SCSI2SD copy and stability issues on a 520c

[superpantoufle]

Hi there,

I'm attempting to save a PowerBook 520c from the dead. It was in good shape, apart from a dead hard drive. I replaced the drive with a brand new SCSI2SD « PowerBook Edition » with a brand new 16GB microSD card set as a 4GB SCSI drive at ID0. I booted the PowerBook from my trusted external SCSI2SD and attempted to install System 7.5.3. The installer repeatedly failed with various errors: once it complained that the installer script couldn't read some files, once it complained that it wasn't an original installer, and several times it just crashed during the « system optimisation » phase. I know the installer disk images are good, though, since I used them on other machines.Then I attempted to manually copy a known good system folder, but it failed miserably and crashed during the copy.

I tend to believe it's a SCSI2SD issue, or just some random SCSI voodoo. After each crash, the 520c won't reboot from the external SCSI2SD. I have to mount it on another machine, and then back on the 520c, as if its system folder became « unblessed ». But on some occasions the crashes corrupted the internal SCSI2SD partition which had to be reformatted. 

Does this ring a bell to anybody?

For good measure, the setting I'm using on the internal SCSI2SD are attached to this post.

Next I'll try with a smaller partition on another microSD card…

 

[Crutch]

There are known issues with SCSI2SD and the 500 series. The good news is, there is a fix. See this old thread with my recent resolution thanks to codesrc. 
 

 

[superpantoufle]

There are known issues with SCSI2SD and the 500 series. The good news is, there is a fix.

Thanks a lot for your quick answer! And thanks for the fix! Sadly my issues don't involve sleep or the drive spinning down, but just plain file transfers. I don't know if it's a PB 5xx or just my SCSI2SD and/or microSD card, but I couldn't complete file transfers without random crashes. I tried to copy a system folder file by file, but even then it would crash after a few files… 

Finally I mounted my microSD card in my « external » SCSI2SD and prepared it on a PowerBook 3400, and it took less than five minutes to copy all the files needed without an error. I put it back in the 520c and it booted fine. The good news is my PowerBook 520c is alive and well with a new drive. The bad news is I'm not sure it can handle big file transfers, and I don't understand what's happening there. Maybe I'll figure it out some day! Thanks again for your help!

 

[MikeatOSX]

I had similar problems with my 5x0 PowerBooks with SCSI2SD and SCSI2CF adapters (copy errors, crashing) and thought it was a virus. 

It was not. It was the formatting software Silverlining: