A new, and much easier, way to use your SCSI2SD with your Macintosh system. This 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. I created this after wondering if I could create something for my SCSI2SD that would be as easy to use as my MacSD. Turns out I could, and then I found out that Andrew over on the MLA beat me to it. This is my version of what he created, his version is formatted exFAT, I decided to use FAT32 and I added more volume files.
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 SCSI2SD adaptor.
- A working internal or external SCSI connection. If you want to use an external connector, you will need to have an SCSI enclosure or an external adapter for your SCSI2SD adaptor. 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 so you will need to use one of the other setup methods I’ve previously identified. *Note: There are some rare 3rd party upgrades that add a SCSI port to 128K 512K and 512Ke systems.
- A 32GB or larger SD or MicroSD card you plan to use with your SCSI2SD adaptor.
- My 32GB FAT32 SCSI2SD image.
- A tool such as balenaEtcher, HDDRawCopy, DD to write the selected image to your SD card (this will overwrite the contents of your SD card)
Quick Start
These steps are a summary of the information in the sections below
- Optional: Update your SCSI2SD with the latest firmware
- Download my FAT32 32GB SCSI2SD image and write it to an SD card using balenaEtcher (Windows/Linux/Mac), HDDRawCopy or DD (Windows/Linux/Mac)
- Optional: Use Basilisk II, Mini vMac, or some other tool to edit the contents of the Volume files on the SD card. For Basilisk II you may need to manually edit your BasiliskII_prefs file to add the locations of the volume files. For some reason the BasiliskIIGUI application will not let you specify a removable drive as a source.
- Configure your SCSI2SD using the SCSI2SD config file that can now be found on your SD card or manually using the settings found in Step 4
- Use the SD card and your SCSI2SD.
- Details of how the SD card was created.
1. Updating to the latest firmware
This is an optional step, but recommended to reduce the chance of you having issues with your SCSI2SD device.
- 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. Download and write to an SD card
My image file is a bit-by-bit copy of the first 28.7GB of a 32GB FAT32 formatted SD card that contained a 28.6GB FAT32 formatted partition (with a 1KB cluster size) and a set of files representing containing the Mac Driver and Volumes for the 2 hard drives the SCSI2SD will be emulating for your Macintosh. The file D1HFS_01.dsk represents the first volume of the first drive and contains a minimal installation of System 7.5.5 and some other tools to help you get started. See step 3 below for additional information on how you can update to the full version of System 7.5.5, or install a different System.
I created a partition of 28.6GB on the SD card to compensate for the varying “storage” capacity of 32GB SD cards. Like hard drives, SD card manufacturers use multiples of often use 1000 not 1024 when calculating size, which should mean that SD cards will have a storage capacity of at least 29.8GB. Instead, I’ve found the storage capacity on some SD cards to be even lower, with one card I have only having a capacity of 28.9GB. The space on your SD card greater than 28.6GB will appears as unallocated space (see image below)
Once you have downloaded the image file, you can use balenaEtcher, HDDRawCopy, DD or some other software to raw-write the image to your SD card. These applications will overwrite the contents of you SD card. Your modern computer system should then be able to mount the SD card for you to work with.
3. Edit the contents of the volume images
WARNING: you can NOT delete or move the volume files. For this technique to work the volume files must be located at specific sectors on the SD card and be stored sequentially. See step 6 for details.
I have created guides describing how you can use emulators such Basilisk II, mini vMac or SoftMac on modern machines to edit the volume images found on the SD card, with detailed instructions on how you can use Basilisk II (the emulator I use the most) to replace the minimal versions of the System Software on my image files with the full (English) versions of systems: 3.2, 4.1, 5.1, 6.0.3, 6.0.5, 6.0.8, 7.0, 7.0.1, 7.1, 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 7.5, 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3, 7.5.5, 7.6, 7.6.1, 8, and 8.1 from an ISO image file created from Apple’s Legacy Software Recovery CD. You can also install non-english versions from the Mac OS Anthology CD, or install from the restoration CD for you system if one exists.
