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PowerBook 150 installer woes with CF-to-IDE adapter

F

FloppiTuna

6502
After what felt like a bajillion years of trial and error, I finally managed to get my PowerBook 150 to recognize a 2GB Transcend Industrial CF card through this Syba adapter. I'm able to format it through the Internal HD Format tool as well as Finder, and I can observe it on the Desktop.

However, when attempting to actually install the operating system (System 7.5.3) onto the CF card via the Legacy Recovery CD (which is on a BlueSCSI attached via the HDI-50 port on the back), It gets up to "Set VM Defaults" before throwing:

Code: 
The Installer cannot copy the file "System" onto the disk "Alastor".
Installation cannot continue.
Please delete this file and try running the installer again.

Additionally, I tried to copy a system folder to the disk directly, only to be met with countless "error -127" errors.

What could be at fault here? The adapter? The CF card itself? (i hope not, it took ages to arrive).
 
Try splitting partitions into eg 2 X 1GB (or even 4 X 500MB), or … a smaller CF card. My PB150 has a cheap generic CF adapter and 512MB Sandisk CF I also recall issues with larger cards.
 
Byrd said:
Try splitting partitions into eg 2 X 1GB (or even 4 X 500MB), or … a smaller CF card. My PB150 has a cheap generic CF adapter and 512MB Sandisk CF I also recall issues with larger cards.
Click to expand...
How would I go about splitting up the card? I don't believe the Internal HD Format tool has any partitioning functions but I could have missed something
 
Not in front of a Mac but there should be a Partition icon for the Apple HD formatting program, otherwise use Lido or Silverlining for this.

More info here on partition size indicating making partitions < 1GB for anything
 
Byrd said:
Not in front of a Mac but there should be a Partition icon for the Apple HD formatting program, otherwise use Lido or Silverlining for this.

More info here on partition size indicating making partitions < 1GB for anything
Click to expand...
No dice with Lido or Silverlining; I suspect it's because they only work with SCSI and not IDE?

Not quite sure how to properly partition the CF card...I'm thinking of just biting the bullet and purchasing a lower capacity CF card to use for this project. Are there any particular models I should look for or should any old <1GB CF card work? The PowerBook has struggled to recognize the CF cards i've thrown at it (other than the TS2GCF100I i'm trying right now) so I wanna make sure I'm buying the right stuff.
 
Ditto. I have a Transcend Industrial 1GB Compact Flash card in my PowerBook 150. Definitely had problems with other “regular” cards, larger cards I tried first, either wouldn’t be seen by Internal HD Format tool, would fail format, or would fail when trying to install OS.
 
Fizzbinn said:
Ditto. I have a Transcend Industrial 1GB Compact Flash card in my PowerBook 150. Definitely had problems with other “regular” cards, larger cards I tried first, either wouldn’t be seen by Internal HD Format tool, would fail format, or would fail when trying to install OS.
Click to expand...
I see. I guess trying a 2GB card was a bit of a silly move on my part 🙃

I just found this eBay listing for a 1GB industrial Transcend card, probably gonna end up purchasing it and giving it a shot when it arrives. Fingers crossed!
 
Depending on where you are located, you can also buy them on Amazon. I have a LC 630 DOS with IDE, I have a 32GB CF card in that, but that is because I can use it with OS 8.1 and can use HFS+. I found I had to first initialize the card with the drive setup utility, then go in and modify the volumes to the sizes I wanted. When I tried various non-industrial CF cards, my 630 wouldn't even recognize the drive as being installed.

I ended up with about 8 volumes. 7 that are 2GB each and formatted HFS, 1 for 7.5.5, 1 for 7.6.1, 1 for 8.1, + 4 data volumes, and the last volume is HFS+ and only accessible when I boot in to 8.1
 
Last edited:
I have larger CF (still industrial) cards in my PB 1400 (8 GB) and Quadra 630 (4GB), formatted with Drive Setup. The PowerBook 150 is an odd duck in its IDE implementation, natively it cannot use any version of “Drive Setup” instead requiring the use of its bespoke “Internal HD Format” utility, which has basically zero formatting options, can’t create multiple partitions. I think I may have read somewhere of folks formatting/setting up CF cards with drive setup on newer Macs with IDE support and then moving them to a PowerBook 150 but have not tried that myself.
 
