jeff@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Stearns) (01/05/90)
I have a bare Mac II CX without a hard drive. I'm intending to purchase
a Quantum 105 Meg drive from some to-be-determined mail order house.
Will Apple's distributed disk formatting program handle this drive?
If not, is SF&I a reasonable choice? I'm generally quite proficient
at tinkering with hardware and poking with ResEdit.
Thanks for all information!
--
Jeff Stearns John Fluke Mfg. Co, Inc. (206) 356-5064
jeff@tc.fluke.COM {uw-beaver,microsoft,sun}!fluke!jeffkingman@tci.bell-atl.com (Matt Kingman) (01/05/90)
jeff@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Stearns) writes: >I have a bare Mac II CX without a hard drive. I'm intending to purchase >a Quantum 105 Meg drive from some to-be-determined mail order house. >Will Apple's distributed disk formatting program handle this drive? >If not, is SF&I a reasonable choice? I'm generally quite proficient >at tinkering with hardware and poking with ResEdit. No, HD Setup won't work with non-Apple drives. When you buy your drive from the TBD mail order place, you should receive formatting software with the drive. Most places format the drive and put a system on it for you. Just take it out of the box and boot it. Some places put some freeware/public domain software on their disks. /Matt -- Matt Kingman - Systems Engineer kingman@tci.bell-atl.com Technology Concepts Inc. ...!uunet!tci!kingman Sudbury, MA. 01776 (508)443-7311 TCI is not responsible for my opinions, nor I for theirs...
wiseman@tellab5.TELLABS.COM (Jeff Wiseman) (01/05/90)
In article <13642@fluke.COM> jeff@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Stearns) writes: >I have a bare Mac II CX without a hard drive. I'm intending to purchase >a Quantum 105 Meg drive from some to-be-determined mail order house. > >Will Apple's distributed disk formatting program handle this drive? > No, I do not think so >If not, is SF&I a reasonable choice? I'm generally quite proficient >at tinkering with hardware and poking with ResEdit. > It probably could be made to work but something that you might want to seriously consider is purchasing the disk (or at least the drive software) from LaCie. With a 105M drive you will likely need partitioning and LaCie's Silverlining is excellant for this. They provide this package and a bunch of other goodies with all of their drives. Hope this helps -- Jeff Wiseman: ....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM
rieman@boulder.Colorado.EDU (John Rieman) (01/06/90)
In article <526@tci.bell-atl.com> kingman@tci.bell-atl.com (Matt Kingman) writes: [in response to the question: will apple's formatting software handle a 105M quantum purchased from a third party:] > >No, HD Setup won't work with non-Apple drives. ... Just out of curiousity, how does Apple's software *know* it isn't working with a drive purchased from Apple? What's the difference between an internal Quantum 40 or 80 purchased from Apple and one purchased from a 3rd party? -john rieman@boulder.colorado.edu U. of Colo.
wiseman@tellab5.TELLABS.COM (Jeff Wiseman) (01/10/90)
In article <15365@boulder.Colorado.EDU> rieman@boulder.Colorado.EDU (John Rieman) writes: >In article <526@tci.bell-atl.com> kingman@tci.bell-atl.com (Matt Kingman) writes: >[in response to the question: will apple's formatting software handle a >105M quantum purchased from a third party:] >> >>No, HD Setup won't work with non-Apple drives. ... > >Just out of curiousity, how does Apple's software *know* it isn't working >with a drive purchased from Apple? What's the difference between an >internal Quantum 40 or 80 purchased from Apple and one purchased from a >3rd party? Please note that the following is what I have surmised from lots of discussions and some poking areound in HDsetup with REsEdit. Certain drives such as the Quantums are provided for apple with custom firmware in the drives. It is designed to work only with Apples drives. It also serves as a notice to Quantum when someone wants a drive fixed under the 5 year quantum waranty that they have to go through apple's 90 day waranty (neat trick huh?). HOWEVER. Some drives can be made to work with Apples software. For example, a Seagate 60 meg drive (271n or somthing like that?) can be installed and then with ResEdit you change the A5init resource. It has a table of all the drives that the software recognises. since the 40 meg Seagate that apple uses is identical to the 60 except for size, you just change the drive type name (250n ?) to that of the larger drive and then the 40meg drive software is used for the 60. Anyway, hope this sheds some light. -- Jeff Wiseman: ....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM
kuo@boulder.Colorado.EDU (KUO ANDY Y) (01/10/90)
There is a tip in the "Tip Sheet" on page 197 in the May 1989 issue of MacUser that tells you how to use Apple_HD_SC_Setup to initialize non-Apple hard drive.
