may be a link between the ? problem and the L2 cache, was in error. He added that there was an L2 cache problem "with some of the early 5500's and 6500's shipping with 6400-style cache instead of the new quick-switch cache. This L2 cache mismatch caused problems loading software. It has nothing to do with the Flashing ?. But this is why they were referred to the Apple dealer to remove the cache prior to the installation of Mac OS 8."

Conrad also implied that the cause of many of these blinking question mark problems is a continuation of an old issue: the hard drive shutting down before the write cache can write the data back to the disk. This is why not shutting down the Mac (or disabling write cache, if your driver permits this) will likely prevent the problem.

I was forwarded a posting written by an Apple employee. It is not an "official" Apple statement, but it seems well informed:

"After 6 weeks of investigation, including 2 weeks of sleepless, active nights, we've nailed the problem. At its essence, the ATA-based Macs, most notably the 5xxx and 6xxx series, have been having troubles where the ATA hard drive gets horribly corrupted in some circumstances, leading to a flashing "?" on the screen at startup. Final effects usually include a near-total loss of all data on the drive.

The problem is a lineup of bugs in the ATA Manager, Apple ATA driver, and the drive firmwares. The problem is almost always caused by the ATA Manager disconnecting the drive from the System before the cache structures can write important directory data to the drive, or disconnecting it halfway through the writing.

Apple has just finished Drive Setup 1.3.1. It should be released to the public in the next few days, and will prevent the problem from happening. Anyone with an 040 or PowerPC based Mac using the Apple drivers should get this and use it to update their drive. You can check what driver version is currently being used by Getting Info on the hard drive's icon, and checking the parenthesis in the Where: section. Apple SCSI drivers will be in the 8.0.x range. Apple ATA drivers will be in the 3.0.x range. The new ATA driver is version 3.07.

One major item to watch out for is the Mac OS 8 Installer, which will change the driver back to 3.05. You will either need to update the driver after you finish the installation, or uncheck the Update Driver option in the installer before you install."

Hooray! Apple has now posted Drive Setup 1.3.1 and Read Me file. This is the version that (hopefully) fixes the blinking question mark startup problem that has plagued especially Macs with IDE drives. Or as Apple put it: "This software prevents the issue where the System partition is trashed at shutdown, and you receive a flashing question mark when you power up." (Thanks, David Freeland and Doug Grinbergs.)

Note: The Read Me files states: "This update is only required by Apple computers that have an internal ATA (IDE) hard disk." It then goes on to list the models that fit this description. Interestingly, it does not list PowerBook models (such as my 3400) that have an internal IDE drive. Indeed, these PowerBooks have not been mentioned as having the problems that necessitated this update. I am not sure how or why these PowerBooks are immune, but they apparently are.

Does the newly released Drive Setup 1.3.1 solve all blinking question mark problems that users have been having? No, as Apple admits. That's mainly because there are causes of this problem that are unrelated to what Drive Setup fixes.

For example, as mentioned in Apple's latest revision to the TIL article on the IDE-related blinking question mark problem: "If you have a Power Macintosh 5260/120 or Performa 6360, please read Tech Info Library (TIL) article Performa 6360: Flashing ? after Mac OS 8 Install. These products only exhibit this condition when either initially starting up or restarting, but not both. This condition has been isolated to some Apple 1.2 GB hard drives. Apple will soon post a utility to Apple Software Updates to correct this condition." This firmware updater has been predicted for awhile now (see previous MacFixIt item). Until it gets released, Apple's policy has been to simply replace the hard drive in question. Drive Setup 1.3.1 does not address this problem.

It is also not yet clear to me whether Drive Setup 1.3.1 fixes some cases of this problem that appeared to be related to virtual memory being on or happened on warm restarts (although I would guess that it does). Beyond that, there remain generic causes of this symptom (as covered in yet another TIL as well as here on MacFixIt) that none of these cures will prevent.

Clones Users of Power Computing and UMAX clones have reported blinking question mark problems that seemed directly related to using Drive Setup 1.3. The word I have received is that updating to Drive Setup 1.3.1 will fix this problem on these clones - even though the Drive Setup 1.3.1 Read Me file makes no mention of clones. Drive Setup 1.3.1 is not just for Apple-brand Macs.

Other Apple models Bill Secrest reports that updating to Drive Setup 1.3.1 fixed a blinking ? problem he was having with his PowerBook 3400, even though this is not listed as one of the models that the Drive Setup update fixes (which is a subset of the models that Apple recommends in general for use with Drive Setup). This supports the notion that the update may have benefit for any IDE-drive Mac that supports the use of Drive Setup.

Finally, I am getting many reports from users who have tried Drive Setup 1.3.1 to remedy existing problems. It's too early to make summary statements as yet. I will report back in a few days.

At Ease password protection and updating your disk driver An Apple TIL file notes that you should turn off At Ease's password protection before updating your disk driver (such as with Drive Setup). If you do not, you may find a blinking question mark at your next startup! Should this advice come to you too late (you already have this problem!), the TIL file explains how to recover files from the disk. The article concludes by saying: "Apple is investigating how to improve the process of updating the hard disk driver if At Ease security is enabled."

Power Mac 7300 and sleep mode Last month we noted that restarting a Power Mac 7300 after waking it up from sleep could result in a blinking question mark at startup. MacInTouch is now also covering this issue, claiming that it is a firmware problem and that Apple recommends avoiding sleep mode until they have a solution.

It's been almost two weeks since Drive Setup 1.3.1 was released. This, as you may recall, is the version of Drive Setup that should remedy certain specific causes of blinking question mark startup problems on certain Macs with IDE drives. So what has reader reaction been so far?

Mostly positive. Typical responses include:
"I installed 1.3.1 on three machines, two of which are running OS 8. So far, it's been working perfectly." (Steve Weintraub)
"My Mac has suffered from this ever since OS 8 was installed; however, updating to Drive Setup 1.3.1 licked the problem cleanly, and so far so good." (Bill Secrest)

However, there have also been several problems reported. This includes reports that the update had no effect on a blinking question mark problem or, in a couple of cases, that Drive Setup 1.3.1 precipitated blinking question mark problems where none existed before. In one such case, Gary Griffin reported that reverting to an older version of Drive Setup (1.2.2) cured the problem.

The problem with the problem reports is that they do not yet have enough in common to truly nail down Drive Setup as the cause. For example, installing any new driver on a disk that already has data corruption (such as the sort that Norton Utilities would fix) can cause problems. In any case, it always pays to check your drive for corruption and back up your drive before installing a new driver - as well as, if possible, first testing the driver out on a disk other than your main startup disk.

Nikole Sledd has successfully used Drive Setup 1.3.1 to revive several computers that had blinking question mark problems. Here is a summary of the procedure she used: Copy Drive Setup 1.3.1 to a floppy disk; startup from a bootable CD-ROM disc; update the driver of the problem drive; restart with the Norton Utilities CD-ROM disc and run Norton Disk Doctor; reboot with the Mac OS 8 CD and do a clean install of the system software (bypassing the option to update the driver!). Finally, restart with your problem (now fixed) drive. All your data should still be intact.

Apple has released a 2-3-4-6 GB Firmware Utility. According to the Read Me file: "This utility is used to update the firmware on 2, 3, 4, and 6 GB SCSI hard drives in some Power Macintosh configurations with firmware versions other than 0F0J. The bootable disk image contains a utility to fix a problem in some Power Macintosh and Performa configurations that may experience a problem waking after the machines has been set to the Sleep mode."

This fixes a blinking question related problem previously described here, especially noted with the Power Mac 7300.