Mac SE help

[Ozfer]

So I bought a mac SE not FDHD a while back. It came with the full 4MB ram and a quantum apple 80MB HDD and 1 800k floppy drive. After getting it I wanted to put some software onto it but I ran across a lot of issues.

First I find it really hard to find software for it anywhere online. I eventually found a few games but that's about it. Then the next problem was many of them are put in a very old version of stuffit that can only be extracted on a old mac with a old version of stuffit. Well I don't have stuffit on a 800k floppy and I cant find the correct version to extract the stuff from(I even found 1 copy of stuffit that was stuffed with stuffit).

My next issue was my pc cannot write 800k floppies to get data to and from the mac because of this I bought a iomega zip drive 100 plus. It has scsi and parallel for most computers. After receiving it and a fat32 formatted zip disk I realized I can't use that on the mac either because it was fat32. After this I looked around everywhere for a program to format it to a mac format and had a hard time finding a free program to write that type of file system from a pc. Eventually I found one that I think formatted it with a very old type of mac format. But then when I attach my zip drive to my mac and boot it up it never loads the zip as a hard drive(the light flashes twice while booting).I do not have any zip software on 800k disks so it seems impossible to load special drivers to the mac and I do not know it I formatted it right or if I need a special scsi terminator for the zip drive that says its supposed to terminate itself.

After all this didn't work I tried putting the internal mac hard drive in a pc with a scsi controller card. Unfortunately the hard drive cannot be mounted under any version of linux I have tried and in windows I can open it up with some software but it only allows me to copy files from the drive and I cannot put the iomega drivers on it or any of my software.

Can any of you tell me why the zip drive wont load, where to get more programs from, or how to write files to the hard drive. Thanks, ozfer

 

[DZ/015]

Well, you have opened a can of worms. This kind of thing results in a basement full of old computers.

Your zip drive is not seen because you don't have the appropriate system extension (driver) in your system folder. You can check for the extension in your extensions folder in the system folder. It was called Iomega if I remember correctly. Or your zip drive is bad. It should not need a terminator. You can turn termination on/off with a switch on the back of the drive.

Without a bridge Mac that can run the classic OS, connect to the internet, and read/write 800k diskettes, your best bet is to get the software on 800k diskettes. If you get tired of banging your head on the desk, pm me. For the price of postage, I've got the software. If you are in the central MA/Boston area, even better.

The Macintosh Garden is a great place to get old software.

Also check jags house, system 6 heaven, and gambas site. Many of the links have died, but there is still good info there.

 

[Ozfer]

okay

Both of my scsi zip drives have a switch on the back to choose between either position 5 or 6 but neither seem to have a switch for termination. Also I read online that you don't need the iomega software if you boot it up with the disk attached, but it just won't be plug and play. It looks like maybe I will have to get a bridge mac unless you have some of the disks I am looking for. Thank you for your help I will pm you with details.

 

[MacTech68]

As DZ/015 says, an interim Mac will make life a whole lot easier.

Having said that, here are some notes about ZIP drives from a couple of posts I wrote in other threads:


IIRC, Iomega mucked about with putting boot drivers onto the Zip Disk and NOT putting drivers onto the disk.

It depended on which Iomega Zip Tools version was used to format the disk.

If you use the Iomega Zip Tools 3.5.3 to "Format with Surface Verify", then it should place the driver as an invisible driver partition on the Zip Disk.

If there is no hidden driver on the Zip disc, and none in the Mac's System Folder, the disc will not mount.

You MUST use the Iomega Zip Tools to format the disk. This is the only way to get the driver onto the disk. Also, make sure the disk is HFS-Standard format and NOT HFS+ (or HFS-Extended).

Note that Iomega Zip Tools was later renamed to IomegaWare - the two are different, and IomegaWare NEVER puts a driver onto the disk.


OLD: ZipTools

Here is Iomega Zip Tools v3.5.3

ZipTools v4.2 installs onto System 7.0.x and later (the driver extension will work with System 6.0.8 or higher). get it at MacDriverMuseum. Download the "Iomega Zip Package v4.2 (948 k)"


NEW: IomegaWare

IomegaWare v4.0.2 installs on MacOS 8.6 to 9.2.2 (There is also a version for MacOS 10.1.x to 10.2.8)


The other thing you may need to do, is to put the Zip Disk into the drive and apply power to the Zip Drive BEFORE you power on the Mac. This allows the Zip drive to have the Iomega SCSI driver ready to pass to the Mac when the Mac polls the drive.

One reason for using the Iomega driver and utilities is the ability for the Utility program to "Format with surface verify" which from my experience is essential. It takes a little longer, but will lock out bad sectors so they're not used. NOTE: FORMAT ERASES EVERYTHING ON THE ZIP DISK.

Once you get to MacOS 10.3, whilst the drive works without drivers, you will not be able to format the disk with surface verify using Apple's Disk Utility.

Also, be careful with the Zip Plus. IIRC, it is capable of SCSI or Parallel interfacing. You MUST always use the Iomega supplied SCSI cable for these drives or you risk damaging your SCSI interface on the Mac or the Zip drive.

And a final note, never connect or disconnect a SCSI device whilst either the device or the Mac is powered on.

How's that for info overload?

 

[Ozfer]

okay

Thanks for the info. I would pm DZ/015 but this site still won't let me pm because my account is too new or something. Is there anyway someone could upload the drivers that go on the zip disk so I could copy them onto a disk from a pc? I don't have a 800k floppy for iomega drivers. Also my zip disk is HFS and not HFS+.
Update: I am now able to pm DZ/015

 

[Ozfer]

Got it

So today I got the software in thanks to DZ/015 and I can now transfer files between my pc and my mac via my zip drives. Thanks for your helps guys.

 

[tdiaz]

Something else that may be an option, and may sound like voodoo ..

Mac's with a Reset / Programmer switch do have a "SCSI Disk Mode" ;-)

Turn on the Mac, press the interrupt switch before the self test finishes. This leaves the machine in la-la land, and you can connect two machines together via SCSI cable and use the other to front load software without dealing with floppies for system software installing.

To make this work, SCSI ID's can't match. So one or the other machine has to be the non-default value.

 

[Ozfer]

I don't have a reset switch or another pc that has a scsi like the mac but thanks for the suggestion.