Troubleshooting SCSI2SD in SE/30.

[VMSZealot]

What configuration should I use for SCSI2SD (V5.1)?  I'm having no luck at all with mine.  This is the story.

 

With the old hard drive, my Mac was Sad Mac'ing on every boot.  I tried fitting my spare hard disk, loose in the case, and it booted fine (so I don't think that the problem is with my SE/30).  Feeling pleased with myself (and also very tired after a long day at work) I fitted it to my SE/30 - and put a mounting screw through the controller board on the hard drive.  Which shouldn't even be possible, don't ask, I totally doofus'd.

 

Without another hard drive available, I bought a SCSI2SD, imaged an SD card, fitted it - and nothing.  Turns out that if I boot from a floppy with Silverlining installed then the SD card mounts - so it's partially working, but it won't boot from it.  Furthermore, if I try writing to the card (whilst booted from the floppy, of course), the copy soon hangs.  If I try running something from the card then I quickly get a bus error.

 

What configuration is known 'good'?  What size SD card? What brand? How did you write the SD card, with what tool and what OS, and what partitions?  What configuration should I use for the SCSI2SD adaptor? How can I make my Mac happy again!?

 

For additional context, I have an LCIII+ as well, which boots very happily off its own hard drive - but has exactly the same problems with the SCSI2SD card that my SE/30 does. 

 

@davidg5678 have you got any thoughts?

[dochilli]

Can you show your SCSI2SD settings?

I use the settings as shown in the picture with a 5.1 and it boots my SE/30. Did you install the OS with floppydisks?

I formated my 5.1 with Lido.

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by dochilli

[Bendix]

Did you follow this guide? http://www.savagetaylor.com/2018/01/05/setting-up-your-vintage-classic-68k-macintosh-using-a-scsi2sd-adapter/

 

The other important thing is a proper power supply. Do not rely on power from the SCSI bus, instead connect the SCSI2SD with a seperate molex power adapter.

[Crutch]

A properly working SCSI2SD should run 100% fine with power from the SCSI bus on an SE/30 (or anything really .... just not a Mac Plus).  So I am certain OP’s issues are on the config side.  But there is no harm in running from a separate power adapter if that is your preference.

[davidg5678]

13 hours ago, VMSZealot said:

What configuration is known 'good'?  What size SD card? What brand? How did you write the SD card, with what tool and what OS, and what partitions?  What configuration should I use for the SCSI2SD adaptor? How can I make my Mac happy again!?

To confirm, the SE/30 you are working on has been recapped and otherwise is functional, right? If not, I would recommend getting the electronics sorted out before tinkering with a SCSI2SD, as it is difficult to know which problems are the computer's fault and which are the SCSI2SD's.

 

I'm using a 16GB microSD card from PNY. It's nothing special, and I bought it in a two-pack for $9. I wrote to the SD card by downloading a premade disk image from the savagetaylor website, and by using the Balena Etcher program to copy the image to the card. I am running macOS High Sierra, but this should not matter as Balena Etcher is cross-platform. I use a single (slightly less than) 2GB partition on my SD card. Even though it is 16GB, and it would be nice to have access to additional space, I think it is best to stick with a simple configuration while troubleshooting. If you get things working, it is possible to access the rest of the card later on.

 

To configure the adaptor, you should use the configuration information from section 3.1 on the savagetaylor website. (Setting up the SD card as a single drive) I opted for a slightly more advanced configuration and tweaked some of these settings for my machine, but there is nothing particularly wrong with how the guide states to do things.

 

If things still aren't working, I would try to start over and follow the guides from the beginning again, just to rule out the possibility of a minor mistake somewhere down the line.

 

10 hours ago, Bendix said:

The other important thing is a proper power supply. Do not rely on power from the SCSI bus, instead connect the SCSI2SD with a seperate molex power adapter.

While I personally never have had any issues with using SCSI bus power, I have read that it has fixed things for some people, so it couldn't hurt to try powering the SCSI2SD with USB or Molex if nothing is working.

 

Good Luck!

[davidg5678]

Quote

Thank you very much for this suggestion! But please loop me in on the new thread, I'd like to watch the discussion.

@PotatoFi I'm looping you in, as requested!

[VMSZealot]

Okay, so my SE/30 is recapped and, in all other respects, works fine.  Even the power supply has been serviced.  It's 32bit clean, packing 64MB RAM - a real beauty.  I could try it with the original ROM SIMM as well, I suppose - except that my LCIII+ (also recapped) has the same problem with the adaptor and card.  Once I get this working though, I think I might be tempted to buy another SCSI2SD card for my LCIII+, and retire its hard disk.

 

The SD card that I'm using is a 1GB Kingston that I had knocking around. As I say, it seems to read okay - but the SCSI2SD / SD card combination fails when using the card (bus error), won't mount without Silverlining, and causes a bus error when trying to use it.  I am powering using the Molex connector.  One other thought - this couldn't be a Catalina issue could it?  Thinking aloud, I wonder if I might be better off setting it up from my High Sierra MacBook Air?

 

I've ordered some new SD cards - I'll try with those when they arrive.

 

Incidentally, no. I didn't install from Floppy Disks - the only floppies I can find are for my LCIII+, and they don't recognise that there's a 'hard disk' present.  I did try reformatting the disk using a cobbled-together System 6.0.8 disk, with Silverlining and a few other bits and bobs, with a view to putting a clean 6.0.8 system folder on there (top advantage of Mac OS classic - installation of OS by drag n drop!) - but that didn't work.  So the image was written to the SD card using dd in the Catalina command line (I can almost hear the wincing from here!)

Edited June 18, 2020 by VMSZealot

[Bendix]

On 6/17/2020 at 5:22 AM, Crutch said:

A properly working SCSI2SD should run 100% fine with power from the SCSI bus on an SE/30 (or anything really .... just not a Mac Plus).  So I am certain OP’s issues are on the config side.  But there is no harm in running from a separate power adapter if that is your preference.

With my SE/30 that was correct as long as I did not extend the SCSI bus with any kind of external device. If I did that, the SCSI2SD was messed up, meaning I could no longer boot from it and, when booted from an external HDD, lilo would show me an unformated SCSI2SD drive with only 800 MB instead of 2 GB. So the missing external power supply might not be the reason for VMSZealot's problem but I am sure it could not hurt to provide external power.

[psypher39]

Try changing your scsi ID number to something other than 0. I was having issues with mine not booting but once I changed to ID 1 it worked with no issue.

[VMSZealot]

You are all absolute legends (especially the creator of the Savage Taylor website).  I set up exactly as shown, and added a brand new 16GB SD card for good measure - and now my SE/30 seems to be very happy (on cursory inspection, anyway).  I'm going to soak test it with Tetris now!

 

Thank you!

[betaporter]

Could you give a bit more detail about what finally solved your issue? I'm having difficulty with my SCSI2SD adapter as well. Was it simply the new SD card that seems to have gotten things sorted for you?