SCSI IDE bridge with Mac Classic

[protek]

Hello, let me introduce myself. I'm a retro computer collector from Finland. My collection consists mostly of 8 and 16 bit Commodores but I have also other makes and last but not least, I'm a proud owner of two Apples, a IIGS and a Macintosh Classic, which I consider to be the best case designs Apple has given us.

I stumbled on this forum, while I was searching information about using SCSI IDE bridges with Macs. I managed to find an Acard AEC7722 SCSI IDE bridge for $35 from Aliexpress and placed an order, only to find out that the 7722 would only work with CD-ROMs, Zip and tape drives. I did find out, however, that Tom's Hardware had successfully tested a hard drive with it.

I'm going to try connecting an IDE hard drive to my Mac and if that fails, I also have an IDE Zip drive, which would actually give me a nice way to transfer stuff between my PC and Mac.

Has anyone here any experience of using SCSI IDE brigdes with Macs? Also, is the driver absolutely necessary, if you want to use a Zip drive with Mac? I really don't have a way of getting the driver installed on my Mac unless I can get it on a floppy. I used to have the trial of MacDisk but I find the price of the license tad too high considering how often I would use it.

Thanks!

 

[Macdrone]

Well as far as I know the bridge will not be to successful as SCSI drives have been failing for over a decade and if those worked we would not have tried so hard to find other alternatives.  

Id try SCSI zips before a bridge and IDE.

Aztec Monster is a CF card to SCSI alternative some have found works well.

Also the classic is going to be due for a motherboard recapping (replace capacitors) if you have not done so.  The goo on the classics is bad.  After had 3 repaired its pretty common.

 

[protek]

Caps on the logic board have been replaced. The Mac stopped recognizing the hard disk and making the startup chime. After new SMD caps and replacing a knackered trace with a jump wire, it's back in working order.

 

[Macdrone]

Good to hear the repair went well.

Also look for uniservers hard drive repair thread. You may get that old hard drive working for now.

 

[protek]

Will do, although the drive is working but I do have another 40 MB Conner, that isn't.

 

[wilykat]

If that IDE bridge doesn't work for Macintosh for some reason, and you don't mind having external hard drive consider early PowerPC based Powerbook like Wallstreet or Duo 2300. They support IDE drive internally, can work with $5 CF to IDE adapter, and can be connected via SCSI cable to another Macintosh.  For a "permanent" hard drive laptop, take out the keyboard, find which 2 wires in the matrix correspond to letter T, and wire in the motherboard's keyboard connector so it'd act like T key is always pressed, this will force the Powerbook to boot in disk mode. Don't need an OS for it and many of the early Powerbooks (such as 1400, 3400, 5300, and Wallstreet) should work.

 

[Paralel]

SCSI2SD is another alternative