Special note for Basilisk II: unfortunately the BasiliskIIGUI.exe interface that lets you configure Basilisk II will not let you select volume images on a removable drive. You will need to manually edit the BasiliskII_prefs file to add the volumes from the SD card to the list of drives for Basilisk II. E.g. add the line disk F:\drive1\D1HFS_01.dsk
4. Configure your SCSI2SD
Now that you are done setting up your SD card you can insert it in to your SCSI2SD, BUT before you can use your SCSI2SD you need to update the SCSI2SD’s configuration settings so it knows where the 2 drives on the SD card start and stop. The easy way to do this is use the scsi2sd_32GB_FAT32_config.xml file found on the SD card (using scsi2sd-util or scsi2sd-util6, file -> open file -> save to device), but if you want you can also manually enter the settings found in the table and images below:
| Device | Start Sector | Sector Count |
|---|---|---|
| Device 1, SCSI ID 0 | 467086 | 25296964 |
| Device 1, SCSI ID 1 | 25764052 | 33423436 |
5. Using your SCSI2SD
You should now be able to insert your SD card in to your SCSI2SD and connect your SCSI2SD to your powered off 68k or PPC Macintosh system. Turn on your system and assuming there are no SCSI ID conflicts you should now be able to use your emulated hard drive(s). NOTE: for the Macintosh Plus the SCSI2SD needs to be connected to a power source to work, USB power is the easiest.
6. Creating this FAT32 SCSI2SD image
I created this image file for use in my LC475 and Color Classic systems that support my Apple IIe card. For those systems I wanted to have 4 ProDos volumes to have plenty of storage space for the games found on the Total Replay Collection by qkumba and 4am, a collection of games that have been cracked and ported to ProDOS. When creating this, I had to work around a couple of limitations of HD SC Setup:
- The Apple IIe card software will only recognize ProDOS volumes created by HD SC Setup
- I can only make ProDOS volumes if I have the ProDOS extension loaded
- HD SC setup will only allow 2 ProDOS volumes per drive, so I created 2 drives.
- HD SC setup will only allow ProDOS volumes to be 32,767KB, NOT 32MB (32,768KB), therefore I can’t simply copy the 32MB file for the Total Replay Collection on to my card, instead I have to copy the files over using an editor or emulator.
- HD SC setup automatically reduces 2GB volumes I tried to create from 2,097,152KB to 2,097,150KB, so my smaller volume files are 2,097,150KB to support systems running 7.1.x or older.
- HD SC setup has a maximum volume size of 4,161,534KB, 32,770KB less than the full 4GB (4,194,304KB) that is supported by 7.5.x+, so my largest volume files are 4,151,534KB.
After setting up a 28.6GB partition and formatting as FAT32 with 1KB clusters I added the directories (folders) and volume files listed in the table below. The first volume of drive 1, D1HFS_01.dsk contains the minimal version of system 7.5.5 and other software and tools to help you setup your Macintosh System.
| Size (KB) | Name | Description | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1024 | Partition Table | Contains information about the partition on the SD card. There is only one 28.6GB partition. | N/A |
| 232518 | File System | Contains information on the files saved in the exFAT formatted partition (with 1k cluster size) | FAT32 |
| 1 | Directory | drive1, 1KB entry containing directory information | FAT32 |
| 48 | D1.bin | Start Sector = 467,086, Sector Count = 25,296,964 Contains the Apple Driver 4.3, volume block, boot block, and master directory block for the first “drive”. The “drive” was initialized using a patched version of HD_SC_Setup_7.3.5 that supports non-apple drives. | HFS |
| 2097150 | D1HFS_01.dsk | Start Sector = 467,182 HFS formatted volume containing your choice of 4.1, 5.1, 6.0.8, 6.0.8L, 6.0.8P, 7.5.5, or 8.1 (see my downloads page for more details) | HFS |
| 02 to 06.dsk | Start Sectors = 4,661,482 5 more HFS formatted volume, each 2,097,150KB | HFS | |
| 32767 | D1PD_01.dsk | Start Sector = 25,632,982 ProDOS formatted volume for my Apple IIe card | ProDOS |
| 32767 | D1PD_02.dsk | Start Sector = 25,698,516 ProDOS formatted volume | ProDOS |
| 1 | Directory | drive2, 1 KB entry containing directory information | FAT32 |
| 48 | D2.bin | Start Sector = 25,764,052, Sector Count = 33,423,436 Apple Driver 4.3, volume block, boot block, and master directory block | HFS |
| 4161534 | D2HFS_01.dsk | Start Sector = 25,764,148 HFS formatted volume (1K less than 4GB so it can fit on a FAT32 drive) | HFS |
| 02 to 04.dsk | Start Sector = 34,087,216 3 more HFS formatted volumes, each 4161534 KB | HFS | |
| 32767 | D2PD_01.dsk | Start Sector = 59,056,420 ProDOS formatted volume | ProDOS |
| 32767 | D2PD_02.dks | Start Sector = 59,121,954 ProDOS formatted volume | ProDOS |
