Thank you 30pin and beachycove. I appreciate your detailed responses.
The CD drive is tray-loaded, so if it really is on its way out, a replacement will be easier to find, but I'll take your advice and try to clean it. 15 years is a long time to go without a cleaning. My original 550 had a caddy-load drive, which in some ways I liked more from an aesthetic point of view.
About Drive Setup, I'm confused about one thing: assuming I've patched the program, how do I format the new HD? I do not have an external enclosure but I do have a IIci and the 550. Could I pop the new HD into one, initiate SCSI Disk Mode, and load the ROM that way? I'm not as "with it" when it comes to System 7 era software and hardware as I am with FireWire and OSX.
The CD drive is tray-loaded, so if it really is on its way out, a replacement will be easier to find, but I'll take your advice and try to clean it. 15 years is a long time to go without a cleaning. My original 550 had a caddy-load drive, which in some ways I liked more from an aesthetic point of view.
About Drive Setup, I'm confused about one thing: assuming I've patched the program, how do I format the new HD? I do not have an external enclosure but I do have a IIci and the 550. Could I pop the new HD into one, initiate SCSI Disk Mode, and load the ROM that way? I'm not as "with it" when it comes to System 7 era software and hardware as I am with FireWire and OSX.