Apple IIGS disk and hard drive formatting help please!

[A Black Falcon]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this question, but I hope that someone can help...

 

So, I gave in to childhood memories (kind of) in my most recent addition to my collection when I got an Apple IIGS.  I say 'kind of' because I mostly remember the Apple IIe and not the GS, but still, it's an Apple II-line machine.  I've got a bunch of stuff for it since but it's been one seriously steep learning curve; this machine is extremely complex and hard to learn in a way that other old computers I have (TI99/4A, C64/128, VIC-20...) aren't.  That I am used to PCs and not Macs (I've been a PC user since the early '90s) and this is the first Apple machine I've ever owned doesn't make figuring out how to do anything in the OS any easier, that's for sure.

 

But I've figured a lot of it out, and really like this machine for the most part.  I got lucky and got a working  IIGs with the original monitor and a SCSI card for a reasonable price.  It is the revision C regular-speed card and not the high speed card, so it's slow, but still, it's really cool to have.  It is a ROM 01 system. To that, I ended up getting a SCSI2SD v5.5 card for a hard drive; I know the Compact Flash-based modern cards you can get would be much faster, but this was a bit cheaper and uses much more convenient SD cards. I don't own any Compact Flash anything, I'd need a reader for them and such if I got one of those cards.  With external USB power the SCSI2SD works, it's just got really slow transfer speeds when moving files to or from it on the Apple II.  Game load times and such are fine though, as expected with how small they are.  I also ended up getting a modern 8MB RAM expansion, and have been running GSOS 6.04 on the SCSI2SD.  It works and I've tried a bunch of games and such on it, great stuff.

 

I got a compatible keyboard and mouse for it and they work great.   I also replaced the clock/settings battery.  Fortunately the old, original one showed no sign of leaking. For disk drives, all I currently have are two 5.25" disk drives, a DuoDisk drive and a solo 5.25" drive, for original Apple II/IIe software running from disk.  Both seem to work, though I have some issues that ... may be software and not hardware problems I think?  I really don't know, please help.  I do want to get a working 3.5" drive for Apple IIGS software but haven't gotten one yet.  I will eventually...

 

So what are the problems I made this thread for?  There are two main ones and they are really, really frustrating me.

 

1) Hard drive partitioning.  So, as I said, I have a SCSI2SD 5.5 connected to the IIGS via its original regular speed revision C Apple SCSI card.  Note, the SCSI card is in slot 7. I've got an 8GB micro SD card in it, partitioned into four 2GB virtual drives in the SCSI2SD configuration software (on my PC, which is right next to the IIGS).  Here's the issue though, what do I need to do to get more partitions on this thing?  I know that natively the Apple II only supports two 32MB ProDos partitions per drive.  In the GSOS 6.04 Finder, all I can do is reformat existing partitions, or format one partition on a drive.  When I added the "fourth" virtual drive to the micro SD card for example, GSOS recognized it and let me put one partition on the drive, either a 32MB ProDOS partition or a 2GB HFS partition.  If there's a way in GSOS to do more than one partition, which I very much need, I have absolutely no idea where it is.  Is there some tool for this on a disc somewhere?  I did find a (Apple IIe or such) drive partitioning tool from Apple that let me create two 32MB partitions per drive, but that's all.  I think I heard that on a IIGS there is some way of having more than two 32MB ProDos partitions on the same drive?  What does THIS, do you need a High Speed SCSI card or a CFFA3000 (these are now insanely expensive, no thanks) or something? Drive partitioning has me incredibly confused, why does GSOS only let you format ONE partition per drive, that makes no sense.  Unless there's a tools disk I'm missing with the key tool on it that works with the regular, not high speed, SCSI card?  (There probably is, this system has a million tools disks available online...)

