I recently acquired a complete IIGS, which will be arriving in the mail tomorrow. The only thing is...I don't know how to make disks for it. I have beige Macs that can write 800k disks, but can classic Mac OS write IIGS disk images directly or do I need a special program to do it?
-
Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.
How to make disks for a IIGS?
- Thread starter EvieSigma
- Start date
nglevin
Well-known member
Yeah, ProDOS file system is the format you're looking for, and the IIgs can definitely boot off of a high density floppy disk. ProDOS only accepts a max size of 32 MB IIRC, but that should be fine unless you're really thinking of pushing the limits of your IIgs.
IIgs System 6 and I believe 5 also have an HFS translator, though it has been known to have a data loss bug. This was allegedly fixed in one of the unofficial, fan driven System 6 updates (6.0.3? 6.0.4?) but I remember that being an issue with owning a IIgs for a long, long time.
IIgs System 6 and I believe 5 also have an HFS translator, though it has been known to have a data loss bug. This was allegedly fixed in one of the unofficial, fan driven System 6 updates (6.0.3? 6.0.4?) but I remember that being an issue with owning a IIgs for a long, long time.
Last edited by a moderator:
Unknown_K
Well-known member
The IIgs has 800K floppy drives and will not read 1.44mb disks without a special expensive 3rd party drive.
If you mean you can format a 1.44mb floppy as 800K well then they are not reliable when done like that.
Apples website has (or used to anyway) disk images for GS/OS 6.01 that you can dump to disk using a 68K mac easily enough. You will need a couple MB of RAM to run this.
Most utilities were compressed using a GS/OS app called Shrinkwrap GS, files have a .shk filename.
If you have a working HD and install GS/OS on it life is simple, you can make a mac partition on the drive and just dump the files over using a serial cable and a 68K mac.
If you mean you can format a 1.44mb floppy as 800K well then they are not reliable when done like that.
Apples website has (or used to anyway) disk images for GS/OS 6.01 that you can dump to disk using a 68K mac easily enough. You will need a couple MB of RAM to run this.
Most utilities were compressed using a GS/OS app called Shrinkwrap GS, files have a .shk filename.
If you have a working HD and install GS/OS on it life is simple, you can make a mac partition on the drive and just dump the files over using a serial cable and a 68K mac.
I'm going to try to find an older version like GS/OS 4 or 5, just something to boot the system. I don't have a drive to install GS/OS to sadly.
I found a download of GS/OS 4.02 but the individual disks just show up as plain files and seem to be slightly too big to fit on an 800k disk...
I found a download of GS/OS 4.02 but the individual disks just show up as plain files and seem to be slightly too big to fit on an 800k disk...
Last edited by a moderator:
Unknown_K
Well-known member
I need to get my SCSI + HD running again and dump some disk images. I have the TOSEC IIgs archive from about 10 years ago on my server which I also have to fix the boot drive. I will probably connect a bernouli drive to the IIgs and another to one of my IIfx to make transfers easier.
If you have early 68K Mac without superdrives, Atari ST, Amiga, or Apple IIgs systems I suggest stocking up on 800K disks while you still can. Old Avery floppy disk labels for laser printers are nice as well.
If you have early 68K Mac without superdrives, Atari ST, Amiga, or Apple IIgs systems I suggest stocking up on 800K disks while you still can. Old Avery floppy disk labels for laser printers are nice as well.
Unknown_K
Well-known member
Ten are not that many disks. When I first got into Amigas I bulk purchased 500 new DD disks, got 500 360K 5.25" DD when I got my C64 again. No idea how many 1.44MB disks I have purchased in bulk during my lifetime. You can probably just buy a Gotek floppy emulator and flash disk to save on clutter but I go old school.
Jeez, 500 disks! Based on my getting 10 720k disks for 5 bucks, 500 disks would be...a lot! And yeah, I was honestly just going to Gotek both of my Amigas anyway.
Unknown_K
Well-known member
I kick myself for only buying 500 when they were $30 or something shipped. Duplication grade blowout sale. Still have at least half I think.
Gotek are great for booters for use on something like an A500, but for HD installable games I like real disks (and a Gotek for each Amiga gets expensive). I have a whole shelf of boxed Amiga games anyway.
This hobby is a money pit.
Gotek are great for booters for use on something like an A500, but for HD installable games I like real disks (and a Gotek for each Amiga gets expensive). I have a whole shelf of boxed Amiga games anyway.
This hobby is a money pit.
Oh yeah, I put a CF card HD in my A1200 already. Still haven't really worked out how you put stuff on it.
At least a CF card for an A1200 is like 25 dollars or something and readily available, unlike the CFFA3000 or whatever it's called that costs like 200 dollars and only 12 get made at a time or something.
At least a CF card for an A1200 is like 25 dollars or something and readily available, unlike the CFFA3000 or whatever it's called that costs like 200 dollars and only 12 get made at a time or something.
Unknown_K
Well-known member
I have stacks of 40GB IDE laptop drives for my A1200 is needed. The 1200 takes (supported) PCMCIA ethernet cards and some wireless WEP cards as well so moving files is not that bad. You just need the 3rd party software/drivers to get things working (and time to read directions). Its been a decade or more since I set up my 1200 and probably forgot how to do it.
Lookup English Amiga Board (EAB) forum, lots of help there.
Lookup English Amiga Board (EAB) forum, lots of help there.
Retro Rider
Well-known member
Hey, just here because I'm having kinda the same problem, I don't know how to write an IIGS disk, because I really want to use GS/OS. I've heard that I should get an image and put it through Disk Copy, but for some reason, the computer I was doing it on was being fussy and didn't want to put the image on the hard drive (I put it on a floppy disk from a pc, so I might've done something wrong) nor did it want to even load it into Disk Copy, It would just spit out the disk and ask me to insert it, but when I did, it would do that same thing, and I would eventually have to force shut down (unplug it). I might try it on another computer, but I'm too lazy rn. I've been told that I should load an Apple IIGS emulator and do something with that, maybe it'll read the floppy drive and I can just copy the sys folder onto it I don't know. But, if it wouldn't work with disk copy, I don't feel like going through all that effort of having to put files onto a floppy, or maybe a cd and transfer it if it's not gonna work. Maybe if I get an IIGS CF hard drive expansion, it'll work but those are quite expensive for me. Tell me what happens and what you did.
Retro Rider
Well-known member
My MacBook Pro was out, and I couldn't get it, so I had to use some random Windows laptop. I think I used my MacBook when I got it back. I couldn't have used the programs because the VM which I had them on is on my MacBook, and I think that the file format won't be able to write with the programs I have. I could probably use one of my early Mac OS 10 machines or maybe my iMac G3 Rev. B and transfer it via a USB stick, then transfer it to a floppy drive, then transfer that to an older mac to use disk copy.
