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PowerBook 150: replacement IDE hard disk format pain

Byrd

Well-known member
Hi all,

I've a nice unblemished PowerBook 150 I'd like to see running - not the most exciting vintage Mac, stock 4MB RAM but works beautifully short of a dead Quantum 120MB HD I can't resurrect.  Being one of the earliest IDE implementations that Apple released, it isn't trivial to find a replacement hard disk owing to software and ROM limitations (the Quantum HD has Apple ROM to be detected - similar to SCSI HDs which Apple software refused to work with if aftermarket).

The smallest and oldest replacement HD I have is a Toshiba 4GB unit - it is detected on startup, detected by Mac OS (offering to format it), detected by Disk First Aid, but fails to format using the Internal HD Format utility.  I thought I'd try to set up a Network boot disc and try the patched version of Apple HD Setup - version 1.5 - and it finds nothing.  I've also tried other formatting utilities such as Lido (SCSI only ...), and formatting the hard disk in another 68K IDE Mac - to no avail.

I'm stuck.  Has anyone else worked on a PB150 recently - noting the massive effort that went on here for Compact Flash:

http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/hardware/pb150/PB150_and_CompactFlash.html

Thanks

JB

 
Last edited by a moderator:

bibilit

Well-known member
The PowerBook 150 is using a special set of utilities to format the internal hard drive. 

IlRC no other utility will work, moreover any that will be supplied with SCSI drives. 

So was supplied with those tools on floppy disks. 

 

Byrd

Well-known member
That's the thing - I am using the PB150 specific Internal HD Format utility (as found on the specific System 7.1.1 installer discs) - and it detects, formats then stops short.  The hard disk is good, I know that as much.

 

beachycove

Well-known member
I recently read somewhere (on here?) that the NZ chap's troubles were due to the age of the CF card rather than to the CF option per se. In other words, CF should be possible.

 

Byrd

Well-known member
Hi beachycove,

Something I must try - just found a spare CF to IDE adapter and should be able to rustle up a < 512MB CF card here somewhere.

Thanks

JB

 

Papichulo

Well-known member
Have you tried putting tape at end of the little rubber thing in the hard drive? And why are some hard drives so hard to open?

 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Try Hard Disk Toolkit, not sure that's what I did with the PB150, but that's what I use for everything. I've never used Apple's formatting utilities. HDT rocks.

 

Byrd

Well-known member
Confirming for future reference: I removed the Toshiba 4GB HD, plugged in a generic IDE to CF adapter + the oldest CF card I had, a 256GB "industrial" card.

Works fine - detected without issue, formats at the desktop, nice and speedy - now makes me want to convert all my older PowerBooks to CF, but this is the only one where you can do it cheap! :D

JB

 

register

Well-known member
You could try if there is a simple way to patch the drive setup software to support an unknown type / vendor of the replacement IDE drive: Use a system profiler or similar software to look up the drive's identification. Make a copy of the Drive Setup software. Fire up ResEdit, open that copy of Drive Setup, find a ressource with a list of supported drives and just change one to resemble the exact identification of the drive you have. As far as I remenber that is a viable solution for many primarily unsupported SCSI drives.

The PB150 does only accept storage identified as _non_ removable media connected to the internal IDE drive mount. It works with IDE HDDs and »industrial« CF storage. One can trick the PB150 into accepting standard CF memory (which is identified as removable media), but that requires additional hardware to reverse the bit order at some stage of the drive identification sequence. Someone has done this, but I would opt for a PB14x, 16x or 180 with SCSI2SD before putting that much effort into a 150.

 

MikeatOSX

Well-known member
I also use IDE2CF in my PowerBook 150:

I formatted the CF card in the PCMCIA Slot of my Wallstreet (low level format). Made some partions and use it in my PB 150.

No problems until now. 

 

MikeatOSX

Well-known member
I did it again, with my second PowerBook 150:
I formatted (again) a Maxflash 2GB CF card in the PCMCIA Slot of my PowerBook 2400c in Mac OS 8.1 (again) with it's Drive Setup (seems to be low level format as it lasts more than 30 mins).
Made 3 partions, copied the contents of the PB 150 Disk Tools to one partion and installed the CF card with a cheap CD/IDE adapter in my PB 150.
PowerBook 150 started immediately from the partion with the Disk Tools system folder.
As PowerBooks 150 don't start in SCSI-Mode (SCSI "Target Mode"), I started a PowerBook 180c in SCSI-Mode and copied it's contents on the PB 150.
[8D]

 

Byrd

Well-known member
That's great Mike - I must try a 2GB CF drive on mine.

The PB150 is one of those Macs that nobody wanted but nowadays as a vintage machine they have stepped up the list considerably.  Simple, reliable and look the part.

 

Byrd

Well-known member
Must try.  The painful thing is that when PB150s were seen as rubbish ... I had that RAM adapter :(  - but 4MB is OK for System 7.

 
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