 

1-A) The other drive partitioning problem I have is with the Apple IIGS and CiderPress on my PC often not recognizing the partitions on the micro SD card.  Now, my PC SD card reader sadly broke a few days ago and I haven't bought a new one yet so I can't add files to the IIGS at the moment (I will get a replacement), but managing to get partitions that both the PC and Apple IIGS can both see was really frustrating.  Last time I checked, of the partitions on that card, the Apple IIGS currently sees, on "virtual drive" one, two 32MB ProDos partitions.  I imagine there's some way to format the rest of it as HFS or more ProDos partitions but as I said if so I have no idea how.  The second and third virtual drives have only one 2GB HFS partition each, though I may change this if I can, more ProDos partitions as well as HFS ones would be better (since you can't load 8-bit software from HFS).  CiderPress on my PC cannot see the second or third virtual drives AT ALL however so the only way to get software on them is to copy it over excruciatingly slowly, one ProDos partition at a time, on the one non-boot ProDos partition on drive one that CiderPress does see.  This is really a pain, why is this?  Drive four currently has just one ProDos partition and needs more.  I'm not sure if CiderPress can see it or not (again, broken SD reader).

 

1-B) For one more comment on CiderPress, it's a good program but it sure would be nice if it could format drives with an Apple Partition Map that the computer could recognize!  You know, with choices for the size and number of partitions and such.  That it can't is seriously annoying and a big pain, honestly... there are ways around this problem, as I have read online, but that'd make it a lot simpler.  It took a while to just manage to get a partition on the SD card that the computer could actually see.  I had to do a fair amount of research online to get to that point.  But anyway, I got that done and it boots fine now.  I just don't want to mess up that boot partition, heh...

 

With how many problems I've had with the 'put files on the SD Card on my PC and then put it into the Apple',  I think I'm going to get an ADTPro cable and such just to make the transfer process maybe easier...

 

But with that

 

 

2) Floppy disk drives.  So, as I said I have those two 5.25" drives... well three really with how one is a DuoDisk.  The solo drive and the first drive in the DuoDisk can both load the handful of legit Apple II disks that I have if you boot the system from the drive.  Turn computer on with boot set to boot from the floppy drives first, it'll boot the disk.  Okay, that's good.  There are glitches in the program in some disks but that could well be issues with the disks themselves, I'm not sure; it's the same on both drives.   I don't know what the problem is, but the disks do boot and run.   I haven't managed to quit out of any of these disks to a command prompt that allows me to use the "catalog" or "init" commands, when I try from the prompt it just gives an error message, but maybe I just don't have disks that let me do that?  I don't know this format well enough to know.  But the few legit disks I have do boot on these drives, and you can use the programs.

 

2-A) However, in GSOS (6.04), I can't manage to get the disk drives to work AT ALL.  I can't format disks, can't load these disks or view the files on them, can't do anything.  My guess is that the disks are copy protected, and on the Apple II a copy protected disk can't even be VIEWED in the OS?  That's got to be it, yes?  That's a pretty insanely annoying restriction if true!  Legit disks that only function if booted cold but otherwise act like they're blank disks with unknown formatting on them... how strange. Okay though, if that's what it is I get it. 

 

2-B) That's not the main problem, however.  Formatting blank disks is.  I have a box of IBM formatted blank DS/DD 5.25" disks. I've used them on my PC and, after reformatting them on a  Commodore disk drive, on my C128 for Commodore 64 software as well.  [I don't have a disk emulator for the Commodore, only an XU1541.) These disks work great on my Commodore 128 and 1541 disk drive. (Yes, I know that I can only use one side of each disk because they only have a notch on one side, these are single-sided drives, and I don't have a disk notcher.  I badly need to get one but still have not.  But for the Apple this will only matter once I actually figure out why I can't format them at all...) I'm pretty sure that the Apple II uses double density disks, just like the C64/128, so these should be the correct disks. 

