How to connect SCSI devices?

[24bit]

Hi,
I would like to hear if anyone ever managed to connect hfs formatted
SCSI volumes to a Mac emulator?
I am owning a couple of old SCSI devices, such as MO, HD and scanner.
I have installed an AMD SCSI host adapter in my computer, so I can
read/write e.g. fat formatted SCSI MO's. This is working in Win32
and Suse Linux11.
Of course the host systems can't access hfs volumes and so there is
also no access in the emulators external file system (unix) volume.
I wonder if it is still possible to access hfs volumes, just the same
way as CD's, because there is a SCSI interface in Basilisk(Linux).
Actually I have absolutely no idea what to put in there, to get
a device operating.
A similar interface can be found in an old version of Basilisk
0.8.0.142. Basilik keeps telling me: "Eror loading aspi lbrary"
for the old WNASPI.Dll I had installed.

I just wonder if anyone solved that little riddle?
Please do let me know!

[prowler]

Hi,
I would like to hear if anyone ever managed to connect hfs formatted
SCSI volumes to a Mac emulator?

Hi 24bit,

I have had an hfs formatted 50-pin Micropolis SCSI drive mounted in Fusion PC 3.0 (a DOS-based Mac emulator) running Mac OS 8.1.

IIRC, I merely connected the SCSI drive to an Adaptec host adapter with the ASPI2DOS driver loaded, mounted the drive as a device in the Fusion setup program, started the emulation and the drive appeared on the desktop along with my bootdrive (a hardfile). The drive behaved in emulation exactly how it did in my PowerMac 7500.

Although I cannot remember all the details of how it was done (for example, I don't recall whether a specific SCSI ID was necessary), I remember being amazed at how easy it was at the time.

[ClockWise]

I think that in Windows SoftMac might work better.

Also, Gemulator explorer can READ the SCSI devices in Windows:

http://emulators.com/explorer.htm

[24bit]

Hi prowler,
nice to hear that it was that simple easy going.
That is what one would expect it to be.
I'm afraid there isn't much of the good old 50pin
Centronics devices around, so there will be few
people with expriences in that matter.
My BasiliskII settings dialog (Linux) looks like this:

Volumes I SCSI I Graphics/Sound I .....
ID 0 ____________________________
ID 1 ____________________________
ID 2 ____________________________
.
.
.
It looks as if a text string should go in there
like "file:///windows/E" being the mountpoint of
my second Windows partition.

Out of nostalgia we kept our 7100/80. We bought that
one new for about EUR 5000, incredible these days
isn't it? It's still working all right, but how
pretty, if one could use the old hardware when the
nubus machine fails.

My wife had a 7500 at work, and it crashed
several times a day, nobody knew why.

Greetings!

[prowler]

Hi prowler,
nice to hear that it was that simple easy going.
That is what one would expect it to be.

My wife had a 7500 at work, and it crashed
several times a day, nobody knew why.

Greetings!

Hi 24bit,
I still have the 7500 and it still runs Mac OS 8.6 with no problems. It had a 100MHz processor originally, but I upgraded it to 200MHz and added 512K of L2 cache.

I think that in Windows SoftMac might work better.

Also, Gemulator explorer can READ the SCSI devices in Windows:

http://emulators.com/explorer.htm

IIRC Windows SoftMac uses a hardfile format which fully represents a SCSI hard drive, and any hardfile which doesn't meet this requirement is mounted instead as a large floppy drive. If my memory is accurate, then it would indicate that Windows SoftMac is indeed your best chance of successfully mounting an hfs formatted SCSI hard drive in emulation.

FusionPC, SoftMac and Gemulator Explorer are all available from http://www.emulators.com/download.htm

[24bit]

Hello,
I just wanted to thank everyone for the encouraging tips.

As far as softmac is concerned, I didn't get that one
working on my host system, Mac OS freezes during startup.

Clocwkise told me, a couple of days ago, to give the old
BasilikII build 94 a try. I installed WINASPI_4.71 as well
and was able to mount my 6GB SCSI harddisk in BasiliskII.
It was really simple and quite obvious to configure the
BasiliskII GUI and I can copy files to/from that disk in
system 7.5.
Mounting my magneto-optical device in BasiliskII did not
succeed so far, as the device is mounted by the host system
at startup and thus is treated as fat removable disk-drive.
Emulator or GEMExplorer won't access devices already mounted
by the host system (which sounds reasonable to me), so I can't
read hfs formatted MO's at all.

Greetings!

[ClockWise]

SoftMac is a dreadful emulator.

It sometimes has problems with disk images that you have prepared for Basilisk II. You might have some luck if you set it up following the manual instructions:

http://emaculation.com/doku.php/softmac_setup

[Cat_7]

Hi,

Can you use disk management to unmount the MO disks? Or tell your SCSI adapter not to mount the disks at startup?

Best,
Cat_7

[24bit]

Hello Cat7,
thanks for the clever suggestion.
I tried to de-activate my magneto-optical in Windows
disk-properties dialog and it vanishes from desktop
all right.
The device is "seen" as a SCSI-thing by Gemexplorer and
not as a DOS-volume, but it won't mount in BasiliskII and
when i put in hfs disk, it is not accessed by Gemexplorer.
Are you aware of a free SCSI utility for WinXP such as
SCSI-Probe for the Mac?
I collected my SCSI host adapter from the communal
recycling area and there was no software with it,
of course.

Best wishes!

[prowler]

I collected my SCSI host adapter from the communal
recicling area and there was no software with it, of course.

Hi 24bit,
Are there any markings on the SCSI host adapter which might tell us what type it is?
The most common types of SCSI host adapter for the PC are made by Adaptec, Future Domain and, more recently, Kouwell.
It may be possible to download drivers for the card from those manufacterers' websites, if the card can be identified.
The drivers will probably include a SCSI utility of a type similar to SCSI Probe. The utility will probably work with any one of a range of cards from that manufacturer (possibly even without the correct drivers if the card has a BIOS and the SCSI ID is 0 or 1), but the drivers will still be necessary in order for some of the functions to work.
If you can't identify the card, I have a SCSI utility which came with a scanner for use with Windows 3.1 which might work for you. I could email it to you if necessary.
The only other utilities for Windows which might help you mount Macintosh hfs formatted MO devices are MacDrive, MacDisk and TransMac, Demo versions of which are freely available without registering your details.

[24bit]

By trial and error I found BasiliskII build 94 to be
able to use hfs volumes.
If the device is not mounted by Windows it can be used
via the GUI: SCSI and the ADD button.
If the device was mounted by Windows it can be used by
selecting the drive's letter (e.g. F:) in the GUI: DISK.

Things are working with MacOS 7.5 and hfs formatted
removables. The finder will hang if I try to copy
something from the removable in MacOS 8.0.
Disks formatted hfs+ don't seem to work at all.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Disks formatted hfs+ don't seem to work at all.

Only Mac OS 8.1 and later can read HFS+ volumes.