Trouble with Color Classic and Aztecmonster CF adapter.

[trr94001]

Hello,

I've recently gotten hold of a Color Classic with an LC550 logic board.  I also have an Aztecmonster SCSI to CF card I'd like to use in the machine to make it a bit quieter and more reliable.  I've had good luck with the Aztecmonster on another, non-Mac computer but I'm running into a strange problem on the CC.  I am trying to install System 7.1 but am having no luck.

I can partition and format my CF card with the modified Apple HD SC Setup program, and I can copy files to and from the drive in the Finder but installing System fails consistently on the first disk with the following error:

"The Installer cannot copy the file "System" onto the disk "Macintosh HD".
Installation cannot continue. Please delete this file and try running the
Installer again."

I can also copy a complete System Folder from another drive and boot off the CF card but afterwards I get odd errors about the disk being locked from other program installers.  Clearly something esoteric is wrong with the HFS volume on the card.  I know there is a removable media flag on CF cards but I would have thought that System 7.x is too old to care about such things.  It's not like I didn't boot off Zip disks, etc. in the '90's.

I've recently tried re-initializing the card using the Anubis drive utility to see if that would help.  I remember needing to use a 3rd party format program on the disk in my old SE/30 back in the day.   That didn't seem to help sadly.

Does anyone here have any ideas?  I apologize for asking questions on my first post but my Google-fu has failed me.  Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Macdrone]

Should not be hfs. The fact it formats means it's probably fine. The issue lies in the Mac most likely.

Has the CC been recapped as my last CC seemed to "brick" hard drives before I had it done. When not recapped or has iffy traces it can be very temperamental if anything works at all. I used had disk toolkit when i use third party drives. It's usually pretty easy to get a hold of.

Another thing to check is the card itself in the slot. The fact it's smaller than the hard drive and weight on the flimsy slide in connection when the whole computer is at an angle inside already may make it flaky also. Also bent pins along the while chassis plug inside. One pin can cause a bunch of havok.

 

[uniserver]

ok i had this same problem.. the problem is the program that you use... you cannot use patched HDSC,   it doesn't work.

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/lido-756

then you should be all set.

 

[trr94001]

That did it!  Thank you!  Now that I've got the thing off of life support I can start in on the chicken-and-egg problem of getting software onto it.  I have an AppleCD 600 that is refusing to cooperate.  I'll see if CD-ROM Toolkit helps there, the CD drivers from 7.5 aren't doing it.

If only OS X could still write to HFS volumes.  I've been creating disks from disk images in Linux so far.

 

[trr94001]

Should not be hfs. The fact it formats means it's probably fine. The issue lies in the Mac most likely.

Has the CC been recapped as my last CC seemed to "brick" hard drives before I had it done. When not recapped or has iffy traces it can be very temperamental if anything works at all. I used had disk toolkit when i use third party drives. It's usually pretty easy to get a hold of.

Another thing to check is the card itself in the slot. The fact it's smaller than the hard drive and weight on the flimsy slide in connection when the whole computer is at an angle inside already may make it flaky also. Also bent pins along the while chassis plug inside. One pin can cause a bunch of havok.

Lido from the post below seems to have solved the problem.  I'd never heard of it, though I think I may have used Hard Disk Toolkit once long ago.

The logic board is freshly recapped.  It was my first successful attempt at it and I'm rather proud of myself for it.  The screen is bright and crisp and the case is only very slightly yellowed.  It gives off a high pitched whine every now and then (probably the flyback transformer) but it doesn't do it often or long, and you occasionally have to hot-plug the ADB cord to get the keyboard and mouse to work after a cold boot but is otherwise a very happy machine.

It came with both the original CC board and the LC550 board.  The LC550 board really makes it very pleasant to use.

 

[uniserver]

Seems like artmix,  has been kinda of (limited) on his friendliness/helpfulness these days.

Maybe he is up to his neck in busyness?

Or maybe he is tired of the monotonous continuious flow of low level questions? it's hard to say...

i know guys like Mike McMaster / ARTMIX / BMOW they really don't make much margin, considering how much they have to spend and the GROSS amount of time 

that is involved, considering they are one man bands

places like http://smart-prototyping.comto make it easy and cheap for the whole PCB aspect.

and there is always

http://www.aliexpress.com,   buying your parts from places like mouser/digikey/farnell,   their pricing structure is not friendly

to guys trying to build 50 /100 units.

http://www.aliexpress.com- is a great resource, they ( the sellers ) and ( the brokers ) REALLY REALLY want your business and will bend over backwards 360 degrees for you.

So yeah there is a slight chance you could get something counterfeit.  but --- if you sort by price … just do not by the lowest price version of what your looking for… if the AD looks kinda

sketchy with poor wording and poor photos… then don't buy it, and pay 1/2 a penny more down the list.

anyways sorry for the way off topic info… i am glad i could help and ENJOY!

don't forget for a great HD20 solution try the BMOW floppy emu!

 

[trr94001]

I have nothing but respect for the people making hobbyist boards.  I love that there is a solid state disk solution for pretty much every system ever now, even though there can't be much money in the kind of tiny production runs most of the boards I've heard of get made in.

I do have a BMOW floppy emulator for my (much less pretty) 128K-turned-512Ke  It's pretty neat.

 

[uniserver]

haha and i still prefer the SCSI2SD lol…  the SCSI2CF is a great solution too don't get me wrong, but artmix bothers me for some reason.. i can't quite put my finger on it.

 

[trr94001]

I've never tried one of those.  I didn't know they existed until after I'd bought a batch of Artmix' cards.  I've heard that SD is much slower than CF, how's the performance?

A SCSI2SD in the smallest external case I can cobble together would make a nice backup and file transfer drive.  Maybe cram one into an old 3rd party external floppy drive enclosure.

 

[techknight]

Yes, SD cards are slower than CF depending on the flash type, etc.. But the SCSI bus on anything you stick those in is MUUUCH slower than the slowest performing cheapo SD cards.