Last updated on March 11, 2023
I recently purchased a SCSI2SD V.5 adaptor (3.5″ and 2.5″) to replace a failing 1980s SCSI HD, and realized once I had it set up I could “image” the Micro-SD card to make boot-able images anyone could use.
So, similar to my entry on setting up using a floppy disk, and setting up using an Iomega Zip Drive, I created boot images for System 6.0.8 and System 7.5.5 for setting up an SD card for use with SCSI2SD. Note, this is one of many, many options available to you for booting your classic Macintosh.
UPDATE: I have created a much easier way to use your SCSI2SD with your Macintosh system. The new image will setup your 32GB card with a FAT32 formatted partition that contains a set of volume files that you can easily mount and edit using Basilisk II, Mini vMac, or some other tool.
What you need
- A 68k Macintosh that turns on, and is prompting you to insert a disk. If your 68k Macintosh does not turn on, or does not show the insert disk icon, you may need to do some repair work before you proceed.
- A working internal or external SCSI connection, you will need to have an SCSI enclosure or an external adapter for your SCSI2SD adaptor so to use it externally. Note, for Powerbook systems that only support 2.5″ SCSI drives, a Powerbook Edition of the SD2SCSI adaptor can be used to replace the internal drive. The SCS2SD will work for the majority of 68k Macintosh computers except: The 128K, 512K*, 512Ke*. These three 68k systems do not support internal or external SCSI. You will need to use one of the other setup methods I’ve previously identified, with the best option being buying and using Floppy-Emu to boot from 400KB SS SD floppy disk images. * There are some rare 3rd party upgrades that add a SCSI port to 512K systems.
- A SCSI2SD adaptor, you MAY be able to use these images with a Compact Flash card of the correct size and a CF2SCSI adapter, if you can, let me know.
- A SD or MicroSD card you plan to use with your SCSI2SD adaptor.
Quick Start
These steps are a summary of the information in the sections below
- Update your SCSI2SD with the latest firmware
- Download my 2GB System 6.0.8 or System 7.5.5 drive image (compressed to around 50Megs), remember not all 68k Macs support all system versions, System 7.5.5 is the most supported but requires 2MB ram minimum.
- Download my SCSI2SD v3/v4/v5.x config files, select the right one (1/2GB and plus/not plus), load it in the SCSI2SD setup software, and write to your SCSI2SD adapter (settings stored on the adapter, NOT your card), may work with v.6.x but I’m not sure (see section 3 for settings)
- Use balenaEtcher (Windows/Linux/Mac) or DD (Windows/Linux/Mac) to write my drive image file to an SD card
- Insert the SD card in to your SCSI2SD, connect to your Mac and boot, NOTE: for the Plus the SCSI2SD needs to be connected to a power source to work, USB power is the easiest.
1. Updating to the latest firmware
- Connect your SCSI2SD board to your modern system via USB
- Download the latest firmware and scsi2sd-util software for your SCSI2SD adapter (figure 1)
- Run the scsi2sd-util software (figure 2)
- Upgrade your firmware (figure 2,3,4)
2. Use my Drive image files
I’ve created drive images (bit-by-bit copies including the boot drivers and partition table) containing the minimum versions* of System 6.0.8 and System 7.5.5, and several utilities and drivers. I haven’t created any image files larger than 2GB, I’m assuming if you have a card larger than 2GB you plan to setup your SD card as multiple drives (see Section 3.2 below). That’s what I did for my LC 475.
You will need to:
- decided which System version you want to work with, I’ve created another entry that lists which System Versions are support by which 68k Macintosh Computers
- download the latest 2GB drive image from my downloads page (~50MB compressed)
- upgrade the minimal System 6.0.8 or minimal System 7.5.5 installations on my images to the full version, I can’t include the full versions on my images due to copywrites held by Apple. Note, you can skip this step, the minimal versions will boot, but if you do it now you won’t have to do it later.
- add any other applications/games you want to my image using Basilisk II, the same application you used to get the full versions of System 6.0.8 and/or 7.5.5. on to the image.
Optional, if you don’t want to to use one of my images, you can create your own, or initialize your SCSI2SD in your Macintosh:
- You could create a drive image from an existing drive
- Create a image using SoftMac
- Create a image using MAME
- use some other method to boot, e.g. boot from a floppy, CD, etc. then initializing your SD card in your vintage Macintosh.
3. Configuring your SCSI2SD adapter
You will need to configure your SCSI2SD adapter based on the size of SD or microSD card you plan to use. Since I do NOT have a SCSI2CF adapter I can’t provide any guidance for you, or know if you even have to do anything.
Remember to save the configuration to a file. It is NOT stored to your SD CARD, it is stored on the SCSI2SD adapter. If you switch between cards with different configurations you will need load the save config file, or manually enter the proper drive sizes for the card before using it, or the “drives” will get corrupted
- Format the SD card you plan to use, if you are using windows I suggest doing a full format vs. a quick format to make sure the card is wiped clean and has no errors.
- Download the correct setup software from CodeSRC, make sure you get the correct software based on your version of the adapter v3/v4/v5 vs. v6. The software is available for Windows 32, Windows 64, Linux and Macintosh OS X.
- Run the setup software
- Insert the SD or microSD card in to your SCSI2SD adaptor
- Connect the USB cable from your computer to your SCSI2SD adaptor
3.1. Setting up Device 1 using my images
If you don’t want to manually set this up, you can download my SCSI2SD config files for my 1GB and 2GB images (may not work on a SCSI2SD 6.x), the .zip file also includes the config files for the Macintosh Plus with the required extra settings (see section 5). To use download, unzip, and in the SCSI2SD-util choose file -> load -> and select the .xml file for the image you are using. The config file is set up everything for Device 1 with SCSI ID 0.
- Select device 1
- Set the sector size to 512
- Set the sector count size based on the size of the image file
- my 2GB image file is 1,971,322,880 bytes, so the sector count is 1,971,322,880 / 512 = 3850240
- my 1GB image file is 985,661,440 bytes, so the sector count is 985,661,440 / 512 = 1925120
- The device size should auto adjust, e.g. for the 2GB image file the size is 1.84 actual GB (a MB, GB etc. should be a multiple of 1024, but for marketing reasons storage uses a multiple of 1000)
- You should be able to leave the rest of the settings as the default unless you have a reason to change the values (see Figure 5)
- Select save to device
- If you get the message “Save Failed” you’ve set the total sector size of your Device to be larger than what your card can hold.
