Mounting a SCSI2SD v6 partition in Basilisk II

[pcamen]

In my question to easily get files from modern systems (a Mac in my case) to vintage Macs, I am frustrated.  I think everyone goes through this and it is the unfortunate learning curve of our hobby.

Not being one to be satisfied with hassle, I'm constantly  looking for an easier way.  My latest thought is to somehow mount an HFS volume that appears when you plug in a SCSI2SD v6, in Basilisk II.

I found instruction for doing this in Linux:

http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php/FormatWithBasiliskII

I tried simply putting the path to the disk in the SCSI settings to see if it would mount, like /dev/disk9; it does not.

I tried adding an actual volume as a volume in Basilisk II; doesn't work, it expects some kind of image file. 

Anyone know if it is possible to mount an actual HFS volume in Basilisk II as a disk? 

 

[pcamen]

I tried adding the mounted SCSI2SD v6 partition as the shared / Unix disk, but it didn't work ... just doesn't show up. 

i.e. in the Basilisk II prefs:

extfs /Volumes/SD6_4

 

[Gorgonops]

So, I've definitely done this in the past on a Linux box. As long as you have permissions to the device (IE, you're running as root or you chmod the device object in /dev) you can point to a partition as if it were a disk file. I do think some things might be confusing you here, though.

1: I would *not* muck around with the sg device support, I don't think that's going to help you.

2: I wouldn't try mounting a mounted HFS partition using the UNIX drive support. I don't have time to go into great length about why that's bad but, seriously, I don't think it'll end well.

If you're doing this on a Mac I would suggest this:

1. With your SD card inserted in the mac run "mount". Look for what the raw device is for the mount, IE, look for the /dev/diskXsY device in front of the "on /Volumes/SD6_4"
   
2. Use "diskutil unmount" to unmount that device
   
3. In your BasiliskII config use a normal "disk /path/to/file" to map to that device, and run BasiliskII as root. (or chmod that device to your username)
   

I *think* that'll do the needful. Not in a position to try it at the moment.

 

[pcamen]

So far the v6 is proving pretty useful.

One thing I am adamant about is creating images of all the hard drives that came with the 100 or so systems I now have.  You never know what might be on there that is useful to me, or someone else, and, given the hassle getting some things working (like TCP/IP networking, at least for me) it is helpful to have snapshots of systems where stuff works.

So I formatted the v6 with some 4GB partitions and went through my stack of 12 Powerbook 5xx's and created images of all the drives.  Then I mounted the v6 with the USB cable (all the partitions show up on the Mac) and copied the images over.

These images are great startup disks for Mini vMac and Basilisk II, which is very cool, they just work. 

I'm gonna mess around with the suggestions above next.  I didn't try unmounting the drive; perhaps that was the issue. 

 

[Gorgonops]

I didn't try unmounting the drive; perhaps that was the issue

I'm *almost* definitely sure MacOS won't give you R/W access the block device of a mounted drive. Only *reading* it while mounted (are you using a command-line utility like dd or something like Disk Utility?) may work but it's not a fantastic idea since if any changes are made to the partition mid-bitcopy it could leave the resulting filesystem structures in an inconsistent state on your copy.