Macintosh SE Hard-Drive setup and file tranfer basics. Help

[myequation]

Hello Everyone.
 
I'm new around here and trying to learn more about vintage Macs.
 I run a small repair shop and I am very familiar with recapping, restoring and modding vintage electronics.
 Currently I have several Apple IIe, Macintosh Plus, and a New Macintosh SE
 The SE has an internal HD and that is something I know little about.Normally I use the Floppy drive for booting software and games.  How do I transfer programs to the HD? Can I simply drag the DSK images over?
 
I also have the fancy Floppy Drive EMU here as a work tool. I hoping to find easy ways t backup & restore hard drives.  
 

 

 

[david__schmidt]

Disk-based file transfer on a Mac generally takes the form of dragging/dropping a folder from one disk to another.  There are various levels of abstraction at play here, so it will help to zero in on exactly what you want to do and how.  But in general, these dsk images you speak of would be hosted/mounted by something (i.e. Floppy Drive EMU) so as to present an icon on the desktop for dragging.

There was of course plenty of backup/restore software back in the day.  But the method I find most useful is to just plug both drives (source/target) into the same box and drag/drop away.  So, you'd plug a backup SCSI drive into the SCSI port of the SE.

 

[myequation]

Disk-based file transfer on a Mac generally takes the form of dragging/dropping a folder from one disk to another.  There are various levels of abstraction at play here, so it will help to zero in on exactly what you want to do and how.  But in general, these dsk images you speak of would be hosted/mounted by something (i.e. Floppy Drive EMU) so as to present an icon on the desktop for dragging.

There was of course plenty of backup/restore software back in the day.  But the method I find most useful is to just plug both drives (source/target) into the same box and drag/drop away.  So, you'd plug a backup SCSI drive into the SCSI port of the SE.

That's incredibly simple, I was expecting something much more cryptic and difficult.

As for HD cloning and backup. Do you have any suggestions on software?

My preference would be making a HD image and transfer it onto the Floppy Emulator.  Clone it to SD card before I start repairs etc.

I've spent most of my life working on modern PCs.  So I understand what I want to do.  Though working with 25+ Macs is confusing at times.

I noticed you are in NC. Me too! down in Asheville.

 

[david__schmidt]

That's incredibly simple, I was expecting something much more cryptic and difficult.

Well, this is Macintosh after all...

As for HD cloning and backup. Do you have any suggestions on software?
My preference would be making a HD image and transfer it onto the Floppy Emulator.  Clone it to SD card before I start repairs etc.

I'm sure there were cloning (even resizing) apps back in the day.  But with drives of differing sizes, it's really just as simple as dragging the contents of one disk and dropping it on another.  The System folder will get "blessed" (become bootable, in Mac parlance) just by double-clicking on it.  An added benefit is that your "clone" drive's contents are defragmented in the process.

Asheville is a lovely part of the state - especially come fall.  I'm in the Raleigh/Durham area.

 

[myequation]

Well, this is Macintosh after all...

I'm sure there were cloning (even resizing) apps back in the day.  But with drives of differing sizes, it's really just as simple as dragging the contents of one disk and dropping it on another.  The System folder will get "blessed" (become bootable, in Mac parlance) just by double-clicking on it.  An added benefit is that your "clone" drive's contents are defragmented in the process.

Asheville is a lovely part of the state - especially come fall.  I'm in the Raleigh/Durham area.

Wow, I didn't realize the early Mac OS had an elegant file management system. 
The SE is awaiting delivery hence all the questions. I was expecting a more difficult process.

Thank you for the help.

 

[david__schmidt]

Wow, I didn't realize the early Mac OS had an elegant file management system.

Read up on Andy Hertzfeld's work on early MacOS on http://www.folklore.org. I'm not a fan of creator codes as a means of associating a file with an application, and resource vs. data forks was an insane solution to a real problem.  but that's a computer science discussion for another day.  One thing that MacOS does well is manages different versions of the OS on a single disk - just create a different System folder.  You can multiboot into whichever version you want.  There wasn't really a need to wipe a drive clean and start over when installing a new version, which definitely benefits other contemporary operating systems - just move over the System folder and drop in a new one.

 

[olePigeon]

If you want to make exact duplicates of floppy disks or drives, you'll want to pick up a copy of Apple's Disk Copy.  You'll want to get both version 4.2 and 6.3.  You'll find that a lot of Macintosh software is stored as a .img Disk Copy disk image file, it's the preferred archival format.

Furthermore, you can use Disk Copy to make a .img file that you can just copy to a FloppyEmu.

You'll also want to get a copy of Stuffit Expander version 4 or 5.  This can be a Catch 22 because you'll often need Stuffit to unstuff Stuffit.  Heh.  Stuffit Expander was the most popular compression tool on the Macintosh, and you'll run into a lot.