 

So why do I get an error message every time that I try to format a disk in GSOS?  In the DuoDisk, when I try to format a disk in GSOS in the first drive it fails almost immediately with error "Unknown error: $0008".  In the second drive in the DuoDisk it seems to work better, and I get the expected disk drive sounds... until it fails out with "Unknown Error: $00A8" after some time making noises.  It does not format the disks.  In the solo drive the same thing happens as this one, a fairly quick Unknown Error: $00A8 and it gives up.  I think the system is good, it claims to be working in the self-test.  These same disks can load stuff if booted straight from the disk.  So what in the WORLD is the problem here, this is really an issue... I need to be able to use real disks in order to use an older computer, and you can't do much of that when it won't format them!  Of course it won't read formatted disks either, as I mention above, but that could be a copy protection issue?  Unless I am missing some file the system needs to make disk drives work correctly in GSOS?  I've tried a few games that have a 'format save disk' function and I have no more luck there, it doesn't work.  I've seen (quite incorrect) 'the disk is write protected' errors for example.  I need help.  Is the problem the drives, the disks, the computer?  Or am I just missing some critical step?

 

Lastly, on a related note:

 

3) How exactly do I add things to the GSOS's Apple menu on the left? System Tools or whatever.  And which should I want to add?

 

On one final note, it sure would be nice if you could make the screen image wider, the borders on this monitor are massive and the monitor really small (this is the official IIGS monitor; it's 12", right).  One of the knobs makes the image taller, but you can't make it any wider.  Oh well, it's awesome to have the real monitor and that's what's most important by far.  That and that as far as I can tell everything works perfectly hardware-wise.

 

I'm sorry this is so long but I've been thinking about and working on this machine a lot for some weeks now and I'm kind of stuck.  I particularly would like any advice with the floppy disk formatting problem.

[GameGeezer]

D

On 5/28/2021 at 8:07 AM, A Black Falcon said:

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this question, but I hope that someone can help...

 

So, I gave in to childhood memories (kind of) in my most recent addition to my collection when I got an Apple IIGS.  I say 'kind of' because I mostly remember the Apple IIe and not the GS, but still, it's an Apple II-line machine.  I've got a bunch of stuff for it since but it's been one seriously steep learning curve; this machine is extremely complex and hard to learn in a way that other old computers I have (TI99/4A, C64/128, VIC-20...) aren't.  That I am used to PCs and not Macs (I've been a PC user since the early '90s) and this is the first Apple machine I've ever owned doesn't make figuring out how to do anything in the OS any easier, that's for sure.

 

But I've figured a lot of it out, and really like this machine for the most part.  I got lucky and got a working  IIGs with the original monitor and a SCSI card for a reasonable price.  It is the revision C regular-speed card and not the high speed card, so it's slow, but still, it's really cool to have.  It is a ROM 01 system. To that, I ended up getting a SCSI2SD v5.5 card for a hard drive; I know the Compact Flash-based modern cards you can get would be much faster, but this was a bit cheaper and uses much more convenient SD cards. I don't own any Compact Flash anything, I'd need a reader for them and such if I got one of those cards.  With external USB power the SCSI2SD works, it's just got really slow transfer speeds when moving files to or from it on the Apple II.  Game load times and such are fine though, as expected with how small they are.  I also ended up getting a modern 8MB RAM expansion, and have been running GSOS 6.04 on the SCSI2SD.  It works and I've tried a bunch of games and such on it, great stuff.

 

I got a compatible keyboard and mouse for it and they work great.   I also replaced the clock/settings battery.  Fortunately the old, original one showed no sign of leaking. For disk drives, all I currently have are two 5.25" disk drives, a DuoDisk drive and a solo 5.25" drive, for original Apple II/IIe software running from disk.  Both seem to work, though I have some issues that ... may be software and not hardware problems I think?  I really don't know, please help.  I do want to get a working 3.5" drive for Apple IIGS software but haven't gotten one yet.  I will eventually...

 

So what are the problems I made this thread for?  There are two main ones and they are really, really frustrating me.

