Writing disk images to floppy

[CodeMonkeyZA]

Hi guys,

So I've been having some trouble with my SE/30, and yesterday it finally started up! Now, I want to get some software on it using floppies. I've downloaded the disk images I want from http://macintoshgarden.org, but I can't seem to figure out how to write it to a floppy so that I can install it on the SE/30.

I've tried dd (without any success), and I've tried copying the image content to a "blank" floppy on mini vMac, and then writing that to a floppy. With this method, I picked up the floppy and I could see the content, but when I wanted to install it I got an error, something like: "There is not enough memory available (zero K needed, zero K available). Try quitting "" to free memory" (I can't exactly remember the message, but that zero zero thing doesn't seem right).

So after much frustration, I ask the question: is there a tried and tested way for writing disk images to floppy so that I can install the software from the floppy? I have a Mac running OSX and Windows XP for writing the floppy.

Thanks very much!

 

[bibilit]

have a try with Transmac with your Windows Box:

http://www.acutesystems.com/scrtm.htm

Or better, find yourself another Apple computer with a working floppy drive to fill the gap in between.

I have a Clamshell with an Usb drive for that kind of stuff.

 

[CodeMonkeyZA]

I haven't tried that, but I'll give it a shot. I'm becoming desperate to get MPW on my machine! 

 

[Gorgonops]

DD is a valid way to generate a disk for a Mac in a PC (but *only* for 1.44MB floppies, I'm sure you know that. DD'ing a 400k or 800k image no workie.) Are the images you're trying to DD "raw" images or in Diskcopy format? Or to put it another way, is the file size of the image exactly 1,474,560 bytes? Diskcopy images will be slightly larger because of a header (84 bytes?) at the start, which will foul up DD unless you trim it off first. (You can do that in the DD command, or there are some "conversion utilities" that you can run to do it.) Apparently you have had success with DD using images you generated with vMac, which is why I think this might be the issue.

As to why whatever you're trying to install won't once you have it on a readable disk, well, not sure there. Have you tried copying other things over and *nothing* works, or is it just the one thing?

 

[CodeMonkeyZA]

Thanks for your response. I'll definitely give your suggestion a shot

Every image I make using the emulator, and then dd to a floppy seems to give me "disk error". I can open it and see the content, but I can't install anything, or copy it from the floppy. I've just initialised a disk on my Mac SE/30, copied stuff off and on without any error, so I don't thing the drive is broke. I then dd'd the floppy I initialised on my SE/30 to an image and mounted that on the emulator and the emulator gave me the same error I got when I did it the other way around!

I'm running System 7.1 on the SE and 7.0.1 on the emulator. That shouldn't make a difference, should it? 

 

[Gorgonops]

I then dd'd the floppy I initialised on my SE/30 to an image and mounted that on the emulator and the emulator gave me the same error I got when I did it the other way around!

Woah. That's... weird, to say the least.

What happens if you DD out a boot disk and boot the SE/30 with it, does that work? (Maybe try that System 7.5 "network access disk" that's floating around?) DD'ing images always worked for me back when I had a Quadra 650.

 

[razo]

Will this work? http://lowendmac.com/2008/creating-classic-mac-boot-floppies-in-os-x/

 

[CodeMonkeyZA]

Okay, it turns out is is just my floppy drive being ridiculous. Sometimes it works fine, but most of the time I get a "disk error", whatever that means. Is there any way to fix this sort of problem, or does this mean I have to replace the drive?  

 

[Paralel]

As long as you've tested enough disks to be sure that it is the drive, you'll probably need a new drive. There is probably some damage.

 

[olePigeon]

You can try cleaning the heads with alcohol.  If it still does it, you can move the head spring up a notch which will increase the tension on the head just a bit, and may allow it to read/write better.

 

[kingchops]

Okay, it turns out is is just my floppy drive being ridiculous. Sometimes it works fine, but most of the time I get a "disk error", whatever that means. Is there any way to fix this sort of problem, or does this mean I have to replace the drive?

It may be  the head spring problem, both my SE/30 and Colour Classic had this problem.  The issue is that the top head doesn't push down on the disk enough.  Read my post here about this problem and how I fixed it:

http://tkc8800.com/post/macintosh-sony-superdrive-head-spring-repair