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Bootable disk creation
Posted by: mattdy4 on 2019-09-09 13:44:08
I want to make a bootable disk that has Lido on it.  I've tried burning an image of Disk Tools to floppy and removing all the unneeded extensions etc but I still can't successfully fit it all on a 1.44MB floppy.  Anyone have any hints or tips on how I can do this?  I need to be able to format my new 1GB SCSI drive and patched SC HD tools doesn't find it so hoping Lido will

TIA!
Posted by: gpz500 on 2019-09-17 06:07:09
Hello @mattdy4,

same problem as yours and I solved with... two floppies  ;-) !

First I've prepared a boot floppy (System 7.5.x) with RAMDisk+; then I've prepared another floppy containing only Lido.

RAMDisk+ has a specific option to "pivot" between real floppy and ram disk volume as the system volume: with this option activated, after the boot the ram disk becomes the system volume and then you can insert any other floppies with no problem. I have a Macintosh SE/30 with 20 MB RAM but, if I remember well, with this boot floppy only 8 MB are available (1.44 MB of them occupied by the ram disk), so 8 MB are sufficient to run the ram disk, Lido, and the system software.
Posted by: LaPorta on 2019-09-17 06:26:26
Or, even though it is a pain, you can just do floppy swap to get done what you need.
Posted by: olePigeon on 2019-09-17 09:51:36
A good investment would be an external SCSI drive of some sort.  Could be a HDD, or Optical Drive, or Zip Drive; pretty much anything that you can use to install a bootable system with all the utilities you could need.  I have a Magento Optical drive with a 2.1 GB disk (same size as a floppy disk.)  I have System 7.1 loaded on it along with Lido, FWB, Anubis, and Drive Setup.  If those utilities can't erase something, then it can't be erased. 😛

Alternatively, if your Mac has an external floppy port on the rear, you could connect an external floppy drive.  If you get the "Apple 3.5" Drive" you can swap out the 800K mechanism with a 1.4MB one.  Your computer will then have two SuperDrives and no need for disk swapping.
Posted by: Cory5412 on 2019-09-18 13:26:21
What system is this for? You might start with a 7.1 bare install or the 7.5 network access disk and then take out the networking components you aren't using and any existing executables like simpletext/teachtext.

I second getting something external to use for this, however. Zip would be good, even though I don't like them, they are good for things like this.

CD-ROM would be another more ideal option, in the sense that CD discs are more reliable, but I know sometimes working CD drives are at almost as much of a premium as anything else.

EDIT: TO be clear here, there's a few different ways you could go:

  • Boot from a floppy diskette, and insert a CD that has the utilities you want to use.
  • Boot from a CD and insert a diskette with the utilities you want to use.
  • Boot from a CD that has had the utilities you want to use added to it.


All of this applies to "or other removable/external media" as well. A 100 megabyte Zip disk for beige PowerPC Macs would fit a minimal 8.1 installation, networking drivers/software (enough to hop on vtools, for example) and several utilities, for example.
Posted by: LazarusNine on 2023-09-03 02:39:34
Hello @mattdy4,

same problem as yours and I solved with... two floppies ;-) !

First I've prepared a boot floppy (System 7.5.x) with RAMDisk+; then I've prepared another floppy containing only Lido.

RAMDisk+ has a specific option to "pivot" between real floppy and ram disk volume as the system volume: with this option activated, after the boot the ram disk becomes the system volume and then you can insert any other floppies with no problem. I have a Macintosh SE/30 with 20 MB RAM but, if I remember well, with this boot floppy only 8 MB are available (1.44 MB of them occupied by the ram disk), so 8 MB are sufficient to run the ram disk, Lido, and the system software.
I'm digging up this thread simply to thank @gpz500 for this recommendation. It's transformed my experience of trying to format tricky SCSI drives. Booting from a RAMDisk and being able to swap in an additional floppy on my FloppyEmu is such a great solution.
Posted by: ArmorAlley on 2023-09-03 02:55:28
For Macs with 68030 processors and ROM-SIMM slots, a ROMinator II ROM SIMM is also a very handy option.
I have one in my IIfx.

