E-mu Emulator Sampler User Forum for the EIII EII EI and EIII XP

So my harddrive appears to be dying, or there's an issue with the SCSI bus on my EIII. I need some advice to proceed.

What's happening is the EIII is cycling through the SCSI ID's on power up, and the harddrive sounds different than normal. The EIII keeps cycling through SCSI ID's more than 3 times instead of booting from the harddrive. So I power it down and try again. Occasionally I'll get an extended beep or warning type sound coming from the drive, or an extended clicking sound. So I power down, and try again. But occasionally the drive will actually boot up.

I tried to boot from a floppy with the software on it, but the system hangs up.

What should I do to proceed?

1) Is there something additional I have to create a boot disc? I already copied the software from the harddrive to a floppy, but I can't seem to boot from the floppy. Is there another type of bootable floppy I can create?

2) I checked what I think is the SCSI chip, the big one in the front of the 2nd card down. If it's a SCSI issue would I need to replace this chip?

3) Should I buy a new harddrive? The one in it is the original 40MB drive. Would this drive work in the EIII?:http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Apple-Quantum-540S-500-MB-SCSI-Hard-Drive-/250784990474?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a63f3450a (http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Apple-Quantum-540S-500-MB-SCSI-Hard-Drive-/250784990474?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a63f3450a)

if the hard drive will not stay spinning constantly and steadily, it will interfere with the boot process on the floppy as well.
if there was a more serious error, I think you would get some visual indication like the famous 'SCSI ERROR'.
Sounds like the HD is on its way out. Don't worry too much about whether or not you have the O.S. saved on floppy as you can download it and re-calibrate your machine after you fix the H.D. issue. You should consider the Compact Flash option as it works great.
That big SCSI controller chip is the NCR one. I doubt it is the issue. That drive you linked to should work. There is a list of confirmed working ones here: http://eiiiforum.com/index.php?topic=4.0

Not to hijack but...
I read here about a compact flash option. Do you mean a compact flash drive can handle the system booting in place of the floppy? Maybe I now have to replace the floppy drive (probably faulty) in my E3 rack (see my dedicated "System Error UND thread"). I know about floppy emulators (HxC) but: (1) they use an SD card (not a compact flash- not sure if it is the same thing, (2) they are positively said to work with emu 2, but I do not know if they will with E3 as well, and (3) previous owner told me the OS is booted from a floppy disk that is uniquely formatted by the E3 itself. Can the OS be loaded from a HxC floppy emulator with and SD card? Isn't any special formatting required? Please excuse my ignorance...
best regards
Massimo

To answer your question, the harddrive can be removed and replaced with a CF card, but it requires purchasing quite a few components to assemble it all together, including one that costs $190 or so. The HxC works with the EII.

As far as my EIII harddrive issues go, they appear to be resolved for the moment. I removed the large SCSI chip and reseated it. I also marked the location on the power supply adjustment and slightly tweaked it up by the slightest amount. Rebooted the machine, and the harddrive was recognized. Haven't had an issue booting from it in the past couple of days. I'd still like to install the CF card. I recall there was a thread detailing all the parts you'd have to buy, but now I can't find it. :-(

Would be a good thing to create a step-by-step install process with links to all components required. Perhaps if I do it I'll try to document everything with photos.

http://eiiiforum.com/index.php?topic=4.msg1248#msg1248

http://eiiiforum.com/picsfromusers/eiiicf/ (http://eiiiforum.com/picsfromusers/eiiicf/)