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Using Magneto Optical drives on vintage 68k Macs

Posted by: MrFahrenheit on 2023-02-26 08:17:46

I’m starting to see a repetitive issue that I might have narrowed down to the MDF magneto optical extension 2.3.8.

I get random Finder crashes when copying from a MO disk on Mac OS 7.6.1 on my recapped and overclocked Mac LC 475 with a full 68040 CPU. The CPU is certified for 40mhz and it’s a real one.

I have changed out physical MO drives, replaced SCSI cables and terminators. Booted clean installs. And still, when coping I get a random freeze. Sometimes I can get only 10MB into a file copy before it freezes and sometimes I can get a couple of disk swaps of copies before I get another freeze.

Has anyone else seen a freeze copying files in the finder with this extension enabled? I’ve experienced the problem even when copying from a different drive, with that extension enabled, but no compatible MO drive connected on the system.

I just realized that extension might be the cause of the issues I’m having so I’m going to spend the morning troubleshooting without it installed.

I also saw this issue last year with my G3 beige board copying from MO disks under Mac OS 8.1 and I thought it was something else. Same M.O. (pun intended).

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-02-26 11:19:51

You could give the Pinnacle Micro driver a try, see if it still crashes.

Posted by: zefrenchtoon on 2023-02-26 12:18:58

I’ve found a Verbatim driver that was on a Mac formatted disk back in the days. I don’t remember if I uploaded it or not on the Garden. Do you want to test it ?
Else I used Drivor to manage my MO drives … I have to upload it on the garden.

Edit: here is the first one:

MO Disk Master - Macintosh Garden

MO Disk Master is an alternate driver for use with magneto-optical cartridge drives that features built-in disk caching. Extracted from the README that is inside the archive: 2.1 WHAT IS MO DISK MASTER?

macintoshgarden.org

Posted by: MrFahrenheit on 2023-02-26 13:33:44

Still freezing so it’s not extension related. Thanks for the suggestions though.

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-02-27 12:12:14

@zefrenchtoon Ooo, thanks for the new driver. Didn't know they had one.

@MrFahrenheit One of my MO drives that I transplanted into an external case would cause my computer to crash. Turned out to be SCSI termination. Something about the case just didn't work, even with a terminator and set to the last ID.

Posted by: MrFahrenheit on 2023-02-27 12:54:00

@zefrenchtoon Ooo, thanks for the new driver. Didn't know they had one.

@MrFahrenheit One of my MO drives that I transplanted into an external case would cause my computer to crash. Turned out to be SCSI termination. Something about the case just didn't work, even with a terminator and set to the last ID.

I've solved the problem, with a few steps taken. The final step that resolved the issue was changing out the Mac logic board. Something glitchy with the board I was using, which this was happening on.

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-02-27 12:54:12

@zefrenchtoon @MrFahrenheit That Verbatim driver lead me to discover MacPEAK who wrote lots of different drivers. They have SpotOn and SuperSpot, which I can't really tell the difference. Then there's the Verbatim one that was written by MacPEAK and called "Cache Utility," but doesn't match either SpotOn or SuperSpot.

According to MacWorld March 1994 issue, SpotOn and SuperSpot are two different products. SuperSpot is listed at $150 with SpotOn $100, so I would assume that SuperSpot is either a more feature-rich product, or, a newer version of SpotOn. However, the versions uploaded to Macintosh Garden would lead me to believe otherwise given their copyright dates. *shrug*

Posted by: MrFahrenheit on 2023-02-27 12:57:32

I’ve found a Verbatim driver that was on a Mac formatted disk back in the days. I don’t remember if I uploaded it or not on the Garden. Do you want to test it ?
Else I used Drivor to manage my MO drives … I have to upload it on the garden.

Edit: here is the first one:

MO Disk Master - Macintosh Garden

MO Disk Master is an alternate driver for use with magneto-optical cartridge drives that features built-in disk caching. Extracted from the README that is inside the archive: 2.1 WHAT IS MO DISK MASTER?

macintoshgarden.org

Thank you @zefrenchtoon for finding and uploading that driver! Really appreciated!!

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-02-27 18:52:04

Neither SuperSpot nor SpotOn would mount my 2GB MO disk. Nor does the Verbatim. However, I did not erase the disk using their software. It may be that they require the disk to have the MacPEAK disk driver installed before the extension can work with it.

Incidentally, I may have run into a memory issue with the Fujitsu driver. So I'm going to try the Pinnacle driver for a while.

Edit: Tried a 230MB disk and it worked fine. So those particular drivers may not work with higher capacity disks, or, has the software version of the pre-3.2.6 JackHammer bug where it won't work with disks with sector sizes larger than 512b.

Posted by: zefrenchtoon on 2023-02-28 02:43:54

Thank you @zefrenchtoon for finding and uploading that driver! Really appreciated!!

You're welcome!

My father used MO drives to backup its data between 1995 and 2000-ish.
We had a 230 then a 640 drive but we used mainly 230 disks and some of them were sold as "Mac Format".
I've found this driver on one of my old SCSI HDD.
Also, we had different software with our drives ("Drivor" was one of them). I have to find enough time to backup all of them on the Garden.

