Help on getting OS installed on a Plus external HD

[microbasement]

Hi,



I have been a long time lurker to your forum. Thank you all for providing so much useful information!



I am really struggling with my Macintosh Plus. I am trying to get it to boot system 6.0.8 from an external hard drive. I did get it booting from the HD for a short time but it stopped working after I was trying to install MacTerminal.



What I have:



I have upgraded my Plus to 4 megs of ram. I cleaned and repaired the 800k drives. (one external.) I have a 20SC hard drive that is bad so I replaced the drive with a Seagate ST31200N. I have done a several low level formats on my DOS bench machine. When I test the drive everything is good. I also have a blue scsi (Centronics model.) I did the diode mod to the Mac Plus to get termination power. I can boot with a floppy (system 6.0.8) and see the blue scsi just fine. I used the files on the blue scsi to create the four mackintosh install disks. I have tried both the modified apple HD utility and LIDO 7 to initialize, partition and format the Seagate. After doing all that the real HD mounts. I can see all four partitions. I then run the installation disks and everything appears to install. The system partition is the first one following the driver. The system folder is blessed.



I am totally mystified how this can be so difficult! I have spent weeks trying to get this working again and stable.



Thank you so much,



Len

 

[Byrd]

Hi Len, welcome!

It sounds like you have some SCSI blues. Are you running the BlueSCSI with the external HD?

Seagate ST31200N - what SCSI ID is it set to, and have you checked the other jumpers - ideally set it to ID 0

Hard Drive: SEAGATE: ST31200N 1050MB 3.5"/SL SCSI2 FAST

Manufacturer: SEAGATE model: ST31200N capacity: 1050MB, physical size: 3.5in/SL , interface: SCSI2 FAST, hard driver specs and jumper settings, layout and features

stason.org

 

[microbasement]

I have the seagate at 0, but when it was working and stopped I had it at 6. The bluescsi is at 2.

 

[Byrd]

I'd take the BlueSCSI out of the equation, you will also need termination on the Seagate drive itself

 

[microbasement]

I have tried running without the bluescsi and i have the same issue, doesn’t boot.

I have also tried using just the bluescsi alone with the premade boot images. None of those will boot either.

Btw, I update the Mac Plus to V3 of the bios, which eliminates the reset bug.

 

[Byrd]

BlueSCSI ini

ini.bluescsi.com

... BlueSCSI Mac Plus INI installed?

EDIT: have you interleaved the external drive to 3:1; Silverlining 5.6+ does this on third party drives

 

[microbasement]

Yes, with the macplus directive

I believe I used Lido to format at 3:1 interleave.

I have been through this extensively. I am confused that I could somehow get it booting for a few days and then it stopped booting when I was trying to get macterminal running. I was using stuffit to decompress a .sit file.

I guess the better question is there a really concise list of steps to get the system installed and bootable?

 

[LaPorta]

Yes, with the macplus directive

I believe I used Lido to format at 3:1 interleave.

I have been through this extensively. I am confused that I could somehow get it booting for a few days and then it stopped booting when I was trying to get macterminal running. I was using stuffit to decompress a .sit file.

I guess the better question is there a really concise list of steps to get the system installed and bootable?

In theory, if everything is ok with the drive, you should be able to drop any valid System Folder on there, use "Set Startup..." in the Special meny, choose Finder, and restart. That should be all there is to it.

 

[microbasement]

I will give it another go tomorrow.

Thanks

Len

 

[Byrd]

You'd also want to question data corruption if it worked then and not now.

 

[microbasement]

You'd also want to question data corruption if it worked then and not now.

What do you mean.

 

[mikes-macs]

It is possible that when you were trying to decompress the .sit file that the Seagate hard drive became corrupted. Also perhaps the power supply in the 20SC Hard Drive is having intermittent issues and could use some attention. Does the fan inside the 20 SC HD work?

1988 Apple 20SC External HDD Repair & Restoration

I recently got my hands on a 1986 Apple Macintosh Plus 1MB, which came with a 1988 Apple 20SC external 20MB SCSI HDD, both in unknown condition. Apple Macintosh Plus 1MB and 20SC external HDD. The …

retrorepairsandrefurbs.com

These are ancient pieces of hardware and can fail at anytime.

 

[microbasement]

Yes, fan works.

I’m running a format now with Lido 7. Is the driver that Lido 7 installes comparable with system 6.0.8 and the Mac Plus?

 

[LaPorta]

Yes, fan works.

I’m running a format now with Lido 7. Is the driver that Lido 7 installes comparable with system 6.0.8 and the Mac Plus?

It should be fine. Now, here is a silly question: why not just mount another BlueSCSI in the Plus and use that instead?

 

[microbasement]

It should be fine. Now, here is a silly question: why not just mount another BlueSCSI in the Plus and use that instead?

I was planning on that, but I can't get the blue to boot either.

I spent all day again with zero success. I‘Ve tried every thing to get the scsi drive booting without success. Just for giggle I bought a 40meg apple drive to see if it acts different.

 

[microbasement]

Got the 40sc disk, still can’t get it to boot.

Can anyone give me a really concise set of instructions. I just want to make sure I am not overlooking something obvious.

Len

 

[Byrd]

We've all had a pick, could you detail your process please first including software used?

 

[mikes-macs]

Btw, I update the Mac Plus to V3 of the bios, which eliminates the reset bug.

This is where you lost me. My collection begins with Mac SE's.

Is the driver that Lido 7 installes comparable with system 6.0.8 and the Mac Plus?

Yes.

I wish I could be more helpful with this. I genuinely want to help you get your Mac Plus properly working with SCSI.
Because SCSI hard drives are so old and can fail while it appears fine, I think you should work on getting your Blue SCSI working but maybe it's not so easy.

Describe exactly what you did with the RAM too.

 

[bibilit]

The Plus can be picky for many reasons with an external drive.

But if you have done the diode mod and your drive is seen properly, a copy of the System file and the Finder one should be enough for a proper boot sequence.

No really need for anything else

Create a folder and just copy both the System and Finder files inside, you can name the Folder System, and if the Folder is not blessed, you can try removing the files from the folder and back aagin, until the folder get blessed.

Another issue can be a bad SCSI ID, you can pick any unused number from 0 to 6, avoiding 7.

You cannot have twice the same ID

 

[microbasement]

I am set up on IS 6 for the 40SC drive. The blue SCSI is on 2. I have tried 0 and 4 previously for the SCSI disk.

I love level format on a DOS machine with an AH1541 controller just to make sure the drive is clean before plugging it into the Mac Plus.

I have tried both Lido and the modified Apple HD utility to format/initialize/partition the drive. I tried to use the system 6.0.8 install disks and also just drag the system file from the boot disk to the first partition on the new drive. The system folder shows that it is blessed. And then from the Special menu set the boot disk.

Once initialized and mounted I can access the new drive, as well as the blue scsi. Copy files to the SCSI drive run them etc...

I upgraded the RAM on the Plus from 1Meg to 4Meg.

There were 3 versions on BIOS for the Plus. The two earlier versions had problems with the SCSI reset. I burned V3 into EPROMS and replaced the V2 versions in my Plus. I did a monitor "dump" to verify the BIOS signature. The Mac Boots and runs fine from floppy.

Hopefully that answers the questions above...

Thank you to all that are helping.

len