FloppiTuna said:
I see. I guess trying a 2GB card was a bit of a silly move on my part 🙃

I just found this eBay listing for a 1GB industrial Transcend card, probably gonna end up purchasing it and giving it a shot when it arrives. Fingers crossed!
Click to expand...
Not silly, I would think it should/could have worked, I can’t say for sure where/what the limiting factor is. System 7.1.x (which the PB 150 shipped with) is supposed to support up to 2GB partitions. I know I tried a 4GB industrial card that didn’t work. There is also the possibility that these old cards (of any type/size) might be bad in some way.
 
Fizzbinn said:
I think I may have read somewhere of folks formatting/setting up CF cards with drive setup on newer Macs with IDE support and then moving them to a PowerBook 150 but have not tried that myself.
Click to expand...
I can confirm this works. I moved a 1GB hard disk from my PowerBook 1400 into my 150 (reinstalling the OS of course, but keeping the existing format) and it worked fine. The internal HD format tool is terrible and barely works with any disks other than what the 150 shipped with. You can probably get that 2GB CF card to work if you format with drive setup on a different Mac and then just move it over. If that doesn't work, you may indeed need one of the "industrial" cards.
I don't remember if anyone has gotten an IDE to SD adapter working in a 150. That's what I'd personally recommend if it would indeed work.
 
Apologizes for the radio silence. I got the new CF card and gave it a shot...still no dice though. :( Same error about not being able to copy a file. I'm thinking there might be an issue with me installing off of a BlueSCSI? Perhaps I could try booting an installer off of a set of floppies or make use of another Macintosh over serial in some way?

3lectr1cPPC said:
I can confirm this works. I moved a 1GB hard disk from my PowerBook 1400 into my 150 (reinstalling the OS of course, but keeping the existing format) and it worked fine. The internal HD format tool is terrible and barely works with any disks other than what the 150 shipped with. You can probably get that 2GB CF card to work if you format with drive setup on a different Mac and then just move it over. If that doesn't work, you may indeed need one of the "industrial" cards.
I don't remember if anyone has gotten an IDE to SD adapter working in a 150. That's what I'd personally recommend if it would indeed work.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I don't have any other Macintosh with IDE support.
Jeez, these things really are a headache aren't they?🤪
 
Fizzbinn said:
I think I may have read somewhere of folks formatting/setting up CF cards with drive setup on newer Macs with IDE support and then moving them to a PowerBook 150 but have not tried that
Click to expand...
If that works, does someone want to use dd to backup the contents of a formatted CF card for FloppiTuna to write to their CF card? I can try with my LC 630 tomorrow
 
 
Byrd said:
Can you install an OS to the BlueSCSI and drag it over to the (small) PB150 CF partition?
Click to expand...
Just gave this a shot, no dice on that one either; although it did provide a bit more insight:

When I tried copying the System Folder of a fresh install, it would copy a few files, and then do one of two things:
- If I was booted into the PowerBook 150 Utilities floppy (i also gave copying the system folder from that a shot because I'm desperate), the Finder would just disappear suddenly, and the OS would hang with the watch icon.
- If I was booted in the Legacy Recovery CD, Finder would complain about "error -127" while copying files.

Additionally, the system will fail to mount the filesystem on some boots (or even a minute or so after boot) yet again citing error -127.

LaPorta said:
Alternate solution:


or:


I find either of these to work 100% of the time with SD cards.
Click to expand...
I think I gave one of these a shot ages ago, and it didn't get recognized; maybe I can give it another shot with another SD card though :p
 
Realitystorm said:
I also found that images I created for use with SCSI2SD will work if written to a CF card. https://www.savagetaylor.com/downloads/downloads-macintosh/
Click to expand...
I used this 2GB 7.1 image and flashed it to my CF card using a CF-to-USB adapter, and this command:
Code: 
sudo dd if=/Users/tuna/Downloads/710_2GB_drive.dsk of=/dev/disk4 bs=128 status=progress

Interestingly, when trying to boot from it (with no other devices attached), the PowerBook showed a happy mac for about half a second before disappearing (seemingly rebooting? the screen turned white and then back to normal after the happy mac disappeared) and then showing a blinking question mark, as if no bootable device existed at all. I've seen this several times before while attempting to make a bootable image in Basilisk and flashing it to the CF.
 
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