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How to add a CD-rom drive to a Macintosh Classic?
- Thread starter 68K-Trooper
- Start date
Scott Baret
Well-known member
You cannot boot from a CD on certain older Macs. I remember reading the list at some point in the early 90s, and I remember the Classic was on there. I'm pretty sure the list includes all the 68000 chip compacts, 32-bit dirty Mac IIs, and the SE/30. I think the IIci is the oldest Mac bootable from CD-ROM.
The "lowest end" Macs bootable from CD are the LC and Classic II.
The "lowest end" Macs bootable from CD are the LC and Classic II.
zuiko21
Well-known member
I'll be far from my Macs for a few days (and pretty busy!) thus I can't confirm this for sure, but I believe that even a stock SE/30 should be able to boot from CD-ROM provided that:
One thing is for sure: such an old Mac won't recognize the 'C' key pressed during startup for CD boot, instead should use the old Cmd-opt-shift-backspace key combo, preferably while hitting (with the tip of the nose :-/ ) the number for the CD's SCSI-ID, that way should force booting from that particular device, if a suitable system is found on it.
Alternatively, having previously selected the CD on the Startup Disk control panel should do, but that implies being able to mount the CD having booted from elsewhere -- having a bootable CD spin up at power-up, even when booting from the HD, will load the appropriate drivers easily, at least if the drive is Apple-branded and/or no suitable extensions are installed.
Bootable CD means it has a hidden partition with the SCSI driver, like any internal HD. Removable devices usually rely on system extensions for that, but that way won't be able to boot. At least, Toast 4 (which came bundled with my LaCie CD burner) is able to make bootable CDs easily (by default) as long as the System Folder to be burned has a compatible CD-ROM extension on it -- won't use whatever is in use on that system.
About the last point, I previously thought that burning on CD the System Folder from the internal HD would be fine, but it won't
The reason behind is that some configurations need to write to the boot device (preference files, etc) and that's impossible on a CD... maybe the safest option is a system folder from a floppy disk (which should work even when write protected -- could be tried if in doubt) but with the mandatory CD-ROM extension. Don't be tempted to add more functionality to it, because you could run into the aforementioned problems.
I think all of the above should apply equally to the IIcx and IIfx.
- The CD is bootable
- The System version is compatible with the SE/30 (up to 7.5.5)
- That system's configuration is suitable for CD-booting
One thing is for sure: such an old Mac won't recognize the 'C' key pressed during startup for CD boot, instead should use the old Cmd-opt-shift-backspace key combo, preferably while hitting (with the tip of the nose :-/ ) the number for the CD's SCSI-ID, that way should force booting from that particular device, if a suitable system is found on it.
Alternatively, having previously selected the CD on the Startup Disk control panel should do, but that implies being able to mount the CD having booted from elsewhere -- having a bootable CD spin up at power-up, even when booting from the HD, will load the appropriate drivers easily, at least if the drive is Apple-branded and/or no suitable extensions are installed.
Bootable CD means it has a hidden partition with the SCSI driver, like any internal HD. Removable devices usually rely on system extensions for that, but that way won't be able to boot. At least, Toast 4 (which came bundled with my LaCie CD burner) is able to make bootable CDs easily (by default) as long as the System Folder to be burned has a compatible CD-ROM extension on it -- won't use whatever is in use on that system.
About the last point, I previously thought that burning on CD the System Folder from the internal HD would be fine, but it won't
The reason behind is that some configurations need to write to the boot device (preference files, etc) and that's impossible on a CD... maybe the safest option is a system folder from a floppy disk (which should work even when write protected -- could be tried if in doubt) but with the mandatory CD-ROM extension. Don't be tempted to add more functionality to it, because you could run into the aforementioned problems.I think all of the above should apply equally to the IIcx and IIfx.