- Once saving is complete disconnect the USB cable from the SCSI2SD adapter
- Eject the SD card from the SCSI2SD adapter go to section 4.
3.2. If you want to setup your SD card as multiple drives:
For this example I’m going to use a 32GB SD card (31,994,085,376) (see Figure 6), and my 2GB image file (1,971,322,880 bytes) for my SCSI device 0.
- Follow the steps from section 3.1 above to setup device 1 based on the size of the image file you selected as your SCSI device 0.
- Select Device 2 (Figure 6)
- Select Enable SCSI Target
- For SD card start sector, select Auto
- For this example, because I used 1,971,322,880 bytes for device 1, I now have 30,022,762,496 bytes left to work with, which is equal 58,638,208 sectors (30,022,762,496 / 512)
- I’m going to split up that space in to 3 more devices, so I can have 2 ProDOS partitions for each device to use with my Apple IIe card.
- Device 2:
- Device 3:
- Device 4:
- If you plan to use DD to extract the volumes from your SD card so you can edit them with Basilisk II or mini vMac, you will want to put some thought in to where you start and stop each device on the card, and each volume within each device, I provide an example in my entry for how I setup my SCSI2SD for use with my Apple IIe card.
- I suggest that you leave about 50 to 100MB empty (100,000 to 200,000 sectors) un-allocated at the end of your SD card to prevent future issues if you want to backup and restore the contents of your SD card to a different SD card. As I mentioned earlier the available space on these cards isn’t standard, and can vary by 50 to 100MB.
- Once you’ve finished setting up the Device tabs, press the Save to device button.
- If you get the message “Save Failed” you’ve set the total sector size of your Device(s) to be larger than what your card can hold.
- Once saving is complete disconnect the USB cable from the SCSI2SD adapter
- Eject the SD card from the SCSI2SD adapter go to section 4.
4. Copying the image file to your SD, microSD or CF Card
Use balenaEtcher or DD to write my drive image file to an SD card. Once your done, insert the SD card in to your SCSI2SD adapter, connect the adapter to your classic Mac’s SCSI bus, and you’re ready to go. (see notes for Macintosh Plus below)
If you don’t know how to use DD, I’ve created a separate blog entry on how to use DD on Windows, Linux and modern Macs to both write images to an SD card and other media, and create images from the contents of an SD card or other media.
If you used option 3.2 above and created more than one “drive” on your SD card, you’ll need to initialize and partition the additional drive(s) once you’ve booted from the first drive on your 68k Macintosh. If you plan to use any System older than System 7.5.2 do not create partitions larger than 2GB.
5. Extra Steps for the Macintosh Plus
The Macintosh Plus doesn’t fully implement the SCSI standard, to get your SCSI2SD adapter to work you may need to provide extra power to the adapter through it’s USB port.
Also under the SCSI2SD card’s general settings:
- Enable Unit Attention = OFF
- SCSI Selection Delay = 0
- Respond to short SCSI selection pulses = ON
Thanks to Huxley Dunsany for pointing out the settings, and James Thomson for confirming they worked on a 2nd system.
6. Another Option for setting up your SCSI2SD
Remember you could always start with one of my images set as SCSI 0, but once you have your SCSI 1 drive setup how you want, go back in to the SCSI2SD config software, and switch the SCSI IDs, so that my image becomes SCSI 1 (or later) and your newly created, partitioned drive becomes SCSI 0 (your boot drive). This will let you create a SCSI 0 boot drive partitioned exactly how you want.
Hello, I just did this using Mac OS 10.13.3, worked like a charm:) This is a great tutorial, two thumbs up!
Thank you very much! I can confirm that the instructions worked on macOS High Sierra and I was able to boot my Macintosh SE without a floppy. I should mention that dd took quite a while for me, around 3 hours.
I’ve done some research, looks like I need to include the block speed parameter in my instructions. https://serverfault.com/questions/650086/does-the-bs-option-in-dd-really-improve-the-speed
Was this SE FDHD or SE/30 or classic SE ?
My 7.5.5 image file should work on any 68k macintosh
I’m getting an error from Chrome when I attempt to download these images: xx.zip is dangerous, so Chrome has blocked it.
Odd, the zip files were made by me and have been scanned by BitDefender. It seems that my website isn’t on Google’s list of “trusted websites”, so any download is automatically flagged as dangerous. If you want to get these files you’ll need to temporarily turn of the trusted websites feature in Chrome.
Chrome://settings -> advanced settings.
https://www.ghacks.net/2014/07/15/fix-chromes-safe-browsing-feature-blocking-downloads-browser/
Hi. This looks great, and I’m really looking forward to trying it out. Just our if curiosity, once this is set up, is there a way to write additional software to the SD card? There is lots of software one can download, but I’ve no way to write it to a floppy, so I’d love to be able to just write it directly to the SD card. Thanks!
The easiest way would be to edit the image before you put it on your card. You can mount the image under Basilisk II to edit it’s contents. If you want to edit your card later, you can create a new image based on card. See: https://www.savagetaylor.com/2018/05/28/setting-up-your-vintage-classic-68k-macintosh-creating-your-own-boot-able-disk-image/ for creating image files, and https://www.savagetaylor.com/2018/09/02/setting-up-your-vintage-classic-68k-macintosh-installing-the-full-version-of-system-7-5-5-or-6-0-8/ for how to edit an image file using Basilisk II
I can’t get any of these dsk images (6.0.8 0r 7.5.5) to mount using miniVmac, SheepShaver, or Basilisk II. Basilisk using system 7.5.3 wants to open them in DiskCopy 6.3.3 from the Unix shared drive. it just says “cannot be mounted from the disk it is presently on.”. I can mount a few other disk images I’ve got on the shared Unix drive but not many of them,
I’m not sure why they are not working for you. Are you using my partition/volume files or drive files? Most emulators will only work with the partition/volume images. The exception I’ve tested is Basilisk II (and likely SheepShaver). Based on you comments it sounds like you are booting the emulator then trying to load my image files within the emulator, like floppy disk images. You can’t (or at least I’ve never tried to do that), you need to use Basilisk II’s configuration tool to set them up as additional hard drives, the same way you setup the file you are using for your boot drive.
