There are two ways to check the capacity of a SCSI hard drive attached to a hard-drive compatible Apple LaserWriter:
* Use a PostScript program (listed at the end of this article) to check the hard drive's capacity. This works with any hard-drive compatible LaserWriter.
* Connect the hard drive to a Macintosh. This only works if your hard drive is formatted in Macintosh-compatible format, as with the LaserWriter IIf, IIg, and the LaserWriter Pro 630.
Unfortunately, there is no option to check the capacity of any Laserwriter printer's hard drive in any version of Apple's LaserWriter Utility. The LaserWriter IINTX, LaserWriter IIf and IIg, and the LaserWriter Pro 630 are all hard-drive compatible, but they use different types of hard disk formatting.
The LaserWriter IINTX uses the LaserWriter Font Utility to initialize attached SCSI hard disk drive(s) as one logical disk device for the PostScript file system. The LaserWriter IINTX regards all attached hard drives as a single logical unit, therefore these drives are not recognized by the Macintosh file system.
The LaserWriter IIf and IIg, and the LaserWriter Pro 630 use the LaserWriter Utility to initialize attached SCSI hard drives. This utility initializes the hard drive in a Macintosh compatible (HFS) format and supports the PostScript file system.
Here is a simple PostScript program that displays the total and free space available on a LaserWriter's hard drive:
/Helvetica findfont 14 scalefont setfont
statusdict begin
30 100 moveto
(A page is 1024 bytes.) show
30 115 moveto
(The total number of pages are) show
diskstatus
10 string cvs show
30 130 moveto
(The number of free pages are) show
10 string cvs show
showpage
Cut and paste these 12 lines of code to TeachText and download the file with the appropriate utility.
WARNING:
If you choose to use the PostScript code provided in this article, you assume all risks involved in making these changes. PostScript code, if not entered correctly, can place the LaserWriter into a condition requiring service.