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Mac SE Help

A

Awesomely

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 18, 2010
7
0
My first Mac was a Mac SE. My family got it it around 1995 from my Uncle, who was a Photographer and needed it for whatever editing software it was that he had. Anyways, I have fond childhood memories of playing vintage mac-tastic game, which of whose names escape me at the moment. Fast forward to Yesterday. Yesterday, I finally decide to go into the vast unknown of our Family's old house. After a surprisingly easy search I found it, in all its former glory. I grabed it along with all its components and took it home. At home I set it up and tried... ..tried.. ...to delete everything off the hard drive. In doing this I apparently deleted files essential system files. Now its giving me the ? floppy symbol which, I believe, means to insert the start-up disk. Problem is... ..I don't have the start-up disk, System Install disk, or even a current Mac. The only Mac I have is the SE. So this leaves me with a question: Can I make a System Boot Disk for System 7.01 to install on my Mac SE from Windows?

Detailed Info
* Mac SE Not SE/30
* Upgraded from 1Mb to 4Mb
* 20Mb Original HD
* Only machine that I own that has a Floppy is a Old PC with 184Mb of Ram with Windows Xp SP1
* I have the System 7.0.1 Install files meant for a Two Floppy installer

So my main thing here is to get the system up and running. Then is it possible to copy games downloaded from the internet to a floppy from my windows system to put in my SE, because of the Floppy format problems?
 
Awesomely said:
I don't have the start-up disk, System Install disk, or even a current Mac. The only Mac I have is the SE. So this leaves me with a question: Can I make a System Boot Disk for System 7.01 to install on my Mac SE from Windows?
Click to expand...
It depends on the floppy drive in the SE. If it's a FDHD, then yes; if it's an original 800k drive, then no, you can't.

I don't know how to tell which you have without the MacOS actually running, though. Look for the name FDHD or Superdrive. You might ultimately need to start over with disks from this guy:

http://rescuemyclassicmac.com/
 
If its a Macintosh SE FDHD then yes because it has a superdrive in it which could read disk formatted with DOS/Windows (IBM 1.44mb), but do not know if it can boot that way.

If its the original Mac SE then i am afraid it wont since it doesn't have the superdrive in it ( i could be wrong) and will only read Apple formatted disks (400k or 800k). unless it has been upgraded to do so.

looks like your sort of in a catch 22 right now, unless you can find a way to make a disk or to have someone make a disk for you and ship it to you.

Apple has a few Mac OS versions they have for free that you can download ( the SE can support up to system 7.5.5).

David Schmidt said:
It depends on the floppy drive in the SE. If it's a FDHD, then yes; if it's an original 800k drive, then no, you can't.

I don't know how to tell which you have without the MacOS actually running, though. Look for the name FDHD or Superdrive. You might ultimately need to start over with disks from this guy:

http://rescuemyclassicmac.com/
Click to expand...

Darn it, you beat me to it lol
 
I only have the superdrive. So I guess I'll have to find some System Disks or else.... Also could I use another machine as a go-between device? One that would make read my floppies and turn them into System disk, or something? I'm looking to expand my collection and I could probably find another oldie at the thrift store, and if I do get it back up and running, how would I go about transferring games onto it?
 
Awesomely said:
Also could I use another machine as a go-between device? One that would make read my floppies and turn them into System disk
Click to expand...

Sure, That would be a great way of doing just that.

That is the way many do it if the system is bare metal (AKA they have no software to boot the machine up, and have to make the disk using another machine).

Thats how i did it with my Performa 475, at the time i had no ethernet card in it nor a CD drive for it, so i bought a 3.5" disk from the library and used my Beige G3 AIO to make the disk and transfer the data over to the P475. of course now the P475 is internet capable (has a ethernet card) and can burn CDs (a external LaCie SCSI burner).
 
