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[pintoguy]

Sorry to have posted on the 68kmla forum, but for the life of me, I can never easily post pics after uploading them on this forum. If someone has tips for me, I'd appreciate.

So please take a look at the link below. I'd be especially interested in hearing from @ried and @AlextheCat123 who own multiple Profiles, both the 5 and 10MB types.

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/profile-5mb-and-10mb-hdd-models-serial-numbers.48719/

[ried]

Possible that someone just swapped the case or the escutcheon plate on yours? Pretty common these days in the era of cracked plastic cases and non-functional drives.

[pintoguy]

Possible that someone just swapped the case or the escutcheon plate on yours? Pretty common these days in the era of cracked plastic cases and non-functional drives.

Yeah, like I said in the 68kmla forum, this was my  initial suspicion until I went through the whole forensics analysis that I described. Do any of your 5MB show a SN starting with a D, with a large font and printed vs glued on ? I just could not find one.

[ried]

Could have just been a labeling error, too. All kinds of wacky things happened on the production lines back then.

[AlexTheCat123]

One of my 5MB ProFiles has the large font with the D (serial number D 02133), but I don't believe that any of the others do. I don't have all of them with me right now, so I can't check them all, but I'm pretty sure that this is the only one with the big font. 2133 is pretty early, so I'm guessing that the big font is just an early serial number thing. But I have no idea about the label sizes! I've got a mix of both sizes, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to when they used one or the other. Maybe they had both label sizes in stock at the same time and just put them on drives at random?

[pintoguy]

Thanks @AlextheCat123. Wonder whether the smaller vs bigger label follow the SN order (lower #, smaller label) like in mine.

The next question of course would be whether your "5MB" with the Dxxxx serial number is actually a 5MB inside, or a 10MB like in mine. Did you ever check ?

And does your 10MB model also has a Dxxxx SN ?

Sorry for all the questions. No worries if you don't have time to answer

[blusnowkitty]

I've got two 5 MB drives. One of them the serial is just numbers, the other one is in storage so isn't readily available.

[AlexTheCat123]

Yep, it's definitely a 5MB ProFile inside. I've opened up every single one I have (they all needed some work before I was able to use them), so I know them pretty well inside!

And just to be clear, my 10MB model isn't a regular 10MB ProFile, so I can't really give you any information there. It's a weird prototype that fits inside the Lisa's drive bay like a Widget, but all of the electronics are basically the same as the ProFile, just shrunken down and modified in terms of form factor. And since it's a prototype, it doesn't even have a serial number that I can give you!

I don't have it with me right now, but let me see if I've taken any pictures of it that I can share.

[AlexTheCat123]

This is the only photo that I've taken of it (at least that I was able to find), but I think it shows everything pretty well!

[pintoguy]

Great, many thanks @AlextheCat123. So the Dxxxx Serial number perhaps stands for a manufacturing location (like it does for Macs), where most 10MB and some 5MB models were produced.