p.s. I second @olePigeon's suggestion of removable media drives with SCSI ports. They are very useful indeed and can act as sneakernet when your network is down too. If you have the equivalent drive with USB/FW then you can move disks between later systems anmd your older systems too.
Posted by: LazarusNine on 2023-09-03 03:24:50
For Macs with 68030 processors and ROM-SIMM slots, a ROMinator II ROM SIMM is also a very handy option.
I have one in my IIfx.
I have a ROMinator II, but don’t really know what to do with it. What’s the benefit of having it in, say, a IIx? I messed about with it in an SE/30 once, but with the default setup on the ROMinator, I didn’t really know what its utility was. I also don’t have a way of editing the ROMinator, as I didn’t pick up that little unit bigmessowires was selling alongside the SIMM.
Posted by: Phipli on 2023-09-03 03:37:43
I have a ROMinator II, but don’t really know what to do with it. What’s the benefit of having it in, say, a IIx? I messed about with it in an SE/30 once, but with the default setup on the ROMinator, I didn’t really know what its utility was. I also don’t have a way of editing the ROMinator, as I didn’t pick up that little unit bigmessowires was selling alongside the SIMM.
You can boot directly from it, and it is 32bit clean. It also skips the RAM test, which is handy if you have 128MB RAM, but can be a mixed blessing if your RAM starts playing up, because it masks the issue.
Posted by: LazarusNine on 2023-09-03 04:20:19
You can boot directly from it, and it is 32bit clean. It also skips the RAM test, which is handy if you have 128MB RAM, but can be a mixed blessing if your RAM starts playing up, because it masks the issue.
Ah yes, cheers. Just looking at the spec page on bigmessowires’s site. I’d forgotten about the bootable ROM image. I didn’t originally see the utility of the 32-bit clean aspect, as I’ve always just used Mode32 once a system was up and running. I can see the utility of HD20 support if ever I figure out how to get some system files over to it and boot it from the FloppyEmu.
Posted by: Phipli on 2023-09-03 04:24:50
I didn’t originally see the utility of the 32-bit clean aspect, as I’ve always just used Mode32 once a system was up and running.
You can't boot System 7.6.* with Mode32, but you can with a ROMinator.
Posted by: CC_333 on 2023-09-03 16:59:47
You can't boot System 7.6.* with Mode32, but you can with a ROMinator.
And, with either some System file patching or an '040 upgrade, 8.0 and 8.1 become possible to boot as well.

c
Posted by: Phipli on 2023-09-03 17:03:16
And, with either some System file patching or an '040 upgrade, 8.0 and 8.1 become possible to boot as well.

c
Perhaps not on a 16MHz 68030. Unless you have nothing better to do this week while it boots.
Posted by: CC_333 on 2023-09-03 17:21:49
Perhaps not on a 16MHz 68030. Unless you have nothing better to do this week while it boots.
Perhaps.

I vaguely recall reading reports that it actually does boot and run at a usable speed, surprisingly, so maybe it's not as bad as one would think?

Of course, anything 7.6 or below would absolutely be faster (and probably more reliable), but running 8.1 on a 16 MHz '030 definitely qualifies as one of those "Because I Can!" exercises.

c
Posted by: s_pupp on 2023-09-03 20:03:21
Perhaps.

I vaguely recall reading reports that it actually does boot and run at a usable speed, surprisingly, so maybe it's not as bad as one would think?

Of course, anything 7.6 or below would absolutely be faster (and probably more reliable), but running 8.1 on a 16 MHz '030 definitely qualifies as one of those "Because I Can!" exercises.

c
I remember getting 8.1 to run on a SE/30 being a popular project back around 2005 or so. I have a vague recollection of doing it myself, but seem to have left no evidence of this other than a folder on my MDD G4 full of “wishyouwere” and gestalt changers etc, and a IIfx ROM SIMM labeled “for SE/30.” I don’t currently have an SE/30 running anything over 7.5.5.
Posted by: ArmorAlley on 2023-09-03 22:49:17
I vaguely recall reading reports that it actually does boot and run at a usable speed, surprisingly, so maybe it's not as bad as one would think
I don't know about the 16MHz 68030 but Mac OS 8.1 runs agreeably well on my IIfx with 32MB RAM.
Posted by: LazarusNine on 2023-09-04 08:01:15
I must have a pretty early model ROMinator II, because instead of the useful disk utilities described on Steve’s website, I’ve got a system folder and a bunch of games strewn about in a window. It would have been nice to have the patched version of HD SC Setup, SDSIProbe, and ResEdit. It’s not a big deal, as I can simply launch necessary utilities using the FloppyEmu, but it’s clearly something he’s thought about in the ensuing years since first releasing the ROMinator II.
Posted by: CC_333 on 2023-09-04 13:11:05
I must have a pretty early model ROMinator II, because instead of the useful disk utilities described on Steve’s website, I’ve got a system folder and a bunch of games strewn about in a window. It would have been nice to have the patched version of HD SC Setup, SDSIProbe, and ResEdit. It’s not a big deal, as I can simply launch necessary utilities using the FloppyEmu, but it’s clearly something he’s thought about in the ensuing years since first releasing the ROMinator II.
If you have a programmer, or know someone who does, you can probably reprogram it with an updated image that would make it consistent with the description on the website.

c
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