Windows HFS Read-Write in 2023?

[Admiral Ackbar]

Hi all. Looking for solutions to write to an HFS (not HFS+) volume, only have Windows 10/11 machines available. My idea was to take an SD card, format it on Windoze, copy over .sit/.cpt/etc files using Windows Explorer, putting the SD card in a SD-PCMCIA device, and put the PCMCIA card in PowerBook 3400cs. I tried to pick some wisdom from https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/how-to-install-software-on-macintosh-plus.43764/#post-477949 and https://www.hawkdive.com/get-full-read-and-write-access-to-hfs-formatted-drive-on-windows/ but not quite seeing how to do HFS for System 7.x
All ideas appreciated, thanks!

 

[Snial]

Hi all. Looking for solutions to write to an HFS (not HFS+) volume, only have Windows 10/11 machines available. My idea was to take an SD card, format it on Windoze, copy over .sit/.cpt/etc files using Windows Explorer, putting the SD card in a SD-PCMCIA device, and put the PCMCIA card in PowerBook 3400cs. I tried to pick some wisdom from https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/how-to-install-software-on-macintosh-plus.43764/#post-477949 and https://www.hawkdive.com/get-full-read-and-write-access-to-hfs-formatted-drive-on-windows/ but not quite seeing how to do HFS for System 7.x
All ideas appreciated, thanks!

Why can't you dual boot into a Linux installation? Or maybe this (install msys2 or ming first)?

GitHub - 0x09/hfsfuse: FUSE driver for HFS+ filesystems

FUSE driver for HFS+ filesystems. Contribute to 0x09/hfsfuse development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[chrisrueckert]

A BlueSCSI might give you a more seamless experience.

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

Why can't you dual boot into a Linux installation? Or maybe this (install msys2 or ming first)?

GitHub - 0x09/hfsfuse: FUSE driver for HFS+ filesystems

FUSE driver for HFS+ filesystems. Contribute to 0x09/hfsfuse development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

I do have Windows Subsystem for Linux installed. However, my config is setup for Intellivision development at the moment and I don't have enough skills to do multi-boot. In my case, the Linux journey adds a lot of overhead for a low-end operation like read and write. In addition, that project is for HFS+ which isn't compatible with my 6.0.8 and 7.x systems. Thanks for the idea, though!

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

A BlueSCSI might give you a more seamless experience.

The 3400c internal drive is ATA. Are you suggesting getting an external BlueSCSI type of device and using the external SCSI port?

Thanks.

 

[MacKilRoy]

Does your 3400cs have Ethernet?

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

Does your 3400cs have Ethernet?

Yes.

 

[Realitystorm]

You can edit one of my drive files using Basilisk 2 so it contains whatever files you want. Then raw write the file to your SD card for use with your PCMCIA card. Or you could make a binary image of your 3400cs's IDE drive using a usb to IDE adapter. Then edit that image in Basilisk 2, then write it back to your drive

Macintosh Downloads – Steve's Blog

 

[bigmessowires]

HFVExplorer is an old program, but it still works fine on my Windows 10 PC. It will write to an HFS disk image (which you can also mount/edit with Mini vMac, Basilisk II, or Sheepshaver). Then use a tool like Win32DiskImager to write the disk image to your SD card.

But I'm not sure if the SD Card when it's mounted in your PCMCIA adapter will expect to have a partition map like a hard disk. If so, this probably won't work.

Will the PowerBook read a FAT32-formatted SD card? If so, then you don't even need to reformat it as long as you're sticking to sit, cpt, and other archives without a resource fork.

 

[MacKilRoy]

Yes.

Why not just transfer files and stuff over the network then?

 

[olePigeon]

MacDrive is still around. It's $50. But I don't know if it supports regular HFS. It specifically says HFS+.

 

[Snial]

I do have Windows Subsystem for Linux installed. However, my config is setup for Intellivision development at the moment and I don't have enough skills to do multi-boot. In my case, the Linux journey adds a lot of overhead for a low-end operation like read and write. In addition, that project is for HFS+ which isn't compatible with my 6.0.8 and 7.x systems. Thanks for the idea, though!

Hmm, yes I realised I linked to an HFS+ subsystem. I've been using HFSUtils (which is HFS) on my Raspberry PI for similar purposes. Another way might be to run some virtual images using InfiniteMac.org:

Infinite Mac

A classic Mac loaded with everything you'd want.

infinitemac.org

You can get blank HFS images from here:

Blank hard drive disk images HFS/HFS+ (from 100MB up to 120GB) - Macintosh Repository

All these download files consist of extremely compressed empty disk images for emulators (such as SheepShaver or Basilisk II) that are to be used as...

www.macintoshrepository.org

If WSL / WSL2 supports the dd command, then you should be able to create a blank image and then dd it to the device:

dd of=/dev/whateverTheCfCardIs if=myHfsImg

With a large CF card, >2GB, you'll have to create multiple partitions. I wrote a utility in 'C' to do that for a disk image, called APM tool:

PowerBook 1400cs Serial port.

I've recently acquired a Powerbook 1400CS via eBay. It's running system 7.5.3 and I've converted it to use an 8GB SD card instead of the 750MB HD (I have 5 x 750MB partitions). I've tried to run Steinberg, Cubase Lite on it, which is a 68K application that talks to a Midiman MacMan 3x OUT MIDI...

68kmla.org

The rationale is that, like FAT16 disks, only 64k clusters (blocks) are allowed, so for large disks, even the smallest files take up 32kB or so. I split my 8GB SD disk into several smaller partitions, or rather what I did was to create a 750MB disk image and clone a number of partitions, which is possible because as standard an HFS disk already pre-allocates about 16 partitions.