 

1) Hard drive partitioning.  So, as I said, I have a SCSI2SD 5.5 connected to the IIGS via its original regular speed revision C Apple SCSI card.  Note, the SCSI card is in slot 7. I've got an 8GB micro SD card in it, partitioned into four 2GB virtual drives in the SCSI2SD configuration software (on my PC, which is right next to the IIGS).  Here's the issue though, what do I need to do to get more partitions on this thing?  I know that natively the Apple II only supports two 32MB ProDos partitions per drive.  In the GSOS 6.04 Finder, all I can do is reformat existing partitions, or format one partition on a drive.  When I added the "fourth" virtual drive to the micro SD card for example, GSOS recognized it and let me put one partition on the drive, either a 32MB ProDOS partition or a 2GB HFS partition.  If there's a way in GSOS to do more than one partition, which I very much need, I have absolutely no idea where it is.  Is there some tool for this on a disc somewhere?  I did find a (Apple IIe or such) drive partitioning tool from Apple that let me create two 32MB partitions per drive, but that's all.  I think I heard that on a IIGS there is some way of having more than two 32MB ProDos partitions on the same drive?  What does THIS, do you need a High Speed SCSI card or a CFFA3000 (these are now insanely expensive, no thanks) or something? Drive partitioning has me incredibly confused, why does GSOS only let you format ONE partition per drive, that makes no sense.  Unless there's a tools disk I'm missing with the key tool on it that works with the regular, not high speed, SCSI card?  (There probably is, this system has a million tools disks available online...)

 

1-A) The other drive partitioning problem I have is with the Apple IIGS and CiderPress on my PC often not recognizing the partitions on the micro SD card.  Now, my PC SD card reader sadly broke a few days ago and I haven't bought a new one yet so I can't add files to the IIGS at the moment (I will get a replacement), but managing to get partitions that both the PC and Apple IIGS can both see was really frustrating.  Last time I checked, of the partitions on that card, the Apple IIGS currently sees, on "virtual drive" one, two 32MB ProDos partitions.  I imagine there's some way to format the rest of it as HFS or more ProDos partitions but as I said if so I have no idea how.  The second and third virtual drives have only one 2GB HFS partition each, though I may change this if I can, more ProDos partitions as well as HFS ones would be better (since you can't load 8-bit software from HFS).  CiderPress on my PC cannot see the second or third virtual drives AT ALL however so the only way to get software on them is to copy it over excruciatingly slowly, one ProDos partition at a time, on the one non-boot ProDos partition on drive one that CiderPress does see.  This is really a pain, why is this?  Drive four currently has just one ProDos partition and needs more.  I'm not sure if CiderPress can see it or not (again, broken SD reader).

 

1-B) For one more comment on CiderPress, it's a good program but it sure would be nice if it could format drives with an Apple Partition Map that the computer could recognize!  You know, with choices for the size and number of partitions and such.  That it can't is seriously annoying and a big pain, honestly... there are ways around this problem, as I have read online, but that'd make it a lot simpler.  It took a while to just manage to get a partition on the SD card that the computer could actually see.  I had to do a fair amount of research online to get to that point.  But anyway, I got that done and it boots fine now.  I just don't want to mess up that boot partition, heh...

 

With how many problems I've had with the 'put files on the SD Card on my PC and then put it into the Apple',  I think I'm going to get an ADTPro cable and such just to make the transfer process maybe easier...

 

But with that

 

 

2) Floppy disk drives.  So, as I said I have those two 5.25" drives... well three really with how one is a DuoDisk.  The solo drive and the first drive in the DuoDisk can both load the handful of legit Apple II disks that I have if you boot the system from the drive.  Turn computer on with boot set to boot from the floppy drives first, it'll boot the disk.  Okay, that's good.  There are glitches in the program in some disks but that could well be issues with the disks themselves, I'm not sure; it's the same on both drives.   I don't know what the problem is, but the disks do boot and run.   I haven't managed to quit out of any of these disks to a command prompt that allows me to use the "catalog" or "init" commands, when I try from the prompt it just gives an error message, but maybe I just don't have disks that let me do that?  I don't know this format well enough to know.  But the few legit disks I have do boot on these drives, and you can use the programs.

