Re: Apple SCSI

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Wayne Stewart <waynes@intergate.ca> wrote:

> Douglas E. Morris wrote 
> > First off thank you to everyone for bearing with my quest back into the good
> > old days of the Apple IIgs.  I am looking at a hard drive on e-bay that I am
> > hoping I can use with my Apple II SCSI Card (Rev C).
> > 
> > Can anyone tell me if this drive would work?
> 
> If it's the same as mine then it contains a 1gb Quantum Fireball HD. I've
> been using mine exclusively on a Mac but I tried hooking it up to a Rev C
> card for a couple minutes and I was able to read and write to it without
> difficulty. Whether you'd have trouble partitioning it or booting off it I
> can't say. 

I can add a few comments.

Firstly, if it is a Quantum Fireball, then it is worth noting that it
probably won't work on a RamFast SCSI card.  Around the time I bought my
750 MB Quantum Trailblazer (the generation prior to the Fireball),
someone else was having trouble getting a 500 MB Fireball to work on a
RamFast.  After some experimentation and research, we decided that it
was probably due to the RamFast not having its own SCSI ID and therefore
not being able to support the SCSI Arbitration phase (and related
features such as disconnecting from the drive and reconnecting later).

Having said all that, the drive should work fine on an Apple SCSI card
(either original or high-speed).  (My Trailblazer is on an Apple
High-speed card.  I've never tried it on a RamFast.)

As for the partitioning issue: if you are going to access the drive in
ProDOS-8, you will not be able to access more than 7 partitions.  This
is a limitation imposed by the firmware in the original SCSI card (it
only has enough RAM on the card to hold seven partition table entries).

Under GS/OS, you should be able to create up to 32 partitions using
Advanced Disk Utility.  I'd recommend creating several ProDOS partitions
and a small number of HFS partitions (possibly only one).  The first
partition must be ProDOS.  Under ProDOS-8, all HFS partitions will be
ignored, so it doesn't matter where they go.