Fitting a SCSI2SD in a 68k Mac

[Skate323k137]

Glad you're up and running!

My SE is still quite happy with the internal scsi2sd. I finally got the random hardware to try a scsi2sd v5 external as well, with hot swappable cards. If I get it working I'll edit this post later with my results. The goal is to have a scsi2sd external drive with at least 1gb hot swappable cards that works with ppc and 68k scsi Macs. 

 

[Skate323k137]

No luck with removable Device ID's/host wake, at least as of yet.

I used a v5 scsi2sd in a 3d printed case, with the ribbon cable to d-sub adapter. The case I got fits the whole contraption https://makerware.thingiverse.com/thing:1131419
 

With my internal scsi2sd device on molex power, the external scsi2sd runs just fine from the systems termination power. Each scsi2sd terminates its own end of the scsi chain. Even though I can't hot swap cards, I can set up several drives in scsi2sd-util that work for carrying files from my internet capable G3 PPC 7500 to my SE. It's definitely a lot more convenient than lugging my old 6GB SCSI external HDD around.

 

[joethezombie]

I haven't tried it myself, but removable hot swappable cards is something I want to get working as well.  I hope to start evil experimentation soon!  Some notes:

• v5 cards save configuration data to the device, not the SD card, so make sure every SD card is configured/formatted identically.
  
• It is my understanding (but I'm unable to source, currently) that v6 cards save configuration to the SD card, but Micheal has warned against using v6 cards on DB25 cabling.
  
• We may need to use a different driver other than the Apple default.  Perhaps one of the 3rd party utilities which specifically advertise removable media usage such as FWB, Anubis, Silverlinging, or even Lido would be beneficial.
  

 

[Skate323k137]

Using another device ID and 3rd party driver might be very helpful. I swear I had the syquest ID working fine a few weeks back but now I can't reproduce it. 

V6 definitely puts config in the card. I have one in my 7500.

I'll keep playing with it. 

 

[Skate323k137]

Got it working as zip100!

https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1296-iomega-zip-install-disk-v4-2

All I had to do was use the extension from the install image SIT.

Here are my settings:

GENERAL:

Enable Parity, Enable unit attention, enable scsi2 mode.

Device:
only enable one device ID on a free SCSI ID (duh)

100 MB device size

Vendor IOMEGA

Product ID ZIP 100

Revision D.09

I'm sure we can probably find a better device ID (read; larger) but for now this totally works with my SE. Once you format a card you can drag to the trash and physically eject. Re-inserting auto-mounts it if it's already formatted. Still seeing if the powermac will be OK with this, but the newer driver on os9 may be fighting me where the os7.5 driver on the SE seems to be quite agreeable. 

I suppose now for the SE, the only thing left is seeing if this could be fit where the floppy drive is, under the scsi2sd I'm using for a hdd. I wouldn't want to do it if it didn't look really good though, I can live with external.

 

[joethezombie]

Ha ha!  Wonderful-- at least with zip100 we have something working!  But yes, a larger partition would be better.

 

[james_w]

Got it working as zip100!

Oh that is nice! Great work

Really want to try this but the list of current projects is getting a bit out of control...

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Ha ha!  Wonderful-- at least with zip100 we have something working!  But yes, a larger partition would be better.

Zip250 drivers? They made a SCSI version, but I've yet to snag one for playtime.

edit: I wonder if it's possible to patch the Zip100 driver to support the 250 format or even 750?

 

[patatas]

Many thanks for this "tutorial" got me going in a flash

 

[Skate323k137]

It looks like you can do 1gb with this method, so realistically a 4gb card with device ID zip 100 should work fine. 

All I changed in scsi2sd [since my last posts] was the device size. Left it as zip 100 device ID and all. It popped up on boot, formatted fine, and I'm copying data to it right now. The zip100 icon shows up and everything

 

[Skate323k137]

Can confirm 1gb card is all good for reboots and eject / hotswap.

Now if only I could get it working in os9. The issue I have there with this same hardware but different iomega driver is that it never reports the card as inserted. 

But for system 7.5 at least it looks like we're good to go. 

 

[jimjimx]

My question is......

Can I partition, and have multiple boot volumes. 

I’ve tried & failed so far. 

 

[AlpineRaven]

My question is......

