mac SE FDHD hard drive

[sircabulon]

Can I just put any old scsi hard drive in here? the 20Mb one is dead and I am forced to boot from floppies.

 

[JRL]

Yep (as long as it's a 50-pin HDD). But if it doesn't have a Apple logo (or sticker) on it, you need to format it with either a third-party formatter or a modified version of Apple HD SC Setup.

 

[Scott Baret]

Your best bet is to pull a Quantum ProDrive LPS from a Mac LC. As I've said many times here, these drives are fast, reliable, and quiet. They are also very easy to connect to the LED on a Mac SE bracket.

 

[JRL]

I think IIsi has several SCSI HDDs for sale. IIRC, they are 20, 40, and 80 MB.

 

[sircabulon]

I seem to remembrer something about a 2GB limit. Could I format the drive in os 9?

 

[Scott Baret]

For some reason I want to say the 2GB limit is a software-imposed limit set by, if I recall, System 6.

However, I really doubt you'd need anything bigger than 2GB for an SE.

 

[tomlee59]

It's not quite as constrained as that. There is a 2GB limit, but on partition size, not disk size. So, as long as you subdivide a big drive into partitions no larger than 2GB, you'll be good to go.

 

[Dog Cow]

Can I just put any old scsi hard drive in here? the 20Mb one is dead and I am forced to boot from floppies.

Are you absolutely sure it's dead? There are tricks to getting 10+ year old disks spinning again. One is to remove the drive from the Mac, put it on the floor (or you can do this in mid-air), and forcefully rotate it from 0 degrees to about 45 degrees. What you'd be doing here is trying to get the spindle unstuck. Most of the time, that is what the problem is.

I'd try this if you have lost data on that hard drive and want to see if you can recover it. Otherwise, don't bother.

I seem to remembrer something about a 2GB limit. Could I format the drive in os 9?

Yes, but makes sure you choose Mac OS Standard/HFS and not the Extended/HFS+ format!

It's not quite as constrained as that. There is a 2GB limit, but on partition size, not disk size. So, as long as you subdivide a big drive into partitions no larger than 2GB, you'll be good to go.

Right. Here's Apples Doc on Macintosh: File System Specifications and Terms

The maximum volume size under System 6 and System 7 is 2 GB. System 7.5 increased that limit to 4 GB and System 7.5.2 (and later) increases that limit to 2 TB on some computers.

 

[MrMacPlus]

Your best bet is to pull a Quantum ProDrive LPS from a Mac LC. As I've said many times here, these drives are fast, reliable, and quiet. They are also very easy to connect to the LED on a Mac SE bracket.

Hmm, I just had one of those drives fail, but it was in a Quadra 660av.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I happily ran a 9 GB 10,000 RPM SCSI drive (3.5", HALF-HEIGHT!) in an SE/30 for many years. (It was kind of funny having a hard drive that was faster than the computer could possibly use...)