wiseman@tellab5.TELLABS.COM (Jeff Wiseman) (01/11/90)
This message was to Alex Nghiem but it kept bouncing back to me. Since it may be of general interest, I will post it here. Hi Alex. > About changing the drive table of HDSETUP using ResEdit... Would > you know how to modify the table so that HDSETUP will work with > a CDC/Imprimus 150m Wren III? In a word, no. But experimenting is free, right? so let me give you a thought or two :-) Please note that the following includes some guessing If you look at a copy of HDsetup with resedit and look at the A5init resource, you will see a list of drive types. It appears that when HDsetup runs, its does something like this: It checks to see what kind of disk is out there. It then checks it's table to see what kind of driver to install on the drive. It seems that it basically just has a collection of "Apple standard drive packages" that it chooses from. Now, one thing that is nice is that the drive parameters (eg. size, etc.) are actually read somehow from the drive itself. This means that a drive that is identical in all aspects to one of the ones in the A5init list except for its size could use the drive softare for the like drive in the list. For example, the Seagate 60M drive is identical in all ways except size to the Seagate 40M. By modifying the string in the A5init resorce (a 251N or something like that for the 40M) to that of the larger drive (ie 271N I think), the larger drive will be able to use the smaller drive's driver software. Since the driver adjusts itself to size (necessary since bad blocks are marked out sometimes) the 60M will work. HOWEVER. Some drives like the Quantums that Apple installs use custom firmware installed by quantum for apple's use only. A third party drive cannot use the Apple drive in HDsetup then unles the EPROM (or ROM) in it is replace with one that has been copied form an apple disk. I'm not sure of the leagal ramifications of copying this firmware! Now the only drives that I know apple has done this with is the Quantums (the most expensive). I know that the Seagates that apple uses are generic. I do not know about the others (miniscribe I think is generic as well). In fact, I can't remember what others HDsetup supported but by looking at the A5init list you should get an idea. Anyway, I hope this helps some. One thing that you should consider though is that even though it will cost you more, Silverlining (by LaCie) would MORE than solve your problem and you would get some of the most excellant soft partitioning software on the market (my own opinion. I use liverlining on all my drives). I think that you can get it at a significant reduction through MacWarehouse or the like. Good luck. -- Jeff Wiseman: ....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM -- Jeff Wiseman: ....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM
jnelson@gauche.enet.dec.com (Jeff Nelson) (01/12/90)
> HOWEVER. Some drives like the Quantums that Apple installs use custom firmware > installed by quantum for apple's use only. A third party drive cannot use the > Apple drive in HDsetup then unles the EPROM (or ROM) in it is replace with one > that has been copied form an apple disk. I'm not sure of the leagal > ramifications of copying this firmware! I've seen the above mentioned twice recently (maybe by the same person) and I'm not convinced that it's true. Several months ago, I took a Quantum PRO 80 (half-height, 3.5 inch, 80 meg drive) from a DECstation 300-series IBM PC clone and, after hacking HDsetup to recognize it, got it to format and operate perfectly in my Mac II. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that Quantum is installing a special ROM or EPROM in drives they supply to Apple, such that the drive does not work without the special ROM. Unless, of course, Quantum is supplying the special ROM to other vendors, too. Does anyone know for sure if the special ROM is indeed present in drives that Quantum sells to Apple? Is the special ROM present in drives Quantum sells to other vendors? Does anyone else have experiences which support either Wiseman's theory or mine? My experience seems to suggest that either (1) the special ROM is always present or (2) there's no such thing as a special ROM. Thanks for any insight you can share. -Jeff E. Nelson -Digital Equipment Corporation -Internet: jnelson@tle.enet.dec.com - -or- jnelson%tle.dec@decwrl.dec.com -Affiliation given for identification purposes only
hui@joplin.mpr.ca (Michael Hui) (01/12/90)
In article <7400@shlump.nac.dec.com> jnelson@gauche.enet.dec.com (Jeff Nelson) writes: > >convinced that it's true. Several months ago, I took a Quantum PRO 80 >(half-height, 3.5 >inch, 80 meg drive) from a DECstation 300-series IBM PC clone and, after >hacking HDsetup >to recognize it, got it to format and operate perfectly in my Mac II. Does that mean if I know how to modify HDsetup, I can conceivably hook up any reasonable SCSI winchester to my Mac+ without any additional software? I am planning on getting a Connor Peripheral 100 meg drive. Connor was used by Apple in their Macintosh Portable. Michael Hui 604-985-4214 604-985-6506 hui@joplin.mpr.ca