Writing to HFS Standard Volumes in 10.9

[bunnspecial]

Because I still use OS 9 a fair bit, I often find myself formatting flash drives in HFS Standard so that they are useable in OS 9. I also often-out of convenience-download files on my Macbook Pro and then find myself having to use a second flash drive to transfer them to a computer running 10.5 to put them on a flash drive that's readable in OS 9.

Somewhere along the way(I think maybe at 10.7), OS X lost the ability to write to HFS Standard. It will read such volumes, but just not write to them.

I realize I'm probably one of very few people who have been inconvenienced by losing this ability, but am wondering if there exists a 3rd party utility that will allow me to write to HFS standard. Does anyone know of one?

 

[Nermal]

Wasn't support for Extended added in OS 8.1? I'm not sure why you're using Standard in the first place (although I haven't used OS 9 for a few years so I may be misremembering).

 

[bunnspecial]

Wasn't support for Extended added in OS 8.1? I'm not sure why you're using Standard in the first place (although I haven't used OS 9 for a few years so I may be misremembering).

That's actually a good point-I have a lot of computers that dual boot OS 9 and some version of OS X, and both peacefully co-exist on the same HFS+ drive.

I'm guessing it's an issue specific to USB mass storage devices. Any time I plug an HFS+ one into an OS 9 system, I get an error that the disk is not readable and needs to be initialized. When I initialize it, the only option I have is HFS standard.

 

[Nermal]

Hmm. Do you have a spare drive that you can test with? It sounds like you may be formatting with GPT instead of APM on the OS X machine. I'm fairly certain that I've used HFS+ USB drives under OS 9, and a quick Google search didn't turn up any problems.

The other possibility is that modern versions of OS X are using a "version" of HFS+ that's too new (I know that there have been some tweaks over the years but I don't know whether they're breaking changes). It might be worth reformatting a spare drive on your 10.5 machine and trying that.

 

[bunnspecial]

Hmm. Do you have a spare drive that you can test with? It sounds like you may be formatting with GPT instead of APM on the OS X machine. I'm fairly certain that I've used HFS+ USB drives under OS 9, and a quick Google search didn't turn up any problems.

The other possibility is that modern versions of OS X are using a "version" of HFS+ that's too new (I know that there have been some tweaks over the years but I don't know whether they're breaking changes). It might be worth reformatting a spare drive on your 10.5 machine and trying that.

Because I primarily play with PPC machines(my Intel Macs are for work) I'm in the habit of formatting drive in APM by default.

I certainly have enough spare drives lying around to try, though, so I'll do some experimenting.

I had also been under the impression that FAT32/MBR was readable under OS 9. I don't think I've had issues getting an internal hard drive that was so formatted to read under OS 9, but again external mass storage devices seem to be a different story.

Perhaps the option that's the easiest is to download in 10.5 when I need to...

 

[MisterMe]

Wasn't support for Extended added in OS 8.1? I'm not sure why you're using Standard in the first place (although I haven't used OS 9 for a few years so I may be misremembering).

You are correct. Apple adopted HFS+ with Mac OS 8.1. Mac OS 8.1 continued to work just fine with HFS, but HFS+ was much more efficient. I have fond memories of converting-in-place the HDD in my primary computer.

The takeaway message is that you are correct. The OP's installation of Mac OS 9 can read and write HFS/HFS+ volumes without issue. I have to wonder about the communication protocol of his USB thumb drives. In particular, which version of USB do they use. IIRC, all Mac OS 9-bootable computers are limited to USB 1.1. Although USB 2 devices are supposed to be backward-compatible with USB 1, I seem to recall that this is not always the case.

 

[bunnspecial]

The takeaway message is that you are correct. The OP's installation of Mac OS 9 can read and write HFS/HFS+ volumes without issue. I have to wonder about the communication protocol of his USB thumb drives. In particular, which version of USB do they use. IIRC, all Mac OS 9-bootable computers are limited to USB 1.1. Although USB 2 devices are supposed to be backward-compatible with USB 1, I seem to recall that this is not always the case.

I suspect that you're right about it being an issue peculiar to using a USB 2.0 mass storage device.

There is no USB 2.0 support in OS 9. I don't think Apple shipped a computer with USB 2.0 until 2003(I think PowerMac G5s were the first to get it in June of that year), which was over a year after Steve Jobs held the "funeral" for OS 9. I'm not aware of any USB 2.0 equipped Macs that can natively boot into OS 9. I have several PM G4s(and even a beige G3) that have USB 2.0 PCI cards in them. The USB ports on these cards work under OS 9, but at USB 1.1 speeds. I think support for USB 2.0 came with OS X 10.2.7 or so(whatever version the first generation G5s shipped with). I have a G4 with every version of OS X from Public Beta to 10.5 installed, and if I get a chance I'll double check on that.

 

[bunnspecial]

Okay, I think I might have found a way around the problem, even though it doesn't solve what I initially asked.

I needed to move some files from my MBP onto a Titanium Powerbook earlier this evening.

I took a relatively empty Kingston USB 3.0 8gb drive(I needed data off a work computer running Windows 2000, and Win2K screwed it up to where it only had 200mb of useable space. I was done with it for that purpose). In any case, I stuck the drive in a Powerbook G4(DLSD) running 10.5.8. I used Disk Uitility to format is as Mac Extented(NOT JOURNALED) and APM.

The drive was 100% readable and writable under both OS 9.2.2 and 10.9.5. Journaling may have been my issue earlier(although I doubt is, as I dual boot OS 9 and OS X off HFS+ journaled internal drives), or maybe it was just the brand of flash drive I was using. In any case, it seems to be working fine with this particular combination.

 

[Nermal]

Good to hear that you got it working

Journalling certainly isn't the issue - Apple shipped at least one machine with OS 9 preinstalled on a journalled drive!

 

[bunnspecial]

Good to hear that you got it working

Journalling certainly isn't the issue - Apple shipped at least one machine with OS 9 preinstalled on a journalled drive!

I didn't think it was. In fact, I think that this particular Mac(1ghz TiBook) would have been one of the ones shipped with a journaled drive. The restore disks for it are similar to those for the MDD in that they actually install OS X 10.2(.3 I think) and then dump an OS 9 system folder in for classic support. Of course, in MDDs(non FW800) and TiBooks, the OS 9 system folder is bootable-I just don't think that Apple wanted you to use it other than for Classic mode

These late versions of OS 9 can be a real pain to track down. You need one for every computer model-the last retail disk released was 9.2.1, and many of them have hardware(especially graphics cards) that the retail disk doesn't carry drivers for. I think every OS 9 booting computer made in 2002 and maybe even late 2001 needed them. I know at least I've needed to find them for my iBook G3(800mhz), TiBook(both 867mhz and 1ghz) and MDD/MDD2003. Fortunately, I did get the restore disks for one of the MDDs I bought somewhere along the way-and that's a lot of the reason why I bought the computer. The folks over at OS9Live recently put together a "universal" OS 9.2.2 install, although I prefer getting the correct one when I can.