Booting 170 off SCSI CD Drive

[bunnspecial]

Alright, I'm trying to get my 170 actually useable after getting a new hard drive in it. I found a 7.5 universal restore disk on the garden that's labeled for the 170, so I want to try that(before plan B-installing 7.0.1 from floppies).

I can't seem to get it to boot from my CD-ROM, though. I have an Apple 300E that I had never used before, but checked it out on a beige G3 and it's fine. I also checked all the cables I'm using.

I've tried connecting it to the 170 two different ways. Initially, I used a generic DB-25 adapter running directly to the drive(set at ID 3). I played with two different terminators-an Apple pass-through and a generic metal box one. I tried the pass-through both on the other port on the drive, and then between the computer and the drive.

I then dug out my genuine Apple adapter. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a lot of my SCSI stuff, so didn't have a Centronics-50 to Centronics-50 to let me use the Apple cable. So, I ran a Centronics-50 to DB25 to one port on the ZIP and then another DB-25 to Centronics 50 to the drive. I tried the same terminator dance as above. The ZIP is set to ID 5 and internal termination is off.

Any thoughts on what I could be doing wrong? On one occasion, I got a brief orange light when I booted with cmd-opt-shift-delete but otherwise the drive doesn't do anything. It doesn't show up at all when I boot off a floppy.

 

[Juror22]

You weren't able to boot the G3 from the CD, I presume, but only mount the CD, using a DB25 to Cent50 cable, correct?  There could be an issue with the CD (not bootable?)

How do you connect the PB 170, don't you need an HDI-30 for the SCSI port on the 170?  If so, then you are trying to boot the chain that looks like this...correct?

PB170-HDI30(F) HDI30(M)-Cable-DB25(M) DB25(F)-Zip Drive[5]-DB25(F) DB25(M)-Cable-Cent50(M) Cent50(F)-Apple 300E[3]-Cent50(F) Cent50(M)-Terminator

This should work if you are using the correct ports on the Zip, keep in mind that it uses the zip connector for the computer connection and the one marked with a SCSI symbol for the rest of the chain.

 

[Charadis]

The way that I booted a CD drive on my 500 series is by booting from floppy with the FWB CD ROM extension dropped in the extension folder. The extension is around 360-370kb+

CD drives I’ve been using are Panasonic drives starting with “KXL-“ and have a SCSI2 Port. I’m not very familiar with the PB 170, but I assume it has an HDI 30 Port. I use an HDI 30 to SCSI2 cable that I got through eBay to interface with the drive. Hope that helps