[…] SCSI2SD Setup […]
I have the 5.1 board, and am running into issues getting the Mac (SE HDFD) to recognize the SCSI device. Is there any tips/tricks needed to get this going beyond setting the size & ID for the devices? Which firmware version(s) have you been successful with?
Another thing to do with the card: update the vendor/product/revision info so it masquerades as an Apple-original device (eg, the SEAGATE ST225N rev 1.0). The fields are case-and-position sensitive, so you can’t just drop in the names any old way (below, replace asterisk with a space):
vendor: *SEAGATE
product ID: **********ST225N
revision: 1.0*
With this config, the native Apple SC HD application will recognize the drives; you don’t have to use patched versions, etc., on those old machines that would otherwise ignore them.
Thanks for point this out, I’ve used the patched version of Apple SC HD for so long I didn’t even bother trying to spoof a compliant drive.
Did you get this working with your Mac SE HDFD?
Hi Steve – would this work with a color classic with an LC575 board? Would I be able to do an external install or would I be better off with an internal install for this configuration?
Thanks!
Hi CT, not sure, have you modded you CC to 640×480? If so it should see your CC as an LC575 and work. For internal vs. external that’s up to you, when I had it installed in my un-modded CC I was using it internally.
Hey! Thanks for these guides, it was a great and complete set.
I like your 2GB image and would like to use it as a ‘starting point’. It seems quite complete. Two questions:
1) Is the RAM affected by the networking stuff on it or can that be further slimmed down?
2) Assuming I want to have several drives, the first one being your image and the others being simply empty 2GB drives for storage. I have SCSI2SD v6 and a Mac Classic II. How can I achieve this?
Thanks for your efforts!
Hi Daniel,
1. the networking stuff isn’t enabled by default so there shouldn’t be an impact on your RAM. It’s on the image but would need to be installed.
2. You can write one of my images to the first part of your SD card, then set up the remaining parts of the card as additional drives following the instructions in section 3.2 of this post.
I wanted to start by first saying THANK YOU for these amazing guides and downloadable disk images – you’ve made it possible for me to get my Mac Plus running nicely with my new SCSI2SD, and I’m really grateful!
I did want to suggest a small addition to your guide – there are some details specific to the Mac Plus which caused me *days* of headaches, thinking I was missing something or doing something wrong. According to Codesrc (in a page which weirdly never came up for me in Google searches on this topic): “The Mac Plus is troublesome as it’s bootrom code doesn’t follow the SCSI standards. The SCSI standards recommend a SCSI selection abort timeout of 250ms, but the Mac Plus bootroms quit before even 1ms has expired.”
Make sure “Enable Unit Attention” is OFF
Change SCSI Selection Delay to 0
Enable “Respond to short SCSI selection pulses”
Until a kind person on the 68kMLA forum pointed that out to me, I was going in circles to the point of almost giving up – the Mac Plus would “see” the SCSI2SD, but only when I would boot from a floppy, and even then it was unstable and any software I tried to run from the SD card would lock up almost immediately. Making the changes noted above resolved everything instantly.
Anyway, thank you again, and I hope the info I’m sharing here helps someone else!
Hi Huxley,
Could you go into more detail about how your SCSI2SD for the Macintosh Plus ?
Which disk image did you use ? I have copied the 2 go system 6.08 image but the Mac Plus is not seeing the SCSI2SD at all. There is no orange led showing up on boot so the Mac Plus isn’t seeing it.
Please tell me exactly what options you have checked and unchecked in the SCSI2SD setup utility. Thanks. James
Hi James, the values are under general settings in the SCSI2SD config software, I’ll add some screen shots later.
The other trick I’ve seen people use is setting the SCSISD as a zip drive and using a zip 4.2 formatted image.
Vendor IOMEGA
Product ID ZIP 100
Revision D.09
If you haven’t found this already, see the bottom of the thread at
https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/27215-fitting-a-scsi2sd-in-a-68k-mac/&
I also saw someone mention they had to attached to their SCSISD to USB power while attached to their mac because the mac plus scsi bus wasn’t providing enough power… that could have just been an issue with their mac, but you could try that too.
Someone else said they got it working with a 40mb “drive” https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/27215-fitting-a-scsi2sd-in-a-68k-mac/&page=2&tab=comments#comment-579916
My old Mac Plus CRT died awhile ago, so I have no way of testing anything on it anymore. I’ll check on ebay to see if I can pick up one for parts sometime.
Hi,
answering to Jim:
“I have the 5.1 board, and am running into issues getting the Mac (SE HDFD) to recognize the SCSI device.”
I was planning to buy one, and I’ve seen the Mac SE is supported only by the v.6 board.
cheers.
Wait….what?? V5.1 doesn’t support the Mac SE? Is that why I’ve spent days trying to get this thing to work…and failing?
I read that the 5.1’s termination is now software-controlled (using scsi2sd-util), I’m assuming you enabled it? The only other thing I’d suggest (if you haven’t tried already) is treating your SE as a Mac Plus and try providing usb power to your SCSI2SD adapter. See step 5. Extra Steps for the Macintosh Plus.
Going through the same thing right now (trying to get a v5.5 external enclosure working on a Mac SE). Did you ever find a way to make this work?
Hi Steve,
Thank you for your reply. I have now managed to get the SCSI2SD card to work with my Macintosh Plus.
I have a version 5 card which is smaller in physical size than the version 5.1 or version 6 cards. I have it plugged directly onto the DB-25 SCSI port on the rear of the Mac Plus using the internal IDC 50 pin to external DB-25 adapter designed by Michael McAllister. You also need to use a 25 pin male to male gender changer though so that you can plug it in directly into the rear of the Macintosh Plus. The problem I was having was that the SCSI2 SD card was not receiving any terminator power over the external SCSI bus so was not powering up at all. I then plugged it in via USB to power it up. I restarted the Macintosh Plus and it booted straight away ! Something to bear in mind is that the Macintosh Plus boots from ID 6 first so for the fastest boot time I would set the boot drive to ID6.
