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LC 630 DOS + OS 8.1 = PC SETUP will not load

Realitystorm

Well-known member
Not sure what's going on at the moment.
I have everything working on my LC 630 DOS under system 7.5.3 with PC SETUP 2.1.7
But when I try to use OS 8.1 the PC SETUP control panel will not load. I select the PC SETUP control, then the screen just flashes for a second all the desktop icons disappear then re-appear. But the PC SETUP control panel does not open.

System: 40MB of RAM on board, and 36MB of RAM on card. Using a CF to IDE adapter with a 32GB industrial CF card (fixed disk mode). I have been using a SCSI2SD to move files across with (my new SCSI2SD FAT32 version), and boot from when I did a clean install (see below)

I've tried:
  • System 7.5.3 + PC SETUP 2.1.7 = working
  • Upgrading the original working 7.5.3 install to 8.0 then 8.1 - not working, PC SETUP does not load.
  • Clean install, re-initialized the internal HD (CF Card) using Drive Setup 1.7.3, full install of OS 8.1 (from the Apple CD 2000-09 System Recovery CD) , then installed PC SETUP 1.6.4 - same issue, then upgraded to 2.1.7 (as per the instructions for 2.1.7) - not working, PC SETUP does not load.
GianDO seems to have his working with 8.1 according to another thread, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, or if there is some extension that is not being installed that is needed, or a conflict somewhere (a have a network card in the communication slot and the video capture card installed).

I was hoping to use OS 8.1 so I could use PC Exchange 2.2 and it's FAT32 and long file name support, along with HFS+.

Will continue to experiment.
 

AndiS

Well-known member
I also failed with PC Setup under OS 8.1 a few years back and reverted to OS 7.5.3

If you find a solution, I'd also be interested!
 

Realitystorm

Well-known member
Looks like this issue has been discussed already by @BadGoldEagle and @Byrd with no fix. Max system 7.6.1 has been tested as working for the 630.

For the OS 8 read me, I've checked those and the apple support posts. The only mention I found for OS 8 is "When using the PC Compatibility software with a DOS compatible system, you may need to manually select the sound input source after inserting an audio CD. The PC Compatibility software plays sounds through the CD input source, so you must select CD input in the Monitors & Sound control panel or the SoundSource control strip module to hear sounds from the PC Card." From the OS 8.1 Update

The PC SETUP 1.6.4 readme mentions "improved OS 8 compatibility" but no details
 
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Realitystorm

Well-known member
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Realitystorm

Well-known member
I just sent a note to Mark Fonnemann on linkedIn, the lead developer for PCSETUP 2.1.7, hopefully he responds and I can get some information from him to see if the LC 630 Dos was tested by his team with OS 8.x.
 

Paralel

Well-known member
That is so strange. The big highlight of PC Setup 2.1.7 was supposed to be OS8 compatibility.
 

Realitystorm

Well-known member
That is so strange. The big highlight of PC Setup 2.1.7 was supposed to be OS8 compatibility.
I believe OS 8.1 works with the PCI versions. What's odd is I can't find any mention of this being an issue in apple's knowledge base or the "news" sites that I've found (macnews, tidbits etc). I will likely have to go with 7.6.1 and Dos Mounter 98 (unless there is something better) as my setup so I can avoid the bugs that are in the older versions of PC exchange.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
I just re-tested this.

• Fresh install of 8.1 on my 640CD (with a full 040)
• Fresh install of PC Setup 1.6.4 and the PC can start
• Upgrade to PC Setup 2.1.7f and the PC can still start

Maybe it's the full 040?
Edit: also, the boot drive is Mac OS Standard (for dual booting SSW7)
 
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jeremywork

Well-known member
I also have a full 040 in mine. Do you have anything in the communications slot or media slot? What are you using for your hard drive?
There's a Farallon 10BaseT card in the Comm Slot, Video-In/TVFM are both installed, and the hard drive is the (presumably factory) 516MB IDE which did accept the Disk Driver update during 8.1's preinstallation. Mac is running with 196MB RAM, but the DOS card still has only 8MB installed.

At the time of first testing I had also installed Open Transport 1.3, but the Farallon driver wasn't yet installed.
The 8.1 install was a complete customize-everything install, so it also has all the (unused) PPC code.
 

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Realitystorm

Well-known member
I tried installing Open Transport 1.3.... no luck.
I'll try with the apple branded IDE drive and see if that makes any difference. I was hoping to get the CF card working to make a light package when I ship this to get it re-capped.

What did you use for the 8.1 installation source? I've tried a full 8.1 CD and the Apple Legacy and Apple System recovery CDs.
What did you use to initialize your drive? Drive Setup 1.7.3 or something else?

