Bootable Disk Utility for 68k Mac?

[bluejay]

My Mac Classic II suffered from some critical error while I was installing OS 7 on it, and now I have a Mac that won’t boot due to what I suspect is a bad disk partition. 6.0.8 doesn’t run on this Mac and I’ve so far been able to find little more than that and 7.0.1 that isn’t in some stupid Mac only compression format. Whenever I try running the installer now, the program runs fine for a bit then errors out, telling me that it failed to write some information to the hard disk. 
 

The way everything happens leads me to believe that somehow the disk is partially formatted, making the computer think that the disk is ready for use and doesn’t need a formatting. Hence it starts writing data to it right away, then hits a roadblock when it enters the part that isn’t formatted. The installer has no manual option for formatting drives and it isn’t even made clear that it is capable of doing it at all (only the clicks and thuds from the drive itself that sounds like it’s formatting). 
 

So, is there a disk utility that’ll let me format the drive without having to load the OS, or an OS version that just loads from floppy with none of that installer BS and is still compatible with the Classic II? I do have hardware to write both HD and DD disks.

[fimbulvetr]

It has been ages since I've had to do this, but have you already tried the utilities on the Disk Tools disk that comes with System 7? I've used the Disk First Aid and HD Setup utilities on that disk.

 

You could try using Lido.

 

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/lido-756

 

Here is link to another download of Lido, available for general redistribution under the GNU General Public License:

 

http://51.15.168.126/mirrors/macintosh/www.euronet.nl_users_ernstoud/lido7.html

 

Getting at files compressed in apple format without a running apple computer is an annoying chicken-and-egg problem. I think I made disk images with HFV Explorer, then wrote them to a disk using a USB floppy drive and either WinImage or MacDisk. I finally got a Floppy Emu from BMOW with a SD card preloaded with lots of utilities to make it easier:

 

https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/

[fimbulvetr]

3 hours ago, bluejay said:

So, is there a disk utility that’ll let me format the drive without having to load the OS, or an OS version that just loads from floppy with none of that installer BS and is still compatible with the Classic II? I do have hardware to write both HD and DD disks.

Sorry, rambled on and didn't answer your question. You can boot off of the Disk Tools disk, which comes with the set of System 7 disks. Then, either use the utilities on that disk, or a copy of Lido to get your hard drive working again. 

[bluejay]

Thanks so much. I’ll be trying this tomorrow!

[Leonard Smith]

I also remember that earlier versions of the Mac OS provided the option of creating or using a stripped down emergency OS disk (it usually fit on one floppy) that you could load up to make basic fixes or even initiate a reinstallation of the main OS.

 

This was during the System 7 and 8 days.

[wierd_w]

The disk tools disk is what you want. It already has a stripped down minimal system, and has tools appropriate for repairing an HFS volume.

[bluejay]

Sit rep: tried formatting with the tools disk, it locked up (waited 30+ minutes). LIDO detected the the drive, so I attempted to format it. Locked up (waited around 10 minutes, no drive activity could be heard) so did a hard reset. After that the disk won’t spin up at all. I tried plugging it into my Powermac G4 too, in case it was the computer’s fault; it wasn’t. Both are seemingly aware of the drive’s existence but either locks up or throws an error because the disk doesn’t spin. Apparently this problem is worse than I thought it was. 

[fimbulvetr]

Sounds like it could be a dead drive. I ended up replacing the one in my SE/30 with a SCSI2SD years ago when the original spinning rust failed on me. 

 

You could try asking at 68KMLA.org and see if they have any ideas on whether your drive can be salvaged. 

 

 

[bluejay]

Yeah, I'm asking around places. It's not like I expected this drive to not die eventually, and this seems like the perfect time to get myself a RaSCSI. But who knows, maybe the drive will magically revive itself.