Re: RAMFAST SCSI & IIGS Mem card update

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

hmag@ozemail.com.au (Terry Allen) wrote:

>Have been fiddling with various things on this GS & it appears that the GS
>mem card may be faulty. When used in conjunction with the Ramfast scsi
>card, the machine will not boot.
>   When I remove the mem card, & remove the system battery & power supply
>for 10 mins then re-assemble, the SCSI card appears to work properly. I
>boot the slot the SCSI card is in from a basic prompt & a message appears
>'RAMFAST HAS NO BOOT VOLUME - TRY KEY 0' This is without the Zip Drive
>plugged in, haven't tried it again yet. Can anyone enlighten me about the 8
>position DIP switch settings? What software will i need to format the zip
>or can i simply install GS/OS on mac formatted hfs disk?

Here's what you have to do.  Connect the Zip Drive with the computer
off.  Then turn on the computer and press the '0' key, which will get
you into the RamFAST utilities.  Use the utilities to format and partition
the Zip disk.  Since you want this as your boot disk, you must have
a ProDOS partition as the first partition on the disk.  Use the RamFAST
utilities to make one 32MB partition for ProDOS and leave the rest for
HFS.  Don't worry about the file systems yet, just the size of the
partitions (32MB limit for ProDOS, none for HFS).

Next, with the partitioning done, restart the computer but boot from
floppy.  If you set the RamFAST to the boot slot, you'll need to hit
control-reset and boot from either PR#5 or PR#6.  You need to run
a ProDOS utility capable of formatting disks.  What you have to do
is use this utility to format the 32MB partition as a ProDOS volume.
Leave the larger partition blank....you'll use GS/OS to format it HFS
later....

With the 32MB ProDOS partition formatted, reboot from the 3.5"
disk drive with the System 6.0.1 installer disk inside.  You should
use "Custom Install" and select the HFS FST option, since you
want to use HFS.

After installing System 6.0.1 with the HFS FST, reboot the computer.
When Finder appears, it will notice that the large partition is
unformatted.  Click yes to initialize.  Select HFS as the file system
and give the partition a name.

DONE!

>   I have Copy II Plus 9.0, so can i use that or is it better to use GS/OS
>to format?

You'll intitially need Copy II Plus 9.0 to format the ProDOS partition,
but you need GS/OS to format the HFS partition.

>   Lastly, is there any way of testing or repairing this Ram card if it is
>faulty (genuine Australian GS 1MB RAM expansion card - part no. a661-0336
>   thanks to all the people who've responded to my questions so far.

It is probably cheaper to buy a new RAM card.  http://www.allelec.com/
Alltech Electronics sells the Sirius RAM card.  It uses standard 1MB
SIMMs (thus cheap to upgrade) and can go up to 8MB.  You can buy
it with less RAM and populate it later if you have access to these
SIMMs.  After linking to the web site, click "Apple II" then "memory"
to buy the card....

Final note ----- although the BOOT disk must have a ProDOS partition,
DATA disks do not.  You can use other HFS Zip disks, non-partitioned,
to swap data with Macintosh.  ;-)