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How to use Non-Apple-SCSCI-HDs on a Macintosh LC II?

DeeNam

Active member
How can I use non-Apple SCSI hard disks on the Macintosh LC II?

I have 4 SCSI drives:
2 x Apple (20 MB, 400 MB)
2 x IBM (1 GB, 2 GB)

I have patched all four drives on a UMAX Apus PowerPC with Lido7 and Apple HD. The hard drives are easily recognized on the PowerPC (Umax and Power Macintosh 7100).

Two LC II's refuse to recognize the drives.

What is the problem?

Regards
Dirk

 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
If you format the drives using the PowerPC Mac get will not boot an older 68k machine. Use something like FWB HDT 2.x to install a driver and format on. Then, if you can, initialize on the LC. 

I had the same problem with Iomega Jaz cartridges setting them up on a PowerMac and then not being able to boot from a 68k Mac. There’s something to do with the hard disk drivers and a bootloader being installed on the disk on a PPC that makes it work only on a PPC. 

 

dan.dem

Well-known member
I used also HDT 2.x for some time. Silverlining was also very popular.

But I moved to later versions of Apple's hard disk setup utility (was it "HD SC Setup"? Cannot remember) - bundled with (likely) MacOS 8.5 and newer. That is the one I do recommend. Older versions (bundled with System 7.5 and before) will refuse non Apple disks. But there is a hacked version which has the restriction removed.

All these utilities will work very well on your Performa 475. It has a slightly newer SCSI-hardware (again, don't remember what it is called). In fact this is exactly what I was using around 2000 as my back-up station: A 475 with the same 14"-Trinitron-display, Asanté PDS Ethernet-card, a 2 GB external SCSI, a 1 Gig internal one (originally HDT but overwritten by an Apple driver), and finally a very reliable LaCie/Yamaha disk burner.

I was not using HFS+ for backward compatibility, so I was very happy with System 7.6.1. The Performa 475 can do HFS+ when you boot it with System 8.1. I only tried this once and found that it makes an otherwise "nippy" computer sluggish. All my disks had been partitioned to sizes not larger than 800 MB (for CD-ROM burning).

BTW: HFS+ disks on pre MacOS 8 should be showing on the desktop but are displaying only one document named "Where_have_all_my_files_gone?" (See Wikipedia for "HFS Plus".)

 
Last edited by a moderator:

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
I used also HDT 2.x for some time. Silverlining was also very popular.

But I moved to later versions of Apple's hard disk setup utility (was it "HD SC Setup"? Cannot remember) - bundled with (likely) MacOS 8.5 and newer. That is the one I do recommend. Older versions (bundled with System 7.5 and before) will refuse non Apple disks. But there is a hacked version which has the restriction removed.

All these utilities will work very well on your Performa 475. It has a slightly newer SCSI-hardware (again, don't remember what it is called). In fact this is exactly what I was using around 2000 as my back-up station: A 475 with the same 14"-Trinitron-display, Asanté PDS Ethernet-card, a 2 GB external SCSI, a 1 Gig internal one (originally HDT but overwritten by an Apple driver), and finally a very reliable LaCie/Yamaha disk burner.

I was not using HFS+ for backward compatibility, so I was very happy with System 7.6.1. The Performa 475 can do HFS+ when you boot it with System 8.1. I only tried this once and found that it makes an otherwise "nippy" computer sluggish. All my disks had been partitioned to sizes not larger than 800 MB (for CD-ROM burning).

BTW: HFS+ disks on pre MacOS 8 should be showing on the desktop but are displaying only one document named "Where did all my files go?"
The Apple formatting utility you are referring to us Drive Setup. I have found that formatting a drive on a PowerPC machine causes it to not be readable on a 68k machine at boot. 
 

if you have older, smaller drives (under 500mb), use them on older hardware (68030 or lower) and format using old third party software like SilverLining or FWB (prior to the PowerPC edition). 
 

The change in SCSI you refer to is SCSIManager 4.3 which was introduced on 68040 Macs. 
 

I have found that setting up a disk/drive on a newer Mac and then trying to use that disk on an older Mac can cause problems. I ran into this with Iomega Jaz disks. I had a bunch of disks with varying Mac system software versions, and I set them up and was booting and using them just fine on a Quadra 800. All of the disks were HFS not HFS+, and I had system software 7.1 through 9.0. 
 

When I picked up a PowerPC Mac, I then started booting these disks on that Mac, because the stuff I was doing to setup drives was faster on the PPC, everything worked great. I was preparing hard drives for earlier systems and I formatted them on the PowerMac, copied over system software and then put the drives into the older Macs. 
 

When I went to try and boot these same hard drives in the older 68k Macs, it would recognize the disk, start the Mac OS boot screen, pause for 5 seconds, and then go to flashing question disk icon. Thinking I just killed the drive, I tried booting my working Jaz disk. Same thing. 
 

Eventually I narrowed it down to setting up the disk/drive on too new of a system, resulting in it not working on an older 68k machine. 
 