Apparently there is a simple diode and resistor mod which can be done to the Mac Plus which will enable it to provide SCSI terminator power as standard. I have been trying to find out more details about this mod but am having trouble finding anything. If anyone is aware of or has the technical details to perform this mod please do share it with this thread. Thank you once again for providing the bootable disk images.
Turns out that the Mac Plus, Mac Portable, 100-series PowerBooks, 500-series PowerBooks, and the PowerBook 1400 don’t supply SCSI termination power. So I’m assuming if you are using a SCSI2SD adapter with any of these you’ll need to provide power through USB. https://lowendmac.com/1999/scsi-termination-power/
For the mod I found:
Simple 4.7ohm resistor, and a regular 4001 diode from the 5V rail to the termination pin of the DB25 connector.
Hi Steve, followed your tutorial for creating disks for using with SCSI2SD. I have a 16GB card and since we were supposed to limit to 2GB I wondered how I could use the remaining 8GB, since the tool only let you setup 4.
Then I realized we’re actually creating virtual disks, right? Meaning while it would be good for the first to be 2GB to match your image, the rest don’t necessarily have to and I could partition them later into 2GB partitions?
I first tried to do the install myself from “floppies” (I have a Floppy Emu) but I was not successful, at some point it asks me for disk 1 again and just cancels the installation saying an error happened and my disk was left untouched… Maybe my install floppy images are bad at some point??
I just tried your 2GB image, writing it to the card under Windows with the recommended tool (why is it still seen as 16GB though? Is it because the “virtual disk” information only exists on the SCSI2SD device and it just reads and writes to/from the appropriate places? Anyway, writing the 2GB image file, and my LC III booted up 7.5.5 just fine!
Anything you could recommend to learn about the OS? I have never installed one of these in my life (or really used old macs in the past either).
One thing I need to figure out which I don’t find on your image is the memory control panel to enable 32-bit addressing and that the OS stops using all my mem (I expanded the LCIII with 32MB for a total of 36MB)
Thanks!
Hi Walter, from your message it looks like you got to the point where you were able to boot. Congratulations.
For your question about the memory control panel. I was only able to include a minimal version of 7.5.5 on my image (copywrite). But I do have another page on my site that explains how to update my images with the full version. See https://www.savagetaylor.com/2018/09/02/setting-up-your-vintage-classic-68k-macintosh-installing-the-full-version-of-system-7-5-5-or-6-0-8/
I updated this post to more clearly explain that the images can/should be updated before they are copied over.
Yes, you are right about the virtual disks. Each of my images acts as a physical “disk” and using SCSI2SD each disk gets it’s own SCSI ID. You can set up the remaining space on your SD card using the SCSI2SD control panel however you wish up to a max of 3 other “drives”, each of those “drives” can be larger than 2GB. E.g. a 8GB drive that you partition in to 4 2GB partitions.
For learning about the OS, I’m not sure, I first learned about using these back in the 90s, so I’ve never really looked for how to guides, I’ve been more focused on keeping a couple alive 🙂
[…] SCSI2SD solution. Once in hand, I was very thankful for a wonderful setup guide available at David and Steve’s Blog. This site also provided starter image files to load onto the 2GB SD card I’d purchased for […]
I struggled through setting up my first SCSI2SD Board ina IIsi. Once I figured out what I was doing and set it up successfully, I was able to do a second IIsi in about an hour. I am now trying to do a G3, and am having a bear of a time getting the G3 to recognize more than 4 GB of the second partition. I have a 512 GB SD card installed. Everything is configured correctly and at first it recognized both of my partitions, 1 @ 2 GB and the second @ 500 GB. I made the small partition for the OS (8.6) and Apps and left the other for everything else. Everything was going great until I tried to install Retrospect (Backup Software). Then the G3 crashed and upon restart told me my large partition was unreadable and asked to initialize it. I figured why not, there’s nothing on it? So I did. It at first wouldn’t do anything at all because “Disk First Aid can not make changes to an unsupported drive.” I have the patched version of Drive setup and Lido 7, so I eventually did get it reinitialized. But, even though Disk first aid “sees” 500 GB of free space, it will only allow me to have a 4GB partition. I can’t enlarge it. I am stuck. I don’t know what to do. I have OS 8.6 installed, so the 2 GB partition limit doesn’t apply. Any ideas?
Hi Victoria, I mainly play with old 68k macs. If you haven’t already, you might want to try posting on the 68kMLA forums for help… https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php.
One thing I can suggest is do a full format/verify of the 512GB card to make sure there isn’t any defects. I’ve had issues before that turned out to be a bad card. I personally haven’t used a card of that size with a SCSI2SD, I don’t think there is an upper size limit, but I’d have to check.
Hi,
Wanted to thank you so much for this incredible resource that you have put online. Immensely helpful. I set up my SCSI2SD on my Mac SE/30 and I downloaded your 500MB 7.5.5 disk image and dd’d it on to an 8GB SD card and it booted up on the SE/30 like a dream! Flawless.
However, I was wondering, I created a disk image (High Sierra sees it as a textedit document?) of the full version of 7.5.5 using basiliskII and it boots up without any problems in basiliskII.
But when I try to DD this file to an SD card and put in the SCSI2SD in the SE/30 no dice.
Likewise, if I try to boot your disk images in to basiliskII then it doesn’t boot up either.
So I was wondering what is the difference between my disk image that I created in emulation with basiliskII and your disk images and why can the SE/30 only read one and basiliskII can only read the other?
Would greatly appreciate any insight, I am by no means an IT expert, simply a hobbyist (SE/30 came out 5 years before I was born haha..)
Hi William, I have another page https://www.savagetaylor.com/2018/05/28/setting-up-your-vintage-classic-68k-macintosh-creating-your-own-boot-able-disk-image/ that explains the differences between the different image files (beginning of the page), and should explain why your basilisk II image will not boot when written to an SD card. They key is my images are drive images, where basilisk typically works with partition images. Drive images are pre-pended with the driver and partition table needed by your real mac to know how to boot the “drive” in your SCSI2SD adapter.
You should be able to use one of my images to boot in basilisk II though…. I use them all the time.
In my entry https://www.savagetaylor.com/2018/09/02/setting-up-your-vintage-classic-68k-macintosh-installing-the-full-version-of-system-7-5-5-or-6-0-8/ I describe how I use Basilisk II to update one one of my drive images to contain the full version of OS 7.5.5.