 

2-A) However, in GSOS (6.04), I can't manage to get the disk drives to work AT ALL.  I can't format disks, can't load these disks or view the files on them, can't do anything.  My guess is that the disks are copy protected, and on the Apple II a copy protected disk can't even be VIEWED in the OS?  That's got to be it, yes?  That's a pretty insanely annoying restriction if true!  Legit disks that only function if booted cold but otherwise act like they're blank disks with unknown formatting on them... how strange. Okay though, if that's what it is I get it. 

 

2-B) That's not the main problem, however.  Formatting blank disks is.  I have a box of IBM formatted blank DS/DD 5.25" disks. I've used them on my PC and, after reformatting them on a  Commodore disk drive, on my C128 for Commodore 64 software as well.  [I don't have a disk emulator for the Commodore, only an XU1541.) These disks work great on my Commodore 128 and 1541 disk drive. (Yes, I know that I can only use one side of each disk because they only have a notch on one side, these are single-sided drives, and I don't have a disk notcher.  I badly need to get one but still have not.  But for the Apple this will only matter once I actually figure out why I can't format them at all...) I'm pretty sure that the Apple II uses double density disks, just like the C64/128, so these should be the correct disks. 

 

So why do I get an error message every time that I try to format a disk in GSOS?  In the DuoDisk, when I try to format a disk in GSOS in the first drive it fails almost immediately with error "Unknown error: $0008".  In the second drive in the DuoDisk it seems to work better, and I get the expected disk drive sounds... until it fails out with "Unknown Error: $00A8" after some time making noises.  It does not format the disks.  In the solo drive the same thing happens as this one, a fairly quick Unknown Error: $00A8 and it gives up.  I think the system is good, it claims to be working in the self-test.  These same disks can load stuff if booted straight from the disk.  So what in the WORLD is the problem here, this is really an issue... I need to be able to use real disks in order to use an older computer, and you can't do much of that when it won't format them!  Of course it won't read formatted disks either, as I mention above, but that could be a copy protection issue?  Unless I am missing some file the system needs to make disk drives work correctly in GSOS?  I've tried a few games that have a 'format save disk' function and I have no more luck there, it doesn't work.  I've seen (quite incorrect) 'the disk is write protected' errors for example.  I need help.  Is the problem the drives, the disks, the computer?  Or am I just missing some critical step?

 

Lastly, on a related note:

 

3) How exactly do I add things to the GSOS's Apple menu on the left? System Tools or whatever.  And which should I want to add?

 

On one final note, it sure would be nice if you could make the screen image wider, the borders on this monitor are massive and the monitor really small (this is the official IIGS monitor; it's 12", right).  One of the knobs makes the image taller, but you can't make it any wider.  Oh well, it's awesome to have the real monitor and that's what's most important by far.  That and that as far as I can tell everything works perfectly hardware-wise.

 

I'm sorry this is so long but I've been thinking about and working on this machine a lot for some weeks now and I'm kind of stuck.  I particularly would like any advice with the floppy disk formatting problem.

Do you still need help, or have you sorted this?

[A Black Falcon]

14 hours ago, GameGeezer said:

D

Do you still need help, or have you sorted this?

Hello, yes, thank you for the reply. I'd love to have help with any of these issues, if there is anything you can help with!  I have more questions about this fairly confusing platform as well, but I focused on the most important ones there.  Honestly, since making this thread some months ago I kind of gave up on the IIGS for a while.  I have gotten a few things for it and used it some, but... I mean, it works, but this stuff, as well as some other issues I did not mention in the thread, are so confusing and foreign to a lifelong PC user like me.  Sure, I used Apple IIs in school as a kid, and I can use this at that level no problem since as I said the 5.25" disk drives work when booting Apple II disks, but I'd like to be able to fully use it, you know?