Possible next steps if the apple branded drive doesn't work:
We should also check what revision # we have for the parts in case there is some weird hardware difference. My understanding is the 640CD DOS was just the 630 DOS with a different memory and disk bundle.
Get you to make a copy of your drive, ideally a binary image of the full drive including boot sectors (doable if you have a SCSI to USB or SCSI card), but more likely just a copy of the boot volume to a volume or drive file that I can use with MacSD or ZuluSCSI.
 

Realitystorm

Well-known member
I have it working now with the Apple Branded IDE hard drive.
  1. Did a clean install of OS 8.1 to the IDE hard drive, installed open transport, installed PC Setup 1.6.4 = working, upgraded to 2.1.7f = working.
  2. Copied the files from my HD to my SCSI2SD and then booted from it = NOT working
  3. Copied the files to my CF2IDE and then booted from that = NOT working
Now to experiment and figure out what is going on.
It is likely something to do with the Apple branded hard drive and the driver update 8.1 does by default during the install.
I plan to try a few different methods of initializing my CF2IDE to see if I can get around this, but I may need some sort of IDE solution that I can set to "spoof" and apple IDE drive. Hopefully have some more time tomorrow after work.
 

jeremywork

Well-known member
Interesting to see that result. Did you format the IDE drive HFS or HFS+?

I also had mixed results formatting a CF-AztecMonster using many programs which worked great on hard drives. I know the SCSI bridge is likely to change the scenario, but in that case the most successful formatters were Anubis v2.54 (most performant,) FWB HDT 2.0, and Lido 7. All of my notes on those tests are here: jeremywork.com/loose_cf_aztecmonster.html

FWIW I believe the 640CD is the same as any 630 series with two memory slots /DOS card support. I think the 580 variants also shared this version of the board.
 

Byrd

Well-known member
Try a smaller x86 HD container, eg. 100MB. I vaguely recall PC Setup not liking max size DOS partitions.
 

Realitystorm

Well-known member
The Apple IDE drive is 1.2 GB, formatted as a single HFS partition. The CF is formatted with 2 partitions at the moment. A 2gb HFS and the rest a single HFS+. The SCSi2ISD is 6 2GB HFS partitions.

To clarify my last comment. The SCSI2SD and CFIDE both boot with 8.1 But when I try to load the PC control panel I just get the issue I initially described.

Everything works on the SCSI2SD and CFIDE under System 7.6.1.
 
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Realitystorm

Well-known member
I tried setting my SCSI2SD to have the settings of an Apple branded SEGATE drive, and did the same install I mentioned above. The OS 8.1 installation said it was updating the drive's driver, but I still have the same error I describe at the start. Boots, but can't load the PCSETUP control panel. So my only success so far is still with a physical Apple branded 1.2GB Quantum Fireball.

When I have more time I'm going to do a binary copy from the Apple drive (I have a USB to IDE) and write that file to the CF card to see if that will work. If it doesn't then there may be some check going on in OS 8.1 + PCSETUP against the bios of the apple branded quantum drive I have vs. what the CF2IDE and SCSI2SD provide.
 
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Realitystorm

Well-known member
Ok, that worked. I connected the Apple drive to my Windows 10 system using a USB to IDE adapter. I imaged the drive using DD, wrote the 1.2GB image to my industrial compact flash card and it booted and I can run PC Setup and was able to run Windows 95. But that gives me 1.2GB on a 32GB card (actual size is about 30GB).

Next I copied the contents of the drive to a volume on my SCSI2SD, then I used drive setup and re-initialize the drive as 2GB HFS + 28GB HFS, copied the files back, rebooted.... and PC Setup doesn't work any more.... :-(

So, I'm thinking, there is something being written as part of the 8.1 install/by drive setup to drives branded as Apple that doesn't get written to non-Apple branded drives that is needed for PC Setup to work, or there is some issue with multi-volume drives vs. single volume. Will do some more experimentation.
 
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Realitystorm

Well-known member
• Fresh install of 8.1 on my 640CD (with a full 040)
Hi Jeremy, when you did a fresh install did you also re-initialize your hard drive? If you did, what did you use? Because I just learned that drive setup may be part of the issue.

As part of my testing I wanted to create as similar as possible configurations on both my Apple HD and my CF2IDE drive.
So:
  1. I re-initialized my Apple HD and did a driver update of my apple hard drive with Drive Setup 1.7.3, did a clean install of 8.1 (from setup files).... PC setup no longer works on my apple drive :-( same issue as what I originally posted.
  2. I tried again with Drive Setup 1.5 + clean install of 8.1 ..... PC setup still doesn't work.
  3. I tried again with Drive Setup 1.4 (comes with 8.1) + clean install of 8.1 ..... PC setup is working again under OS 8.1....
  4. I re-initialized my CF2IDE with Drive Setup 1.4 .... PC setup did not work.
So it seems there is something unique to Drive Setup 1.4 + 8.1 install + apple hard drive that is needed for PC setup to work under 8.1. Any later version of Drive Setup did not work for me.

Now to do some hex comparisons between what is on the drive and what is on the CF card.
 
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