Do you have the latest version of Basilisk II? https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5282
Hi Steve,
Thank you for your invaluable documentation efforts!:)
However, I’m struggling to make this work on my Quadra 700. After switching IDs (from the 1.9GB scsi2sd disk where I’ve copied your OS755 image and successfully booted from, to the 1.6GB disk I’ve initialized and partitioned using the patched HD SC Setup and to where I’ve installed OS 8.1).
After switching IDs, making ID 0 the disk with the OS8.1. installation, I either get a “bus error” after the OS starts loading or it just hangs if I try to boot with extensions disabled.
Any ideas? I have a very standard Quadra with 64MB of memory. No additional cards installed. 100% stable running OS 7.6.1 from its original IBM SCSI drive.
Thank you in advance.
I actually haven’t tried installing anything later than 7.5.5 yet, I might be able to test in a week or so, I’m currently finishing up some entries relating to the MacPlus. I’ve had a few requests to create a pre-made System 8.1 and System 7.6.1 images, but I haven’t looked in to the legalities of doing so, I know I can have minimum versions of 6.x and 7.x because they were often include on bootable disks and CDs, but I don’t know if that is the case for the later Systems.
For your SCSI2SD settings, based on your descriptionI’m assuming that you started with:
Device 1 = SCSI 0 = my 7.5.5 image
Device 2 = SCSI 1 = disk you initialized and installed OS 8.1 on.
You then changed Device 1 to SCSI 1, and Changed Device 2 to SCSI 0.
One thing you could try instead, switch back to the originally SCSI ids, and then you the utility I include called: System Picker. See if it lets you select the OS 8.1 system folder, if it does, you should be able to set it as the default system to start with.
You can also try using Basilisk to create your own OS8.1 image.
You’ve already got my OS755 image.
Make a copy of it.
For Basilisk set the downloaded image as drive 1, and the copy as drive 2, make sure the enable “My Computer Icon is checked”
Boot Basilisk, delete the System folder of the 2nd drive.
Install OS 8.1 to that 2nd drive
Exist Basilisk
Write the updated copy to your SD card using DD or some other binary writer.
Your device 1, SCSI 0 should now have a bootable 8.1 drive.
This is similar to the process I describe here: https://www.savagetaylor.com/2018/09/02/setting-up-your-vintage-classic-68k-macintosh-installing-the-full-version-of-system-7-5-5-or-6-0-8/
Hi.
Thanks a lot for your answer. I did end up upgrading your OS755 image to OS81 in Basilisk. It worked like a charm!;) I still have a smaller 1.6GB SCSI 1 but won’t touch it for the time being.
Next steps:
– setup LAN using an m0437 (LEDs blink but DHCP or fixed IP don’t seem to work; router doesn’t even show a new MAC address; I had the same behaviour with OS7.6.1 but was hoping that OS8.1 would solve it).
– setup Personal LaserWriter 300 (can’t find drivers for it; “https://www.macintoshrepository.org/8435-misc-mac-drivers-1990-1997-” only has an empty folder for this printer)
Challenges after challenges!:)
lG
I’m currently working on a networking post for my ASANTE scsi2ethernet adapter.
I’ve not had any luck with DHCP, I had to manually set the IP of my mac, manually set the gateway IP (usually your main router), and the DSN, I used google’s 8.8.8.8. For my router it only dynamically assigns IP addresses from 100 to 255. So any fixed IP I use has to be below 100, so I use 192.168.1.68
Even with when connected and working (I use FTP) I don’t see any of my connected Mac’s listed as one of the connected devices in my router. I’ve got networking working for my Plus, SE, LCIII, LC475 and Colour Classic, under 6.08 for the Plus and SE, and 7.5.5 for the rest.
got it working with Performa 475. I was able to access 2 “drives” on the SDcard from the classic mac.
Now I’d love to write files from my current Mac (Mojave) to those hard disk images on the SDcard.
So I inserted the SDcard to Mac and at least one of the disk-images came up. I can read files but I can’t write files to it.
Am I doing something wrong? Scared is not write protected. DO I need to go through the SCSI2SD utility?
Hi Tom, I’m not a familiar with modern Macs, I currently use Basilisk II on a Windows 10 machine to edit the contents of my card. I describe in another blog entry how I copy the “partitions” of the SD card so they can be edited: https://www.savagetaylor.com/2019/12/19/how-ive-setup-the-scsi2sd-that-i-use-in-my-lc-475/
Hi Steve,
Thanks again for your blog. Really enjoy the detail and the read. I’ve been trying to get a Mac Plus working with a SCSI2SD v5.5 – and am having no luck. I’ve tried multiple configurations, even making sure to get the right settings in the General and Device settings area. That includes: Enabling Termination (since I have a v5.5), Descreasing the Selection Delay to 0, Disabling Unit Attention, and turning on “Respond to Short Selection Pulses”. I’ve also tried using various combinations of Vendor and Device ID names – SEAGATE, ST250 – complete with the requisite spacing in names depending on the manufacturer and ID mandates it.
I noticed that you’ve been using the Floppy EMU and SCSI2SD with your Mac Plus’es and are currently experimenting with your Assante device. I’m assuming you have managed to reliably get the SCSI2SD working on the Mac Plus. Could you share your General and Device settings that you got to work with it?
I thought I read in one of the earlier comments, that the device likely won’t boot from anything but a physical floppy boot disk initially – but I’m hoping I’m mistaken – because all I have is a 6.03 boot disk with a version 2.0 of the Apple HD SC Setup.
Would appreciate any insight into the settings that I might have missed, or advice.
Thanks!
Hi Vincent, I’ve updated this page to include in section 3.1 the SCSI2SD config file that I use for my plus. You should be able to use one of my images and that file to boot your plus.
How are you physically connecting your SCSI2SD card to your Macintosh plus?
I use a DB25 SCSI cable, the DB25 adapter https://store.inertialcomputing.com/product-p/idc50f-db25f.htm, and provide power via the USB port.
Thanks. Interestingly, I see in your settings that you elected to stay with the default Vendor and Product ID. I believe only the patched version of the Apple HD SC Setup tool would work with that. I noticed in the 68kmla.org threads that some users had to try using a very specific Vendor and Product ID, E.g. – SEAGATE, or QUANTUM depending on the version of the Setup tool.