I have no idea what you mean by all this cable transfer stuff. I have almost no experience with macs. I only had the SE, then all the rest of the computers in my life were windows. So if possible, could you give me a step by step guide or something? Thanks! :)
 
Awesomely said:
I have no idea what you mean by all this cable transfer stuff. I have almost no experience with macs. I only had the SE, then all the rest of the computers in my life were windows. So if possible, could you give me a step by step guide or something? Thanks! :)
Click to expand...

I didn't say cable transfer.

I meant by getting a floppy disk and another machine to make a bootable disk to use on the SE.

that is how you transfer data over from one machine to another using a disk. but to do that you have to buy another machine (best to look for a Mac with a superdrive in it to have all bases covered).

but it would be easier to buy a disk or have someone make a disk for you.
 
So what your saying is, that I get a older machine that can read 1.44Mbs and I put a floppy in there with the system install files on it. Then, I would put the system files on the desktop to be transfered on the the HD. Then I format the floppy to a suitable format for the SE, then I use a program to Byte Copy the system install files onto the new floppy. Then, I eject it and install it on my SE?

If this is the case, what kind of program would be used?
 
Awesomely said:
So what your saying is, that I get a older machine that can read 1.44Mbs and I put a floppy in there with the system install files on it. Then, I would put the system files on the desktop to be transfered on the the HD. Then I format the floppy to a suitable format for the SE, then I use a program to Byte Copy the system install files onto the new floppy. Then, I eject it and install it on my SE?

If this is the case, what kind of program would be used?
Click to expand...


All you do is Buy a pack of floppy disks (they have to be SSDD single sided double density 400k or DSDD double sided double density 800k) to work on a non upgraded Mac SE.

the DSDD 3.5" disks can be bought here http://retrofloppy.com/products.html just scroll down to find them.

buy a Mac that has a Superdrive in it ( just to cover all bases) plus it probably would be cheaper to buy one of those systems. there is a few listed on ebay for under $50 USD. any Mac above a Mac SE should have a Superdrive in it.

If the Mac you buy doesn't have any way to connect onto the net then you might want to pick up some 2SHD 1.44 disks so you can download the data with your PC to put on the 2SHD disk (that are formatted in windows) transfer over to the Mac that has the Superdrive in it (since it can read and write DOS/Windows 1.44mb formatted disks)

Then format the DSDD (800k) disks using the Apple format option. take the data you just transferred over to the Mac with the Superdrive in it and unstuff it or mount it (depending if its a .sit = stuffit file .bin = Macbinary, or .smi = self mounting image). and once the above is done all you got to do is copy the data over to the 800k formatted disk to use on the Mac SE. A .sit or .bin file on a Mac is like what a .zip or a .rar is on windows. with the files you will be working with (.smi.bin) you will have to unstuff them then mount them.

you do not need any special software to make a copy of these files. the only thing you might need is disk copy which should already be on the system.

This link is Apples FTP that has the free versions of the OS disks to download http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...n/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_6.0.x/

or

http://download.info.apple.com/Appl...North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/

but you have to watch out since you have a limited amount of room with the 800k disks. the 7.0.1 disk images are around 1.4mb and 1.2mb in size, You could try one to see what the final size is after its been mounted (has to be below 800K).

It might be easier to find someone with the OS install disks or to have them make you the disks. so far it only looks like you can get OS 6.0.x because of the size of the files.
 
Awesomely said:
Ok, I totally get it now! Thanks. Is stuffit include on the system also?
Click to expand...

i just edited the above post i made


but Stuffit is a 3rd party Program that normally gets installed by the user. you might not need stuffit to work with the .bin file ( i forget since its been a long time since i worked with .bin files). but i think that you do need stuffit, if the Mac doesnt have stuffit on it you will be in a catch 22 again.

but you first use stuffit to extract the .smi file then use disk copy to mount it or to make a disk from it. you might be able to try one of those OS 7.0.1 disk images since they always seem larger due to them being in a image, but they might be too big to fit on a 800k disk.
 
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