About Drivor, I did a post on the Garden's forum:

Drivor Suite (SCSI disk management tools) - Macintosh Garden

Hi everyone Back in the days, with a MO drive my father bought, we got a copy of a scsi disk management tool named « Drivor Light ». I was pretty sure that a non « Light » version existed but never found out at that time. A few days ago, I have found this tool on a old backup CD I burnt at that...

macintoshgarden.org

Here are some screenshots of it:

Mot de passe PowerBook 520c

J’ai acheté un lot pour pièces de deux PowerBook ( 165c + 520c), les deux fonctionne, mais sur le 520c, il me demande un mot de passe que je n’ai pas (évidemment). C’était un ordinateur professionnel à mon avis car celui-ci possède une étiquette (qui s’enlève par chance) pour signaler un antivol...

forums.macg.co

About our 640 drive, it was unstable. 🙁
Now, it seems to want to "eject" even if there is no disk in it. (DynaMO 640SE if any of you have an idea)

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-02-28 08:41:36

@zefrenchtoon Wow, thanks! I don't know why I'm obsessed with the drivers as much as the media and drives themselves. 😀 I just love MO tech. It's so cool. I think because it's similar tech to all the other cartridge systems, but nearly identical size as a floppy disk for the 3.5" version. The 5.25" versions just look like oversized 3.5" floppy disks. Very aesthetically pleasing. 🙂

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-02-28 08:44:16

Just an update: So far no memory leak issues with the Pinnacle driver. I was running out of System memory (Finder?) when using the Fujitsu driver, making it impossible to do something as simple as Get Info or copy a file. But I'll need to do some more comprehensive tests. It could also have been an extension conflict of some sort causing the memory issues.

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-02-28 08:49:46

About our 640 drive, it was unstable. 🙁
Now, it seems to want to "eject" even if there is no disk in it. (DynaMO 640SE if any of you have an idea)

I wonder if it has a button similar to a floppy drive to tell it when it has a disk inserted. If that's the case, then it may just need some contact cleaner sprayed into it, press the button a bunch, and give it another go. If the button is stuck (which can happen in a regular floppy) it'll constantly attempt to eject because it thinks there's a disk, can't read it, then ejects.

Posted by: MrFahrenheit on 2023-03-12 10:00:26

Just to update this thread, I've found the best solution for MO disks and drives is this formatting tool:

Disk Drive TuneUp - Macintosh Garden

Disk Drive TuneUp offers a comprehensive "all-in-one" storage solution available for fixed and removable storage devices. #1 v3.1.4 #2 v2.0.6

macintoshgarden.org

It includes an extension that can mount MO disks, and when the disks are formatted with that tool, they are fully bootable. It works with 3.5" and 5.25" MO disks, of capacities all the way up to 9.1GB, and fully supports System 7 through Mac OS X.

Posted by: zefrenchtoon on 2023-03-13 01:04:26

Just to update this thread, I've found the best solution for MO disks and drives is this formatting tool:

Disk Drive TuneUp - Macintosh Garden

Disk Drive TuneUp offers a comprehensive "all-in-one" storage solution available for fixed and removable storage devices. #1 v3.1.4 #2 v2.0.6

macintoshgarden.org

It includes an extension that can mount MO disks, and when the disks are formatted with that tool, they are fully bootable. It works with 3.5" and 5.25" MO disks, of capacities all the way up to 9.1GB, and fully supports System 7 through Mac OS X.

It was me who shared the old version on this page 😅
I recall to have used it too to manage my father's MO drives.
It was along with the Verbatim one on my HDD.

Posted by: zefrenchtoon on 2023-03-13 01:05:46

@zefrenchtoon Wow, thanks! I don't know why I'm obsessed with the drivers as much as the media and drives themselves. 😀 I just love MO tech. It's so cool. I think because it's similar tech to all the other cartridge systems, but nearly identical size as a floppy disk for the 3.5" version. The 5.25" versions just look like oversized 3.5" floppy disks. Very aesthetically pleasing. 🙂

I love it too and I am like you about drivers 😀
That's why I saved the Verbatim one long time ago.

Posted by: zefrenchtoon on 2023-03-30 08:14:43

Hello!

Does anyone buy one of these ?

FUJITSU MCM3130AP IDE 1.3GB MO Magnetic Optical Drive 283406149485 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for FUJITSU MCM3130AP IDE 1.3GB MO Magnetic Optical Drive at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

It seems very cheap for a NOS drive, no ? 😵 🤔

It would be great to be able to put one in my 6100 ... 🤩

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-03-30 08:28:58

@zefrenchtoon That one is IDE, not SCSI.

Same seller has 2.3GB SCSi version for $120, which is the highest capacity drive.

Fujitsu MCR3230SS 2.3GB 50-pin SCSI MO drive | eBay

Product Model: MCR3230SS. Manufacturer: Fujitsu. We keep our promises that we will provide you with the best solution within 24 hours.

www.ebay.com

And here's the SCSI version of the drive you were just looking at for $90, just $10 more:

Fujitsu MCM3130SS Magneto-Optical Disk Drive - Silver for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Fujitsu MCM3130SS Magneto-Optical Disk Drive - Silver at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-03-30 08:35:01

And the 640MB drive for just $70:

Fujitsu magneto-optical disk drive MO MCC3064SS 640M SCSI interface 50-pin | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Fujitsu magneto-optical disk drive MO MCC3064SS 640M SCSI interface 50-pin at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Honestly, the 640MB media is the best value. It's a very common capacity and usually fairly cheap relative to the 1.3GB and 2.3GB media.

Posted by: olePigeon on 2023-03-30 08:36:07

Also, all those drives are backwards compatible with smaller capacity media. So if you go with the 2.3GB drive, you can still buy and use the cheaper 640MB media. Every now and then someone lists 1.3GB and 2.3GB media without price gouging. I've managed to collect 5 2.3GB disks over the years for about $10 a disk. It's rare, but not impossible

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