Can I partition, and have multiple boot volumes. 

I’ve tried & failed so far. 

I second that - I think its SCSI2SD utility that does that

Cheers

AP

 

[Skate323k137]

The easiest way I found to have 2 boot volumes was to just make 2 scsi IDs active in scsi2sd-util, each as hard disk. I did not bother making multiple partitions on each virtual drive, but that also works fine. Partitions are made in macos, not scsi2sd-util just to be clear. 

Having 2 scsi HDDs active on a single scsi2sd v5 works fine in my SE. I can upload the xml file which contains all the settings for scsi2sd-util if you'd like, but the settings themselves are in my previous posts.

 

[jimjimx]

Thanks fo the info. 

I didn’t use the utility. I plugged it into the scsi on a G3 using os 9, and used lido to format and partition it. 

I didn’t know you could set it up as 2 (or more?) scsi devices. 

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Sounds like someone needs to hack the Zip disk icon in the driver to an SD or MicroSD card. Cheat and put an oP Jolly Roger sticker on the side with the contacts. )

edit: just checked, definitely MicroSD, the outline's far more distinctive. @olePigeon, feel like going Susan Kare all over that Zip icon?

 

[Skate323k137]

Thanks fo the info. 

I didn’t use the utility. I plugged it into the scsi on a G3 using os 9, and used lido to format and partition it. 

I didn’t know you could set it up as 2 (or more?) scsi devices. 

The v5 scsi2sd does up to 4 devices. I have done that for a powermac (1hdd each, for os7, os8, os9, and virtual memory).

The v6 scsi2sd can effectively do every ID in a scsi chain, of course we would have to leave ID7 open for the logic board.

 

[MOS8_030]

I got my Mac Plus booting from the SCSI2SD today.

It was a chore, mostly because there were a few things I didn't know or had long forgotten about the early Macs & SCSI and the drive needs the early version of Apple HD SC Setup to allow the Plus to boot from the volume. (Because I believe the SCSI driver has to load from the disk. I used to know this, years ago.)

I used Version 7.0 from the System 7 install.

In the SCSI2SD settings I tried several of the drive models from the list posted on the previous page but I could only find a couple that the early setup software would recognize.

I ended up using SEAGATE ST250N and setting the volume size to 40mb in the SCSI2SD and the drive was recognized by the Apple HD SC Setup.

This gave me a 40mb volume. Ok fine, initialized, loaded System 6.0.8, and bam, I'm booting. Proof of concept achieved!

BUT I want a larger drive for the Plus.

So I went into the Version 7.0 of the Apple HD SC Setup to look at the names of the supported drives. (Resedit! I'm way having flashbacks!)

It looks like 80mb is the largest drive supported by this version.

Here is the list.

 SEAGATE           ST225N
RODIME R0632
QUANTUM Q280
QUANTUM Q250
SEAGATE ST250N
MINISCRIB M8425 - SCSI
SEAGATE ST157NB
QUANTUM P80S 980-80-94
QUANTUM P40S 940-40-94
CDC 94221-5
SONY SRD2040A
CONNER CP3045-mb-3.5
QUANTUM LP40S 940409404

Anyway, now that I've figured out how to get the SCSI2SD working with a Plus I'm going to experiment a bit and see how large a volume I can make bootable.

I'll have to look at the 7.1 version of drive setup and see what's in there.

Oh, also, there's a new version of firmware, 4.8, available for the SCSI2SD that apparently adds some more Apple-specific features.

 

[reallyrandy]

Thanks Mos, I'm going to put my SCSI2SD on my Plus as well. I'll be booting 6.0.7 though. I wonder how big a partition I can get?

 

[MOS8_030]

Thanks Mos, I'm going to put my SCSI2SD on my Plus as well. I'll be booting 6.0.7 though. I wonder how big a partition I can get?

I'm thinking it depends on which version of Apple HD SC Setup you use but no matter what I believe there's a 1 gig limit to volume/partition size until you get to 7.5? or 7.6.

You can use the 7.0 version I did and you should be able to get at least 80mb.

I'm actually looking at the different versions of the HD SC setup now and I'm going to do some experiments tomorrow.

I'm hoping for at least at 540mb bootable volume on the Plus.

I will report my findings in entirely too much detail. I will also include the exact settings I used on the SCSI2SD.