thomas@duteca (Thomas Okken) (05/30/91)
From article <1991May29.040751.5773@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>, by ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Eric Behr): >>In comp.sys.mac.misc, chai@hawk.cs.ukans.edu (Ian Chai) writes: >> >> In article <16556@helios.TAMU.EDU> mkh6317@zeus.tamu.edu writes: >> >Did you notice that the little dot that used to be to the far >> >left, inbetween the thin double lines at the top of the finder >> >windows is GONE! Now how are we supposed to differentiate between >> >a MFS and a HFS disk? Huh? ;-). >> >> You don't. MFS is dead. 400k disks aren't supported anymore... >> (Yes, I even tested this out... weird errors result...) >> > > What's the story here? The "late breaking news" on the Compatibility > Checker disk claims that MFS disks can be read, just not modified. I > may need to do it, so I'm curious: what "weird errors" have you seen? In fact, you can still use 400K disks IF they have an HFS directory. To get this, hold down Option, select Erase Disk from the Special menu, keep the Option key down until the formatting is completely finished, that is, until the alert box disappears. You then have an HFS disk, with fully functional folders (the kind that actually shows up in the Standard File dialogs). And this disk can be read by *any* Mac, including the 128K (if running System 3.2 or higher). Note that this trick works with all System versions from 3.2. Yes, even with System 7.0: I just tried it. So, if you need to write to a 400K disk: copy everything from the disk to your HD, reformat the floppy using the above procedure, copy your stuff back, et voila: everything works just fine. - Thomas (thomas@duteca.et.tudelft.nl)
jcav@quads.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) (05/31/91)
In article <1337@duteca.UUCP> thomas@duteca (Thomas Okken) writes: >In fact, you can still use 400K disks IF they have an HFS directory. To get >this, hold down Option, select Erase Disk from the Special menu, keep the >Option key down until the formatting is completely finished, that is, until >the alert box disappears. >You then have an HFS disk, with fully functional folders (the kind that >actually shows up in the Standard File dialogs). And this disk can be read >by *any* Mac, including the 128K (if running System 3.2 or higher). Total nit-pick, but the Mac 128 can't run System 3.2 (not enough memory). In fact, neither the 128 nor the original 512 can understand HFS, no matter what the system version. HFS capability can be added to the original 512 if the startup disk contains the "Hard Disk 20" INIT file (did you know that this was the VERY FIRST INIT file?), which loads an early version of HFS into RAM. Everything from the 512E onward had HFS in the ROM. What bugs me about System 7 and MFS is that they apparently didn't modify the disk init package to disallow the creation of MFS-format disks. Both the single-side and double-side buttons should created HFS directories. -- John Cavallino | EMail: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu University of Chicago Hospitals | USMail: 5841 S. Maryland Ave, Box 145 Office of Facilities Management | Chicago, IL 60637 B0 f++ w c+ g+ k s(+) e+ h- pv (qv) | Telephone: 312-702-6900