Re: Trying to be calm about Alltech

["Steven M. Fish" <iigs_killspam@bytebucket.com>]

As a quick final note on this issue, I wanted to let people know that
putting the drive card in Slot 7, while maybe the most automatic place
for bootup (expecially with my dead battery), was the worst place for
reliable GS/OS booting.  I got all kinds of premature failure when
trying to get in to the OS.  Moving the card to slot 2 (I'm not using a
modem yet) makes it so I have to reconfigure the control panels after a
cold boot (again, dead battery), but I have been having no problems
with the drive since (knock on wood).

Now I need to fix the battery and document what I've been through so I
can help the next new user who needs assistance.  I create web pages
for a living, so maybe I need to make one for the occasion.

Again, thanks so much to everyone for the feedback.

Steven M. Fish

In article <20000629225044.02089.00000541@ng-bj1.aol.com>, Supertimer
<supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

> "Steven M. Fish" <iigs_killspamarz@bytebucket.com> wrote:
> 
> >I just tried a little experiment.  I moved the Focus drive to Slot 6 and
> >reassigned that slot to "Your Card".  Guess what?  It worked!  I'm now
> >using GS/OS - and only a decade and a half after it was released!  :)
> >
> >Let me take this opportunity to say a big thanks to the people who
> >responded to this post.  I'm new back to the AppleII community and glad to
> >be back with such a great online resource.  Thanks again.
> >
> >Let me also say I feel this proves Alltech produce and ship a great
> >product.  I wish the drive were a little bigger (ended up with 2 partitions
> >totaling closer to 45M instead of the advertised 60), but this product gets
> >me started full force back in the Apple II experience in a way I could not
> >have achieved without their services.  The hardware problem was not with
> >their card, but with my 7th slot.
> >
> >Anyone know where I can find a compatible 320M drive now?  :)
> 
> Pull one from an old laptop.  In fact, many of the older drives work.
> Look for an old laptop or notebook PC with a 500 megabyte (or
> larger but 500MB should be just right for most people) 2.5 IDE
> hard drive.  Pull the drive.  Replace the one on the Focus card
> with it.  Then you need to find a GS/OS floppy startup disk and
> install set.  Use the floppy startup to run the Focus formatter
> software (either on the Alltech floppy or on the current Focus
> drive).  The formatter autoconfigures the drive geometry and lets
> you specify partition size.  Split it into two partitions, the first
> one 32MB (for bootable ProDOS) and the next one however
> many hundreds of megabytes you have remaining (for HFS).
> Now reboot the IIGS from the GS/OS startup floppy.  Format
> the first partition ProDOS and the last one HFS.  Install GS/OS
> on the ProDOS partition.  Then install the Focus driver from the
> Alltech floppy to your setup.  Now reboot the IIGS from the
> Focus drive.  That should do it!  Good luck.