How to create OS 6 floppy in Yosemite

[mc9625]

Please be patient! I'm new within this retrocompunting universe. I am a Mac User since 15 years but I've always desired one of those old compact Mac. Finally I purchase a SE/30 from eBay few weeks ago. The seller claimed in "good condition and working 6.1.5 (?). When the Mac finally arrived, yesterday, I've tried to power on but it doesn't boot. First there is no chime at boot (and I think this is not a good thing) but at least I can see the missing floppy icon.

At first I thought there was no HDD, so I write to the seller that replied that there is a 30mb hdd inside. He suggest to check for connectors or (worst) the capacitors. He claimed that the mac was perfectly functional few minutes before being boxed and shipped.

Before trying to open it (I don't feel very comfortable with the "hardware") I would like to try to boot it from floppy.

I have an USB floppy I can connect to my Macbook Pro. But I cannot find a Mac OS 6 floppy image. I've found a lot of tutorial (well less than what I expected) but almost everyone point to the Apple support, but I guess the old Mac OS floppy images are no more available there.

Could please some one point me to a good (and "for dummies") tutorial on how to create floppy disk with a modern Macbook and OSX, and possibly to a place where find the Mac OS 6.0.7 (I guess this is the best version for an SE/30) floppy images?

Thanks

 

[uniserver]

oh yeah the main board is going to need caps bad… its also possible the scsi bus is dead because of caps..

it might have worked before the seller sent it.. but then again.. it could all be a lie… its hard to say.

really the only way your are going to get a working solution with your current os

is to downlod MINIVMAC  and get you a BMOW Floppy emu.  then you can make set up boot images.

but your caps are dead you are probably going to want to get that mainbaord re-capped asap.

 

[raoulduke]

While it might be the connectors or capacitors, the drive may also have just died from striction - which is over time and use (and these things are old and used).   I think, unfortunately, the latest version of OS X to allow writing to floppies was Snow Leopard.

If you figure out how to write disks, Apple actually still has the System 6 images up.  Here's a System 7 System Tools boot disk.  You may eventually need recapping for functional reasons, and you'll eventually want to recap to prevent damage to the board, most likely your HD is dead from striction.  Try Disk First Aid, Drive Setup, and HDSC (I think those are the right names).  Report back what you see.

 

[bibilit]

If you have access to a Win Box with a floppy drive, try:

http://www.macgeek.org/downloads/

 

[TimHD]

Welcome to 68kmla!

And a great choice on starting your retro Mac career with a SE/30!! I have over the last few months restarted my retro Mac collection, with an SE/30, and the people here are a great help. My SE/30 setup is coming together now with an Asante ethernet card, SCSI2SD (SD card replacement for SCSI drives), ext 600e cd drive and system 7.5.5 (though 7.1.2 pretty good option for an SE/30 too!)

Here's a bunch of useful links to get you on your way.

Basic info on your Mac SE/30:

http://lowendmac.com/1989/mac-se30/

Why the first thing people say is to get your SE/30 recapped (plus visual disassembly guides)

http://pc-restorer.com/repairing-a-macintosh-se30-with-no-sound/

Motherboard Repair (recap):

unisever is the man for this!

http://www.maccaps.com/MacCaps/Repair_Service.html

First thing you need to buy to get open your SE/30 and pull out your motherboard is a Torx screwdriver!:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331657821608

Repair instructions:

http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~shamada/fullmac/repairEng.html

New/old parts:

Many other places but this is not too bad.

http://www.welovemacs.com/macsepaup1.html

Else, Herb's a great source for ANYTHING!:

http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/mac.html

Lastly, software, many places but try:

Gambas site: http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/syslist.html

Mac repository: http://www.macintoshrepository.org

Another: http://68k.preterhuman.net

Enjoy!

 

[SE30_Neal]

Ive not managed to get minivmac to work :-/

 

[mc9625]

Yeah! It works!

The scsi cable was not properly in place!

Wow! My very first Macintosh !

Actually the keyboard doesn't work properly. Many keys (the left side of the keyboard) seem dead. Well maybe I can try to find a new one on eBay. And the audio is veeeeery low. Is there anything I can do to fix this? And the next goal is try to put this baby online (unfortunately the Asante network cards are very hard to find!)

But I'm getting OT!

Thanks everybody

 

[Elfen]

Recap the logic board as son as you can! As stated Uniserver is the man for this. TechKnight is another wealthy source of information, and some other members have experience beyond their years. I'm loaded such information but I tend to forget or confuse things from time to time.

For now - GET THAT PRAM BATTERY OUT! You can replace it with a new one later, but right now you have a ticking time bomb that can literally explode and spray acid all over your logic board and that would be all she wrote for it.

Have you checked the speaker volume through the General Control Panel?  It's in the Apple menu.

First off, you can't get a Floppy Disk made on a OSX and a USB floppy drive to boot on a Mac. These disks will be created in PC-Format which will be unreadable on the Mac. PC-Formatted Disks can be read on the Mac but only after the system loads up with the PC-Exchange extensions and then you can transfer files from PC to Mac with (some relative) ease.

After getting the logic board recapped, save up those pennies to get the analog board recapped. Also ask Uniserver for the links for the Dead Mac Scrolls and SE Upgrade and Repair Secrets Books. They are a great and necessary read!

Good luck and welcome to the wolf pack....  I mean 68K Mac Liberation Army!

 

[johnklos]

While you can't easily mount floppy disks in Yosemite, you can make 1.4 MB disks from images and images from disks. Plug in a USB floppy, insert a disk, run diskutil list to show a list of all volumes, find the one that's 1.4 MB, then dd if=imagefile of=/dev/rdisk(whatever diskutil showed) bs=4 skip=21 count=368640

 

[raoulduke]

(that's a really good point; i'd never tried that!)

 

[mc9625]

Well actually I've been able to create floppies using VMAC. I've created an empty floppy images in OSX (dd if=/dev/zero of=/1440.dsk bs=1k count=1440) then mounted in mini Vmac and filled with files. 

Last step is format the floppy using dd if=... maybe a little bit long but it works.

 

[mc9625]

Uhm, actually I've created many install floppy with Mac OS 7.01, 7.1 and 7.5.3. But I can't complete installation. The Mac starts from floppy, says "Welcome" but then I get a window without any text on it, and with the classic bomb icon. Even the button has no text.  This happens with almost every install floppy I've created. With 7.5.3 the behaviour is a little bit different, it starts and then hangs with an empty window, no text, no icon, no button. Also the window is "drawn" very slowly, I can easily see the border of the window been drawn and erased multiple time before the mac hangs.

I've created a bootable 7.0 floppy that starts without any issue, so I assume the procedure to create floppy should be correct. I guess if there's some special OS version for the SE/30. 

 

[bibilit]

 I guess if there's some special OS version for the SE/30. 

no, nothing special, some files should be missing from your floppy.

 

[raoulduke]

Isn't that interrupt/blank prompt a resource fork issue?  You had a bad image (or one that you corrupted on your end), I think.

 

[Elfen]

If you are doing this from the floppy, and using a USB Floppy on the OSX Mac - the format (no matter how you file copy to it) is in PC Format. The Boot Sectors on track Zero has the "Welcome To Mac" Window, which your SE\30 will read and boot but when it goes to the other files, because it is PC Format and not Mac Format it will get lost and burn and crash.

After OSX 10.6, Mac HFS format is no longer supported but you can replicate it through emulation. But the PC FAT-Format that is only supported on USB Floppy Drives is a much bigger hurdle to go over and can not be don as-is.

You would need a "middle Mac" to put the PC formatted disk to get the system files and format a Mac Disk from there and copy the needed files to it to make a boot floppy. A PowerBook 1400c with the floppy drive module running System 7 or 8 would be great for this.

 

[raoulduke]

Oh, okay so the dd command is not a workaround.

 

[mc9625]

I see Elfen, thanks for your explanation.

I've been able at least to create a bootable system 7.0 floppy. It works. And also trying to start the Mac OS installation *after* the boot, directly from Mac OS 6.0.8, works too (even if at the 3rd floppy it started to ask me for a floppy "unnamed" and I haven't been able to complete the setup).

I've ordered a floppy emu, I hope that will make things easier.

 

[SE30_Neal]

Im still thinking like elfan said of buying a later mac for £50 that can be used as a bridge machine on a network

 

[johnklos]

If you are doing this from the floppy, and using a USB Floppy on the OSX Mac - the format (no matter how you file copy to it) is in PC Format. The Boot Sectors on track Zero has the "Welcome To Mac" Window, which your SE\30 will read and boot but when it goes to the other files, because it is PC Format and not Mac Format it will get lost and burn and crash.

There's nothing innately "PC", "MS-DOS", "CP/M", whatever about a USB floppy that prevents using it for Mac formatted disks. USB floppies can't do 400K or 800K disks, but a 1.4 MB disk is a 1.4 MB disk - there's nothing whatsoever which is different once you overwrite all the sectors. Note, Fernando, that dd does not copy files on to an existing filesystem - it accesses each sector of the disk directly and completely overwrites it. The FAT filesystem, if there was one, is then completely gone.

If some / most disk reading works but not all, this is not horribly strange. Floppy disk drives may not be properly calibrated any longer, or may be just a wee tiny bit differently calibrated, enough to cause occasional issues.

One thing worth trying is to make disks from disk images, then create a minimal install, then use the network to get copies of all the disk images over. You can mount the disk images without dealing with the floppies. If you run in to the same problem, then the problem is with the images, not with the floppy drives.