At any rate, I tried quite a few different configurations, and could never get it to work. Someone pointed out the monitor tool up on the codesrc site which supposedly allows for a self test. On my boardthe SCSI option showed up as FAIL. McMaster (the creator of the SCSI2SD) suggested that the main utility would be better for diagnosis with the debug self-test – but never provided instructions on what to look for in the log – so I only have the monitor tool to rely on.
I bought the SCSI2SD v.5.5 – so it connects directly to the DB25 port. I do have the device hooked up to an external micro USB power adapter supplying 5v.
Alex over at Inertial Computing has said he’d send me out another replacement board, so I’ll have to wait and see if that clears up some of the problems I had before getting it to work. I’ll report back once that comes in.
Hi Vincent, hopefully you get it working, I use the patched version of Apple HD SC, so I’ve never bothered with trying to match my settings to an apple approved drive.
I got a replacement SCSI2SD from Inertial – and I did a test right away with the scsi2sd-monitor.exe – and it passed (compared to the original).
I also got impatient and ordered a FloppyEmu from Steve Chamberlain – and I got that working a few days ago – so I used that to boot – and the Apple HD SC 7.3.5 patched version detected the new SCSI2SD right away (versus the bad board – hate to think how much time I wasted trying to get that to work). It hung on Initializing disk…verifying format – for quite a while. At least 5 minutes – but finally completed.
I did eventually get the system with the SCSI2SD up and running, but oddly, never managed to get a copied image using your instructions to work. Not sure why. I had to initialize the SCSI2SD SD card by booting off the FloppyEmu HD20 image.
Thank you so much for the info, I got everything working and it is fantastic.
I have the Macintosh SE (800k,20mb) M5011. The HDD is replaced with SCSI2SD V5.1 Adapter. Steve’s 6.0.8 image, config xml and BalenaEthcher with a Lexar 2GB SD worked and it booted into desktop.
I just want to say that I ran into several issues with Sandisk , Kingston SD cards. For some reason there seem to be certain SD Brands that work with the 5.1 adapter and SE.
Now I’m going to copy all software, games onto Steves image and update the SD to make the MAC ready for gaming, productivity and the vintage nostalgia.
Can you be more specific… I am sourcing a scsi2sd for a regular SE and have been hearing reports that only version 6 of the board supports the regular SE. Are you saying all of those people with issues more than likely had issues due to the sd card brand ?
Hi. In case anybody stumble into this too. It does not work for me with 16GB SanDisk card what came with my SCSI3SD V5.2 but worked with a Lexar 2GB flash card.
What I did:
Went through the whole instruction here to the letter. Used 16GB SanDisk Ultra 48MB/s SDHC I class 10 card.
Connected SCSI2SD V5.2 to HDD port with the same ribbon cable what connected HDD previously.
It didn’t work.
I connected additional power to SCSI2SD with a molex to whatever-the-port-it-is on the V5.2 SCSI2SD adapter (one came with a motherboard I have)
It didn’t work either.
Then I bought a Lexar 2GB flash card, it does not have any markings on it regarding speed, class or standard additional to “Lexar Multi-use 2GB SD”
Flashed the very same disk image (6.0.8 in my case) using the same Balena Etcher. Did not update any setting of the adapter, just switched flash cards in it.
And it worked, Mac booted into 6.0.8 everything I put on the card via Basilisk is in place.
So I can confirm SCSI3SD V5.2 does work in Macintosh SE FDHD as an internal HDD.
Hope this helps someone!
Tags: Macintosh SE FDHD, SCSI2SD V5.2, Lexar 2GB, internal HDD
Hi
I’m using the scsi2sd v5.0a, and and had set up all pero per the quick start, and using a 2GB SD, I used balenaetcher to flash the SD
But when I try to boot, my Mac se 30 doesn’t boot
Could you please advice what I’m doing wrong ?
Thanks
Which image did you use the System 6.0.8 or System 7.5.5?
Is the SCSI2SD attached internally or externally?
If external, have you tried providing power to it via USB?
Was your SE/30 working with a hard drive before?
Is there a different card you can try? The sizing of SD cards isn’t standard so my 2GB image may not fit on you 2GB SD card, although I would have thought that balenaetcher would have thrown an error if that was the case.
Hi Steve
My scsi2sd is internal, I used the 7.5.5 image on a 2GB Sd card
I also tried on a 16gb SD and same issue 🙁
I test the Mac with an old HD and it boot
When I try to flash using Balenaetcher, shows me a message that the is missing the boot and partition table?
That’s normal. My image files are HPS formatted, so Balenaetcher can’t understand what’s in the file, but it can still write it to the SD. You have scsi2sd v5.0a, have you updated it with the latest firmware? I know some people have had issues with the SE/30 for some reason, and various things have fixed the problem, e.g. updated firmware, using the Mac Plus settings, different SD card, providing power through USB etc.
Hi Steve
Yes, I had updated the firmware and have the same issue :(, I will try to buy a FloppyEMU and install disk images
or if FloopyEMu can simulate a CD, will try to get the image of the MacOS CD image
Hi Henry, you will only be able to use the FloppyEMU to emulate a floppy drive. See page 2 of http://apple2online.com/web_documents/FEMU%20User%20Manual.pdf
You might want to try looking in the discussion group at for more suggestions on the SCSI2SD issues you’re having https://68kmla.org/forums/ if you haven’t already
For those like me who are new to Basilisk and have HD images under Mini Vmac : I could not make Balislisk to read my floppy disk images (mainly for Mini Vmac), so I used your image and within Basilisk loaded as second hard drive a “.dsk” image (224M) made under Mini Vmac. Basilisk loaded the drive (to my surprise, but maybe it is normal), and I was able to transfer the OS (7.6.1 French) and all sotware to you 2GB hard drive. No problem at all. Now I have a great L. 475 loaded with tons of software. Christmas.
Thank you!
I have a Macintosh SE, and I have changed the hard drive for a SCSI2SD V4.2. and following your instructions I have prepared a 4GB memory with your 2GB 6.08 image, it has been a success, everything perfect, thank you very much …. now let’s see if I complete it with apps
Hello, just wondering if after I flash the macintosh dsk file on an cd card with balenaEtcher, would it still be easy to just reformat it back to something windows could recognize in the future? thanks.
