Using non-Apple SCSI hard drives in Mac SE

[PotShotScott]

I've done some forum searching and haven't found much here. Looking to use a 9GB SCSI drive that I have laying around that is suspected to work. Apple HD Setup doesn't detect it. I think I have seen something regarding a modded version of HD Setup that will get "other" drives going. Does anyone have any extra detail?

 

[Skate323k137]

The patched version is in a lot of disk images, or you can patch it yourself too

Format Any Hard Drive for Older Macs with Patched Apple Tools | Low End Mac

 

[volvo242gt]

The only issues I know of that might prevent it from working are:

1) A 68K Mac can't do HFS+, which is needed for larger hard drives over 2GB. What you might try is using a patched version of HD SC Setup with a more modern Mac, like a PowerMac that has SCSI, then partition the drive into three 2GB partitions and one 1GB partition, all formatted in HFS. That should make it compatible with the SE.

2) If it's not 50-pin, the drive may need external termination resistors to terminate the bus.

 

[PotShotScott]

Thank you!

 

[Phipli]

I believe you can partition it in the SE, don't need to format it elsewhere first. So yeah, you just need the patched version of Apple HD SC Setup as mentioned. Note it can take quite a while to format, don't assume it has crashed if it doesn't do anything for ages.

 

[Skate323k137]

I believe you can partition it in the SE, don't need to format it elsewhere first. So yeah, you just need the patched version of Apple HD SC Setup as mentioned. Note it can take quite a while to format, don't assume it has crashed if it doesn't do anything for ages.

Correct, I've partitioned larger drives on an SE, and even a Mac Plus to create a 2GB partition on a 6GB disk.

 

[Phipli]

Correct, I've partitioned larger drives on an SE, and even a Mac Plus to create a 2GB partition on a 6GB disk.

Yeah, I "know" I have, but self doubt because I have a poor memory.

 

[cheesestraws]

Yes. The 2G limit is the filing system not the SCSI manager. You can create a single 2G partition fine using the hacked HD SC Setup.

Note that although HD SC Setup will allow you to create multiple HFS partitions, the default Apple driver will only reliably mount the first. If you want multiple partitions you are better off using a third-party driver.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I recommend FWB hard disk toolkit for large drives like that.

Step 1: create a small 10MB first partition which you set to not auto mount. This will contain the hard disk’s driver in those first sectors
Step 2: create a 1.9GB partition which will contain your system folder. This partition will boot just fine because the driver and this partition are within the first 2GB of data, a requirement.
Step 3: create as many 2GB Partitions as you want to fill the drive.

If you’re concerned about sector sizes and small files eating up the space with minimum file size requirements on a 2GB partition, then create DiskCopy 6.3 images on your 2GB partition which will contain the software you want to run.

The smaller the DiskCopy volume the smaller the minimum file size. You could do 500MB image files and the minimum file size would be divided by 4 essentially. Sort of like your own HFS+ way of doing things.

One could be for utilities and apps, one for games, another for word processing and office apps, etc. then you just mount the ones you want to play with. If you end up with spare drive space, just copy those to a backup partition so you have a spare copy in case you mangle something.

Just note that only the partitions within the first 1.99GB are bootable. If you plan on having more OS versions you could make 4x 450MB partitions after the 10MB one that each could be bootable.