If you have any other way to boot your LCII with the hard drive connected to that, I highly recommend you start your troubleshooting there. Boot the best OS for the machine, not the newest it can run. On an LCII, I’d recommend 7.1 just to troubleshoot. Once booted from a good disk, run SCSIProbe to see what’s going on with your SCSI chain. I can’t remember what version tells you about termination issues but 4.3 is good to use. 
 

After your able to boot and see the drive try formatting using a third party tool described above and then copy the system folder over from your boot disk just to see if it can boot it. You can upgrade to whatever version you want to run on it later. 
 

Post any updates back here. Hope this helps you. 
 

 

dan.dem

Well-known member
Thank you @MrFahrenheit for making things clearer and helping where my memory has faded.

I never had any problems since I formatted my drives with the Performa 475 with System 7.6.1 (before: Mac LC with 7.1.1). I am still quite sure I switched from HDT (which I had used mostly in the mid-1990s) to DriveSetup that came with MacOS 8.5 or slightly later versions coming with MacOS 9.0 and its OS-updates.

 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
Thank you @MrFahrenheit for making things clearer and helping where my memory has faded.

I never had any problems since I formatted my drives with the Performa 475 with System 7.6.1 (before: Mac LC with 7.1.1). I am still quite sure I switched from HDT (which I had used mostly in the mid-1990s) to DriveSetup that came with MacOS 8.5 or slightly later versions coming with MacOS 9.0 and its OS-updates.
Apple published a document on versions of drive setup that should and shouldn’t be used on Mac models and system software versions. I’ve been trying to find it. You should not, however, use a Drive Setup from OS 9 on a PowerPC and format a drive to use on a LC2 with System 7. You’re asking for problems. 

 

dan.dem

Well-known member
It's so annoying that Apple reorganizes its support area every few years and leaves all previous links broken. Also searching within Apple's website is mostly a PIT...

I'll try to look up what config I had used. The original hard disk is in storage and I'm very unsure my Performa 475 will boot after 9 years, but I think I had burned copies to CD-ROMS which in turn I had imaged to my current backup disks.

So, possible solution:

HDT, Silverlining or the patched version of Apple's drive setup (of System 7.5) run on a 68k Mac, preferably a 68040 with SCSIManager 4.3 should result in a promising strategy for creating disks readable on 68k and PPC Macs.

(Sorry for my old habit from UseNet days to occasionally sum up discussions, it may be annoying for someone and useful for someone else.)

 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
It's so annoying that Apple reorganizes its support area every few years and leaves all previous links broken. Also searching within Apple's website is mostly a PIT...

I'll try to look up what config I had used. The original hard disk is in storage and I'm very unsure my Performa 475 will boot after 9 years, but I think I had burned copies to CD-ROMS which in turn I had imaged to my current backup disks.

So, possible solution:

HDT, Silverlining or the patched version of Apple's drive setup (of System 7.5) run on a 68k Mac, preferably a 68040 with SCSIManager 4.3 should result in a promising strategy for creating disks readable on 68k and PPC Macs.

(Sorry for my old habit from UseNet days to occasionally sum up discussions, it may be annoying for someone and useful for someone else.)
Your strategy is sound. The 475 is a decent machine, you should have it recapped ASAP. 

 

dan.dem

Well-known member
I finally found an image of my Performa startup disk on an old backup. Besides HDT and Silverlining it holds two versions of Apple's Drive Setup:

  • 1.6.2 coming from System Update 8.5.1 and
  • 1.7.3 which came as an update for itself

I'm quite sure I used both successively, and both had been able to format drives with partitions I used to burn bootable CD-ROMs. Bootable on G3 iMacs and iBooks (MacOS 8.6 and 9.0, 9.1) and (with Mac OS 7.6.1) on my Performa 475. Likely I made no boot-CDs for my original LC, so below 7.6.1 this is untested.

The Read-Me-document of version 1.7.3 mentions explicitely the use of Mac OS versions 7.6, 7.6.1, 8.0, 8.1, 8.5,  8.5.1, or 8.6 and is dated form Mach 1999. I'm attaching a PDF of the old Simple Text document.

@DeeNam wants to use the disk on a LC II, probably with an older OS. However, if upgraded to 10 MB RAM a LC II is compatible with 7.6.x but will feel sluggish (disabling Apple Script, Desktop Printing and other novelties may help). Finally, mostly reliable source LowEndMac has a discussion of this problem and its own recommendations: https://lowendmac.com/2007/format-any-hard-drive-for-older-macs-with-patched-apple-tools/

About my 475: It will be subject to decisions during spring cleaning. My next project is recapping an old Sony receiver from 1971, which can be done with my old soldering gear. I am really hesitating dealing with surface mount components. Also it would need a temperature regulated soldering station, and so on. I don't think I want to do this without help of somebody experienced and well equipped.

View attachment Drive Setup 1.7.3 Read Me.pdf

 

dan.dem

Well-known member
As if Apple decided to shame me about my criticism of broken support links: All three download links to Apple's server download.info.apple.com for fetching the drive formatting utilities "HD SC Setup" and "Drive Setup" 1.5 and 1.7.3 are still working (@ 2020-01-31)! You may need classic Mac OS running to open the .sea and .smi files.

 
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