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Questions about the SCSI2SD (Macintosh SE/30)

HeartletTullius

HeartletTullius

6502
Hey everyone,

I recently bought a Macintosh SE/30, which I use practically every day. The hard drive inside of it is 40MB and is the same HD that’s been there for 30 years. Over the past three/four days, I’ve been getting suspicious that the internal HD is about to fail (or at least will fail eventually). I’m going to get some floppy disks to get all the stuff currently stored on the computer off of it. 
 

But, I’m going to get a SCSI2SD drive to replace the current HD inside of it. I do have some questions about it though, so all help would be great!

1. Is there an in-depth guide that’s easy to understand for this process for a Macintosh SE/30? I want to make sure I do everything perfectly as I love this machine to pieces and want to keep it going as long as I can.

2. Someone on Reddit told me that you can install the system software directly onto the SD via an emulator (Basilisk II, which at the moment I’m trying to get working on my MacBook Pro), which is apparently easier than floppies. I have never used an emulator, so what would I need to get the emulator up and working? Some basic research I did said you need to copy the ROMs from the computer. I have no idea how to do that, so a guide would be great. I saw that there is an app called “copyROMs”, but I have no idea how to get that onto my Macintosh SE/30. Any advice on doing that would be great!

3. How can I copy the system software onto the SD card using Basilisk II? It is just a simple case of dragging and dropping from the emulator to the SD Card?

4. Did the Macintosh SE/30 have a ROM file? I couldn’t find any on the internet, and the only model I could find that is similar is the Macintosh SE and SE FDHD.

[SIZE=1.4rem]I think that’s all my questions for the moment! All help and answers are greatly appreciated! Thank you![/SIZE]

 
Hello! The SE/30 has a hardware ROM; there is no actual file to copy. The program CopyROM will copy the hardware ROM into a file for you if you needed it. I would say that what would by far be the easiest for you would be to hook up the SCSI2SD to the external SCSI port via a 25-50 pin adapter (after it has been configured) and format the new SD card with either Lido or the patched version of Apple HD SC setup (you can get that on via Floppy from another computer).  If you already have utilities on your SE/30 such as StuffIt and disk utility, that will make this considerably easier. Once the new SD card is formatted, just copy your entire internal HD to the SD card, be sure to run “Set Startup...” on the new SD drive to designate it as a startup volume, and then trade the internal HD for the SCSI2SD.

im sure you will have questions about the particulars of all that. The best thing is that you already have the system up and running; that will make this far easier.

Look up the SCSI2SD wiki for instructions and help with that.

 
@LaPorta Hi there! Thank you for your reply, it's really helpful. The system is currently operating, and I took a look through the Utilities file on it. There are some apps for this purpose (Apple SC HD, Disc Backup, Disk Utility, and a few others from 3rd Party devs). Would those work?

Also, this is the SCSI2SD v5.1 device I'm going to be buying. You mentioned that I should get a 25-50 pin adapter. For an extra £6, I can get a 25-pin connector built into the SCSI2SD board. Would you recommend this or do you think I should get an adapter? Here's the SCSI2SD I'm looking at: https://amigakit.amiga.store/product_info.php?products_id=1264

Once the new SD card is formatted, just copy your entire internal HD to the SD card
Click to expand...
When you say "formatted", do you mean after you connect the SCSI2SD to the external SCSI port on the back of the Mac using the method you mentioned above? Thank you!

Sorry for the questions! I'm really new to this and just want to make sure I get this right! Thank you for your patience and your help! Enjoy the rest of your day!  :)

 
Regrettably, that copy on your HD of Apple HD SC Setup will not work for this (the SCSI2SD is not Apple-branded, and will not be read by the program). A good alternative is either Lido or the patched version of HD SC Setup. If you list the other utilities you have, that would be helpful as well.

v5.1 of SCSI2SD is a great version for this machine. Getting the DB25 built-in connector probably would be a good way to go and make it easier on you as far as being able to connect the thing directly to start. It is a female connector, however, so you will still need a male to male 25 pin to 25 pin cable to make this work. Also, going the 25 pin route, you will have to keep the USB cable connected while doing this to power the device. Once installed inside with the internal 50-pin ribbon cable, however, external power is not necessary.

What I mean by formatted is as follows: get the SCSI2SD all set up via the SCSI2SD util on your modern machine, and connected to the external SCSI port (this includes setting the SCSI ID to anything other than 0, since that is your internal drive's ID). Start the computer from the internal HD. I will assume you have a proper HD formatting utility by this point, so start that up. Search for your SCSI2SD in that formatting utility (it should appear in the list of SCSI devices as whatever ID you assigned it earlier). If you are using System 6 or 7.1 or some such, you should use the utility to create a partition of no more than 2 GB in size. Click "Format" or whatever such button there is at that point. Once the utility is done, the new drive's icon should appear on the desktop. After that, you can then drag the entire contents of your internal HD into the SCSI2SD hard drive icon. After that, follow the instructions I gave in the earlier post to install the SCSI2SD into your machine.

Someone here actually made a 3D printed drive mounting sled (I used it once). I forget where the post is, perhaps someone else will chime in...

 
A SE/30 works with the SCSI2SD without the usb power. You only need the 25 pin cable. Only the mac plus needs the external power, if I remember right.

The mount is here:




 
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His updated mount is here. It includes an optional “periscope” for mounting an LED where it can be seen thru the little original LED crystal. Indispensable in my view :)  I have one and it works great!




 
The mount is great. I thought the 25-pin had no power...I may be incorrect, though.

the only issue I had printing the sled was the fact that there is no flat surface: those raised-up mounts messes it up for the guy who printed it.

 
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Hey @LaPorta! Thanks for your extra help and tips! I’ll get the 25 pin connector installed on the board, and as for the 25 pin to 25 pin adapter, would this one work?

 
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@LaPorta Hey, sorry for the late reply! I was away for a while. So, I found out that there are two apps on my Macintosh for initialising disks! One of these apps is called "Apple HD SC Setup", which you informed me above couldn't be used for initialising non-Apple drives. The second app is a third-party app and might do the trick. It's called "HDBackup" and was made my PBI Software in 1986. I've got version 1.1 on the Macintosh and from the looks of it, it seems that it can backup a disk. As for initialising it, I don't know. I've attached a picture below and you might be able to tell me if it's okay for the SCSI2SD.

Also, I read about Lido and the Patched Apple SD SC Setup app for the Macintosh. Those apps aren't installed on the Macintosh, but my Floppy Disk drive in currently inoperable. Is there a way of initialising the SCSI2SD on a Modern Mac (e.g. 2018 MacBook Pro) so that it will be recognised by the Macintosh? I saw someone online say this: "also keep in mind any OS 8.1 and above mac, can natively partition/initialize those 73 gig drives with Drive Setup." Is this true? Thanks! 

One more thing (I promise). What is the max partition I can make from a 2GB SD card that will work on System 6.0.8? I'm looking at this 2GB SD Card on eBay. Would this work fine for the SCSI2SD? Thanks :)

View attachment IMG_7182.heic

 
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@LaPorta I actually don't really know. I'll be getting tools soon enough that will let me open the Macintosh and clean the floppy drive. It reads floppy drives, but when I go to initialise them I get the error "Initialisation Failed" and then it ejects the disk! I read online that I need to clean the heads of the drive, so I'll do that and see how I get on! Do my questions above apply to this?

 
@LaPortaIs is true that I can initialise the SCSI2SD drive using the Disk Utility on modern macOS? If so, that would be great in case I can’t fix my floppy drive.

It’s not the floppy disk drive doesn’t work. It does recognise the floppy disk, but can’t initialise it! I think I need to clean the heads (which I don’t have a lot of experience in!), so I’ll have to find a video online to show me how to do it!!

 
I think these cards run of the termination power provided by the machine. the Plus doesnt have it, but the SE/30 should so the 25 pin cable is all you need. 

To get termination power on a plus, you have to install the diode on the logic board that provides it. 

 
If installing the SCSI2SD internally in any flavor of SE or a Classic, the termination power does run the drive. I’ve installed them in every single type and it works fine.

Yes, you can format the card on a modern Mac, I’ve had some success formatting it under OS 9 on my iMac G4 and copying files then using them on the Classic Mac. More recently I used it to completely wipe the card blank, and then let and HD SC Setup install the driver partition, etc, on the machine itself.

Ill admit, I’m the wrong person to ask about starting from scratch since I’ve always had a host of old Macs and a boatload of saved software, so I’ve always just copied what I have and got any machine running I need via floppy or FloppyEmu.

 
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