Yes, you can reformat your card back to something windows can recognize.
Hi,
Thanks for the great page, was really helpful.
What blocked me for a while is that my SE has an internal SCSI disk with ID 0 so I had to change the SCSI ID of the SCSI2HD to 1. Otherwise it worked like a charm
Vincent
Hi Steve,
Just wanted to thank you for all the work that has gone into this tutorial. I was able to use it to attach a SCSI2SD 5.5 to a Powerbook 1400cs and recover files.
Next step: recover files from a Powerbook 170, which may unfortunately require some hardware work since the internal drive won’t spin up properly.
Best,
Remy
I purchased the SCSI to SD V5 board I had heard that this board will actually work with the Creative Micro Designs HD series SCSI hard drives, these were built in the early 1990’s mainly for the C=64 and C=128. The SCSI controller built into the CMD HD uses its own processor etc. The CMD HD only uses Dev0. Im not sure what kind of DOS is used I assume GCR, wasnt this the same on the Apple II and Commodore 8-bit computers? The CMD HD internal SCSI controller has its own boot rom to get the mechanism spun up etc, in this boot rom can only handle up to 4Gig mechanisms. The CMD HD doesnt really boot up an OS it just works in Commodore basic. CMD coded their own Low Level format uitility for formatting the hard drive which then recognizes the mechanism as DEV0 LUN0 if this does recongize this then the Low Level format can be done. Im just not sure if these old utilites will work would I need some other 50 pin SCSI controller to plug the SCSI to SD into? I assume by reading here I need some kind of boot image that will work with the CMD HD bootup process—> to Commodore basic!
The CMD HD when configured to a 50 pin SCSI mechanism does not use any termination it can only use DEV0 nothing else, which seems like Macintosh and others. I was wondering if the Apple image would work with Commodore, again did both Apple and Commodore used GCR so thats why I was wondering if I could try the Apple image to see if that would work with any 8-bit Commodore?
The CMD HD always even works with the Vic-20, C64, C-128 etc. Unfortunately Mark Fellows (the CMD founder) gave up his Commodore distribution years ago in June, 2001 to Maurice Randall who might know what kind of formatting the CMD HD uses. Has anybody else used the V5 with a CMD HD series hard drive.
My last mechanism just gave up the ghost and had a head crash a guy told me about this and I thought this is an awesome way to have a reliable, quiet storage medium. I was a little confused about how this works and then was told this mimicks or acts just like any 50-pin SCSI mechanical mechanism.
I did try the configure.exe file so I hope i didnt mess up my board, but I cannot get back into the configure it wont change anything, whats up there?
So mainly I might try the Apple II image. The CMD HD does support the
Native Mode partitions the largest I always used was Native Mode 1049K was always a decent sized partition, but Im still confused if I can just format this and use the Apple II image, or if I use that image do I need to format?
Creative Micro Designs also supported the GEOS OS so it has a GEOS setup program as well for the DOS would GEOS work on this as well? Jim Brain in the Commodore scene back in early 2008 made his own UIEC2SD which was based on the C= 1541 that uses the same IEC serial Din cable. 2 other guys figured out a simple Binary file that knows how GEOS communicates with drive media, this has to be on the root directory you then use the DOS command: M-R binary or something like that, then GEOS will actually boot on the UIEC2SD and the UIEC2CF, IDE. So hopefully this may have to be done on this media, I wont know until I get this thing working.
Hi I just purchased the V5 SCSI to SD to use on my Creative Micro Designs
CMD HD series which was built in the early 1990s, has its own CPU, its own boot Rom. This controller also ONLY uses DEV0 LUN0.
CMD coded their own utilites: Low Level Format, Dos setup, Partition utility.
Once the CMD HD is booted its just used mainly in Basic.
To run the utility programs you put the drive in config mode by pressing
Swap 8 and Swap 9 buttons and press *reset button* then the drive is recognized and you go on from there. GEOS was also supported so I hope that will work as well. Didnt the 8-bit Apple II and Commodores use the GCR encoding?
Do I still somehow need to format the media somehow, or does the Image do that somehow, if someone could please explain this? I was told the SD media has to be formatted just like a SCSI HD mechanism. CMD coded their own partition
utility program that is run from basic, you again put the drive in config mode and then theres a menu there on what type of partitions can be made. This supports the smaller 1541, 1571, 1581, Native Mode size partitions.
I assume though I cannot use the older utillity programs, or is that even necessary if Im using an image?
I was able to kind of use the config.exe but Im not quite sure how this would be configured for the CMD HD, but I could not get into anything in config after that, did I possibly mess my SCSI to SD up? Would updating the firmware help?
Anybody else ever try the CMD HD series. This hard drive also works okay with any of the other Commodore 8-bit line of computers, is greatly enhanced by CMD’s Jiffy Dos is really nice.
Thanks so much for all this information. I am stymied and can’t figure out what my next steps are. I have got a v5.2 scsi2sd card in an SE/30. I’ve tried your config files for the device, as well as modifying for the “magic” vendor and model info to make it look apple-legit (” SEAGATE”, etc). I have your 2GB image dd’d to the SD card. No dice.
The Mac won’t find the SCSI drive. It won’t boot off it as I’d expect it to given your instructions, and HD SC Setup can’t see it at all either (when I boot the machine with a stock system 7 disk tools floppy). The old original hard drive works and boots fine when it’s connected, so the Mac SCSI hardware seems OK. The SCSI2HD access light flickers when I boot up the Mac so it’s getting power and I guess some sort of signal, but nothing else. I’ve pored through these comments and other forums and cannot figure out what next steps might be here. Everything I’ve seen indicates it should be working. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks
Did you try supplying power via the USB port?
Did you ever find a solution Ben? I am struggling too. I have a similar problem to yours.
Hey all, I’ve got the external SCSI2SD v5.5 and am just looking to use it as an external HD for back up. How can I format the mini-SD card to be visible to my Mac Classic (running OS 7.0.1)?
Recently purchased a SCSI2SD 5.2 for my Mac Plus. I did the diode mod and the board powered up great from the SCSI port, but I couldn’t get my Mac to boot from it. The recommended Mac Plus settings here got me going in minutes. Excellent – thanks! Now to find 2GB of games to fill the drive! 🙂
Cheers mate, got my mac classic working on the second attempt.
