SCSI2SD + SE/30 + 16gb SD card = confusion

[Huxley]

Howdy gang,

So I got my awesome SCSI2SD adapter (with the included 16-gigabyte SD card) and I've got it hooked up to my SE/30. I did the prep-work on the SCSI2SD board (updated the firmware, set the SCSI ID to 1, set the drive type to Seagate, etc.), but I'm running into a snag: when I run Apple HD SC Setup (while booted into MacOS 7.1 from my Mac ROM-inator II), it's able to initialize the SD card, add/remove partitions, etc., but no matter what I do, it only seems to "see" 2 gigs of the 16 available on this SD card. 

My hope was to carve the SD card into ~8 partitions of ~1.8GB each - yes, this is totally overkill, but it'll be fun to play with and should make it easy to archive a ton of junk I have on random SCSI drives floating around. However, since the Setup tool isn't allowing me to partition outside the 2gb chunk I'm currently seeing, I'm basically missing the other 14ish gigs of storage I should be able to partition and format.

Any tips here? It's been a pretty long day and I'm 99% sure I'm missing something obvious but I just can't pin it down yet.

 

 

[TimHD]

Pre System 7.5.3 you need to stay under 2.1GB partitions.

See this Apple Support Doc:

Macintosh Operating System: Maximum Volume Size

https://support.apple.com/kb/TA28860

I think you also need to setup the SCSCI2SD as separate SCSI devices (different IDs) of say 2GB or 4GB (if over 7.5.2) rather than just have a large SCSI device with 8 x 2GB partitions...

 

[Huxley]

I think you also need to setup the SCSCI2SD as separate SCSI devices (different IDs) of say 2GB or 4GB (if over 7.5.2) rather than just have a large SCSI device with 8 x 2GB partitions...

I bet that's the heart of the issue that I was missing - been too long since I went spelunking into the oddities of SCSI best-practices...

Thanks for the hint - I'm gonna give that a try now!

 

[Huxley]

Quick update for anyone else who's attempting to do what I'm doing here: I gave up on the 16GB card - it was just too much storage space, and would've gobbled up all my SCSI ID's once carved up properly. I've "downgraded" to a 4GB card which I set up as two different SCSI ID's of 2GB each using the SCSI2SD utilities, and then partitioned and formatted using LIDO. In my experience with all this, LIDO has worked way faster and more consistently than the "patched" Apple HD SC Setup or Apple Drive Setup apps, both of which either refused to even attempt setting up the SCSI2SD, or took hours to initialize. Very impressed with LIDO!

 

[TimHD]

I'd agree on LIDO for SCSI2SD being better to use.

Have used the SilverLining HD installer but find that it tends to jump the queue often (ie it boots before a slow internal hdd can get going!) so have used that exclusively for an external LaCie 2GB hdd that I use for repairs/updates/backups (as I often attach that when the internal drive has issues so happy for it to take charge)

Good summaries here too..

http://www.euronet.nl/users/ernstoud/bnchmrks.html

http://lowendmac.com/2007/format-any-hard-drive-for-older-macs-with-patched-apple-tools/

 

[just.in.time]

Don't waste your SCSI IDs on the SCSI2SD. Use Lido and format it exactly how you wanted to initially. Mine worked just fine with an 8gb card in an SE/30, stock ROM, and System 7.1.

The only catch is setting startup disk. You have to use that utility that comes with Lido, PMount, to declare which partition is the boot partition of that SCSI device, then select it again in Startup Disk.