 

To give a few updates on things I mention in the post, for some minor points I do now have a working SD card reader for my PC (and I got one that can even do CF cards too, though I still don't own any) and a 5.25" disk notcher.  I also got an Apple II 3.5" disk drive, but unfortunately it is broken.  I haven't tried taking it apart yet to see if I can figure out the issues.  I also got an ADT Pro setup with the cable to connect to my PC and the software on a disk.  It works fine.  Obviously since anything it copies goes to this SCSI2SD via the slow first-version Apple SCSI card, it's a slow way to copy files, but it works. 

 

On that note, other than the issues, it is unfortunate that the Apple High Speed SCSI card is expensive, unattainably rare, and does not seem to have any modern homebrew clones.  I know I could (and maybe should) get the new re-release of the CFFA3000 card but it'd also be pretty neat to have the real high speed SCSI card or a clone of it, this card is fantastic to have but wow is it slow.  The partitions on the Apple II right now -- drive 1 is two 32MB partitions, one of which has the OS on it.  Drive 2 is a 2GB HFS drive.  Drives 3 and 4 are not formatted currently.  GSOS complains about the unformatted drives every time I boot it up, heh.

 

There is one other important thing to mention.  I managed to make a working disk on the Apple II, using one of those blank disks I have, in one of my Apple II disk drives, for the first time!  I made a Disk Tools disk.

...

By copying over a disk image from my PC via ADTPro to a blank, PC-formatted disk in the drive.  It works with no issues.  When I plug the disk in while in GSOS I can even view the files on the disk.  I still have zero success with trying to make disks on the Apple itself, however.  It's quite annoying, what am I doing wrong?  At least I know it's probably not a disk drive issue now though.

 

Oh, one neat thing -- this Apple IIGS has a fan attached to the power supply, plugged into the fan header on the motherboard.  Nice.

Edited November 24, 2021 by A Black Falcon

[Iamgroot]

Here is some info that may help.

 

GSOS can support up to 15 partitions per drive and 2 drives for a total of 30 partitions on the desktop.  If you are only seeing two with the SCSI card, then look for a SCSI driver that bypasses the SCSI firmware and put the driver into the DRIVERS folder of the SYSTEM folder.  I believe there is also an EPROM update for SCSI "C" that will speed things up quite a bit as well.

 

I have only known CIDERPRESS to access the first partition of an SD card.  I used CIDERPRESS to copy games and applications to the first partition, then move the SD card to the IIGS and transfer those files to the other partitions.  Erase those files from the fist partition to free up space, then go back to the PC and copy more files with CIDERPRESS, and so on.

 

If you can find a SCSI cd player, this will help a lot as CIDERPRESS can read and write to a 640 Mb .iso image, then that image can be burned to a real cd on your PC, move the cd over to the cd player on your IIGS and transfer the files from there to your SD card.  The cd player probably won't have an external SCSI port to connect the SCSI2SD card, so may have to go an around-about way.  I had a CFFA card as well, so just had to copy files straight across.  But if the SCSI card is your only means of reading off the SD card, then you may need to find an old external SCSI Mac hard drive with an external port.  You can then copy files from the cd to the Mac hard drive, then remove the cd player from the external SCSI port on the hard drive and connect the SCSI2SD card.  Then copy files from the Mac hard drive to the other GSOS partitions on the SCSI2SD card.

 

If you can find a CFFA 3000 card will also help a lot as it has an external USB port to plug a USB stick into to transfer files from the PC.

 

For the most part, though, you are kind of limited with transferring files from a PC with just a SCSI card in your IIGS.

[tunzer]

hey, coming to this party late but i too loved the apple IIs and got myself an apple II GS - found an apple scsi card - and  apple scsi drive sc20

i have the bmow emufloppy - so i am trying a few things .

My goal is to get the SC20 to be the bootable drive !

I have used the emufloppy to boot in HD mode and load gs/os 6.0.2 - ran adv disk utils and i dont see the drive!!! ( ps the SC20 came part of a MAC PLUS - so i know it boots and works)

my worry is that i bought a dead apple scsi card - is there anyway to test it

any idea?

thanks