Hi David & Steve,
Tank you for this nice article, I have managed to use my SCSI2SD to work with my Mac plus in French with your image and basilisk 2.
I have a Mac plus with Cms HDD (seagate st125n)scsi id 1, I can boot the hdd or scsi2sd id 0 independently .
But if I plug the scsi2sd on the back off the hdd it’s all the time the hdd who start.
Do you know why ?
Regards Cyril
The Mac Plus scans it’s SCSI bus in reverse order for booting: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
So set your CMS HDD to SCSI ID 0 and your SCSI2SD as SCSI ID 1.
Thank’s Steve, I will try on Tuesday.
Have a good week-end.
Dear Steve, I have 5.0a cards with firmware I was able to update to 4.8.4 with the SCSI2SD utils for 32 bit Windows. But now the card refuses to retain configuration changes… when I make changes in the parameters, like sizes, SCSI ID’s, etc, and I save to device, the progress bar runs for 10 seconds, concludes, and I hit close. When I re-launch the utils to confirm, it is still in default settings. I have tried to make these changes on several other 5.0a cards… and also tried the utilities in both 32 bit for Windows and Mac OS. But I am unable to make changes to the settings. Any help would be immensely appreciated. 🙂
After you re-launch, I assume you then selected “load from device”?
Steve,
I am so happy I found your site. I went to show off my “working” SE/30 recently and heard the Click-click-click of the HD crashing and burning.
Looking for the SCSCSD card, there are many on Ebay that ship from China in a newer smaller form factor. Do you have any experience with these? Any experience with the ZuluSCSI boards?
Thanks again,
Jeff
I have one of the original Zulu releases, they are much easier to use than the SCSI2SD, I plan to make a guide sometime soon on how to use the Zulu’s features to setup a system from scratch.
While waiting for a reply, I ordered a BlueSCSI board. It is coming next week. I will let you know how it goes.
Should work fine, the ZuluSCSI and the BlueSCSI both work essentially the same way.
So, your instructions are awesome. That SE30 is up and running. I need to remove tons of extra crap from the SD drive that does not work on an SE30.
Although balenaEtcher creates a perfectly usable SD card, once that is done, that card is no longer recognized on my modern Mac or Windows machines. If I wanted to edit the dsk file on a modern computer (to save my sanity) using Basilisk, how can I get past the modern OS wanting to reformat the SD card as soon as it is inserted?
Please ignore the last question: If I simply create an ExFat SD card, copy the .dsk files and rename them to .hda, the BlueSSI is happy. I just change the extension back for Basilisk. All computers can read the SD.
Hi there. I appreciate your work very much!
I am trying to get a SCSI2SD to work (on an old Mac-LC). I have downloaded your 2GB System 7.5.5 drive image (.dsk-file), but am not able to write it to a micro sd using BalenaEtcher. On both Windows and MacOS I get the same error-message: “Missing partition table. It looks like this is not a bootable image.” I hope you can somehow help me.
Hi Mauk, that error is expected. Modern systems do not recognize HFS volumes so BalenaEtcher throws an error, the SD card will work on your 68k mac https://www.savagetaylor.com/2020/11/22/using-balenaetcher-to-create-and-write-disk-images/ see Figure 3
Hi Steve. Selecting “Change” (when selecting a target) also leads to “Flash Failed” (after waiting a while). I must be doing something wrong.
I finally tried using another PC (The one I first used was the laptop I use for my work). I ignored the error-message and all went well . The next step is to get the micro sd to work in my old LC (no luck so far: I stlll get the question-mark).
Hi Mauk, I assume you are trying to setup a SCSI2SD? Did you setup the configuration information using the SCSI2SD-util? Another possible issue even if you get everything setup right on the SCSI2SD is that your LC may need to have it’s capacitors replaced. If they are failing you can get all sorts of issues, including the SCSI drives not working.
Hello Steve. I am indeed trying to setup a SCSI2SD. I am using a 4GB micro SD-card. I have setup the configuration using the SCSI2SD-util using your own config-file (scsi2sd_2Gb). Maybe I should change the settings manually. The capacitors should be okay on my old LC (I don’t think that’s the problem). The LC has 8MB-ram. I am trying to run OS 7.5.5 (originally 7.0.1 was no problem).
Hi Steve. I appreciate your efforts to help me very much. OS 7.0.1 was running on my OLD SCSI-drive (before it “died”). Until then there were no problems (apart from the SCSI-drive having more and more problems booting). As you have already read I eventually managed to successfully flash my 4GB-micro SD-card (using 755_2GB_drive.dsk). But the SCSI2SD-interface is still NOT working (even after changing the settings many times using the SCSI2SD-utility). It’s all very frustrating (as you can imagine). I have updated the firmware of my SCSI2SD-interface (was 4.4, is now 4.8.4).
HELLO STEVE. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP. IT TURNED OUT TO BE A TERMINATION-PROBLEM. I CONNECTED A TERMINATOR TO THE LC AND THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED!!
THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN (AND KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK).
Hi Steve. Once again thanks for your assistance. In the meantime I have read that a physical terminator should not be necessary when using an SCSI2SD-interface. Could it be that I should change 1 or 2 (general) settings (using the scsi2sd-utility)?
Thanks in advance!
P.S. I now see that I have replied 2 times to my last post (my apologies). In short: I finally got my SCSC2SD to work. But only by plugging in a “physical terminator” (at the back of my LC).
Extra info: My scsi2sd-interface is version 5.0a
I have the 5.0b, you cannot set termination in software, there should be two orange resistor packs on your SCSI2SD (see the picture at the start of this page), those control termination. If they are in, the SCSI2SD is terminated, if there are out, it is not. For most Macintosh systems, when using the SCSI2SD as your internal hard drive, they should be in. I say most, because there are some exceptions. I plan to create a page listing system specific weirdness for SCSI. Do you have something connected as an external device? If so the external part of the SCSI chain also needs to be terminated.
Hello Steve. The orange resistor packs (2 orange strips) are not orange on my SCSI-board but black. At least I now know where I can find them. I have no external device connected. The terminator I am using is actually an SCSI-cable with on the end a terminator.