Subject: Re: Apple II Csa2 FAQs 9/9/1998 Zip Drive & Tape From: supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) Date: Fri, Sep 18, 1998 019 Message-id: <19980918031929.02688.00001105@ng142.aol.com> Mike McGovern wrote: >Supertimer wrote: > >> Rubywand wrote: >> >> > Regarding for-Mac Zip disks: what you are saying is unclear. Are >> >you saying that a for-Mac disk can not be formatted as a single HFS >> >volume from the Finder? Are you saying they must be formatted or that >> >they must be partitioned using ADU? >> >> That's the theory, although I have not tested it. >> >> Mac Zip disks come with driver partitions, so if you just try to stick >> it in a GS' Zip drive, the Initialize dialog box will pop up twice and >> if you click yes to both, you end up with a two partition disk, the >> first one (the driver partition) being 5 kilobytes in size! >> >> You don't need to partition it through ADU or another utility, but >> if you don't, you are stuck with the 5 kilobyte partition. >> >> Basically, Macintosh Zips are already partitioned. >> >> The only way I can think of to get rid of it is the "erase hard disk" >> feature I think the RamFAST utilities have (but I don't have a >> RamFAST, so I can verify), a Macintosh utility, or the Zip utilities >> for the PC. PC Zip utilities include one that will "prepare" a Zip >> disk. I'm fairly certain that preparing the disk with the PC Zip >> utilities will turn the Mac Zip disk into one that can then be >> formatted as a single nonpartitioned volume from the GS Finder. > >I use an HFS Zip to transfer files between the Mac and GS. I'd >be sure to set it up on the Mac so that it would have the driver >partition. On my Ramfast equipped GS, I'd get the "eject or initialize" If you were using the HFS Zip as a shuttle disk, yes this would be the way to go. However, try formatting a non-partitioned PC formatted Zip disk from GS Finder. It should take several minutes. Now compare the speed at which your Mac formatted volume works to this non-partitiong GS HFS Zip. The GS disk is a little faster. >message for the driver partition, and respond by ejecting it. The HFS >partition then mounted, so I can use the cartridge on both machines. I >don't understand why Supertimer would get a second "eject or initialize" >dialog since that partition should be readable if the HFS.Fst is >installed. It would only pop up twice if the HFS FST was not installed. You can actually, from the GS, format an HFS Zip WITH a Mac driver partition that does not show up on GS Finder! It won't give you the extra speed mentioned above, but it would let you have a more convenient (and safer) shuttle disk. Safer because you would not accidentally format your driver partition! See below for the info. >I used the Ramfast Utilities to mark the first partition as inactive, and >now the HFS partition is mounted without having to eject the driver >partition everytime. There's a better way that works with any SCSI card. See below. >So, if you have a Mac, I'd keep the driver partition as it allows the >cartridge to be read on both machines, and you have the option of >using Norton if things should get damaged. > >Mike Mike, if you install the Mac driver USING ADU, then the driver partition would be invisible to GS Finder AND the disk can be used with Macintosh. ADU can install a GS friendly Mac driver, but NORMALLY only on APPLE BRAND hard disk drives. If the drive is not Apple, then ADU checks in the GS drivers folder for a third party GenericMac driver. There is a program called "GenEx" which extracts the Apple brand driver from within ADU and saves it with the correct name. If you put this GenericMac driver in the GS drivers folder, then ADU will format Zip disks THAT ARE ACCESABLE BY MACINTOSH! The advantage of redoing this using ADU on the IIGS is that ADU's driver partition is invisible to GS Finder, so shuttling between Macintosh and IIGS is more transparent. GenEx can be found on http://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/ the Ground ftp server. I can look for the exact directory for you, if you want. I uploaded it around March or April or so, so you can look at the uploads 98 directories of those months (or the adjacent ones) to find it.