Advice on Quadra 840AV

I'm a complete newbie to this technology so hopefully you can help me out here!
I have two Quadra 840AV workstations that I'd like to get operational or at the very least investigate the contents of the hard drives. So far I've been unsuccessful. Tried connecting to a modern monitor with an adapter which failed to show anything when the system was turned on. Bought a compatible monitor which again didn't work.
So now I'd like to use a modern PC to access the contents of the hard drives and maybe if at all possible allow me to use the original operating system on the hard drive as if it was still housed in the Quadra chasis. Any advice to this end would really be appreciated.

a Network Access Disk sounds like a good idea to get this system kick started. So I simply need to apply this to a floppy and insert it into the Quadra?
With access to another working Macintosh computer of that era (with a built-in floppy drive), you would use Disk Copy 4.2 (the Make A Copy button) or 6.3.3 (the Make a Floppy command in the Utilities menu) in order to create a sector-copied floppy from the disk image.
If you wish to make a startup floppy on a PC, this is one possible method (should be OK with older Windows versions and built-in PC floppy drives; it may or may not work under Vista and with external USB drives):
Download the old freeware utility Aladdin Expander 2.0 (try a Google search) or possibly a newer StuffIt Expander for Windows.
A disk-image utility for PC will also be needed. For example, the shareware utility WinImage 6.10.
Install the programs on the PC.
Prepare an empty PC-formatted 1.44 MB (HD) diskette through the FORMAT A: command in DOS or via the "full" formatting command under Windows. This is important.
Download the Network Access Disk 7.5 .bin file (NetworkAccess_Disk7.5.sea.bin, link above). The Windows operating system may truncate the file name. Drag this downloaded file (as it is) to Aladdin Expander 2.0. Aladdin Expander will decode the file into an archive (document) called Network Access Disk 7.5, and automatically decompress the latter into a Network Access folder.
Inside the Network Access folder you will find a Read Me document and a file called Network Access.image.
Insert the empty PC-formatted diskette into the PC's floppy drive.
If WinImage is used, drag the Network Access.image onto the program icon. In the WinImage application window, select Write disk (from the Disk menu) or click on the Write disk icon. When the operation has been completed, immediately eject the diskette. In order to make this work, it may become necessary to (temporarily) switch off any anti-virus software.
You should now have a startup floppy for the Quadra 840AV.
The procedure is a variant of a method described in the 68000 FAQ (here). Please note that this is an exception to a general rule. Normally, do NOT use StuffIt/Aladdin Expander to decode .bin files on a PC. Always keep the MacBinary (.bin) encoding intact until on a Mac.
The disk drive is unfamiliar to me as I can see no eject button, do you simply push it in whilst the system is off or is there some other technique?
Yes. The floppy will come out when the Mac shuts itself down (a command in the Special menu). Otherwise, the normal way of ejecting a floppy (which does not contain the active operating system) is to drag its icon to the Wastebasket (Trash). If necessary, there is an emergency eject button (under a small hole, accessible via a paper clip).
Jan

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Hi all,
I am running an old macintosh quadra 840av with labview 4.0 and an nb-mio-16l data acquisition card.
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Attachments:
Acquire(forum).vi ‏118 KB

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2) Buy Time Capsule and backup to it.
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Message was edited by: Smokerz

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marisaholmes, welcome to the Apple Boards,
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Advice on Quadra 840AV

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