Toshiba CD-ROMs and IIgs compatibility

[a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

    Asking this question is probably a long shot, but has anyone out
there ever made use of a Toshiba 1x (XM-3301E) or 4x (XM-5401B) 
SCSI CD-ROM drive on their Apple IIgs?

    Back in October I acquired both model CD-ROM drives, yet neither
one worked successfully with my RamFAST. Essentially they were
both recognized and showed up just fine in the RamFAST's built-in
menu options (the drive's firmware listing, size of any CD mounted,
and in the case of HFS discs, even a volume label given) *but* as
soon as I entered the IIgs Finder or any GS/OS applications, the
drive was ignored. The OS simply refused to poll or scan the drive.

    Oddly enough, any HFS discs inserted were flagged as 'offline'
in the RamFAST's menu system. Toggling their status to 'active'
allowed HFS discs to then appear in the Finder, although they were
displayed and treated as hardisk volumes (including the icon used). 
I could find no way to force-mount any non-HFS formatted discs 
though.

    My only guess is these drives were set up for use a on Sun
SPARCstation (they did come some other Sun hardware).
Is this behavior consistent then for drives using a 512 block
configuration instead of 2048 block? I've given up trying to
get them working on the IIgs for the most part but thought it
wouldn't hurt to ask...

Mitchell Spector
a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca