Making a SCSI drive bootable

[Opry99er]

Hello fine folks.

My Mac Plus has been upgraded to 4MB, the old SCSI drives are now safely recovered and archived, I have a working LocalTalk network set up with my eMac, and all is well in the land. I wanted to accomplish all these things before I went on to my next task: Retiring my two SCSI workhorse hard drives.

In order to do this, I need to have a bootable replacement. I am running a SyQuest EZFlyer which is how I was able to recover all the files from the two old drives. This drive now has all the info from the other drives and quite a bit of its own files which I've added via the aforementioned LocalTalk connection.

The problem: the machine won't boot with this drive as the only one connected to the computer. I have a System 6.0.8 folder on the root of the drive, but it won't boot to it. I've tried "blessing" it by opening and closing it, and also going through and setting the Startup disk... it won't boot. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something glaringly obvious here... my recent research suggests that it does not have a "boot partition."

I need to mention that it is currently sitting as SCSI ID3 and has a built-in terminator. I have been using it as the last device in the chain.

It will pop up, give a brief disk with a question mark, and then the screen will go black. The last time I experienced these symptoms, there was a SCSI ID conflict between the two older drives, but I should not be experiencing any similar conflicts with this drive set as the only one in the chain.

To give some information, I formatted a fresh HD cartridge using the HD Toolkit Primer program which resides on one of the hard disks. It formatted beautifully and it has been working great as a storage device. Now that I want to boot from it, however, I wonder if I should have done something different. When prompted, I opted to format it as a single partition drive, 100% Mac (is how I believe it was worded in the prompt).

So, on to the question: What are the steps I need to take to make this drive bootable?

Thanks in advance!

 

[MacTech68]

Does the "System" folder on the Syquest drive have a little Mac icon on it ? If not, it's not 'blessed'.

Also, for the EZ135 to be bootable,

1. The disk needs a driver partition (invisible)

2. The disk needs to be inserted (with the drive powered) and allowed time to load the driver from the disk and present it on the SCSI Bus.

3. THEN power on the MacPlus. All being well, it will see the drive, load the driver, and then find the blessed folder to boot from.

Powering on the MacPlus AFTER the EZ135 has settled is vital for this to work.

 

[Opry99er]

Originally it did. When I copied the system folder straight over from the NuDesign drive, a little "open and close" gave it the blessing graphic (little compact Mac on the folder).

When I moved the drive over to the G3 to archive all the files, it "rebuilt the desktop folder" and the graphic went away. Now, even if I attempt to open and close it on the Mac Plus, the graphic doesn't come back.

It did not boot before I did the recovery, and it certainly does not now. I can dump the system folder and do another copy from the hard drive, but unless I'm gravely mistaken, the result will be the same as it was when I first attempted this.

If you don't see any other glaring omissions, I will make this attempt in the morning and report back.
[doublepost=1555138196][/doublepost]***EDIT***

Ahh, I missed your edits.

Yes, I always turn on the drive and allow it to spin up fully before switching on the Plus.

I do not know anything about a driver partition.

As for inserting the cartridge while the drive is powered up, this resulted in very loud noises and no drive recognition when I initially tried it (a few months ago). I can try again if you think this would make a difference.

 

[MacTech68]

Inserting the cartridge with the drive switched on is normal operation AFAIK.

Try dragging the 'system' file out of the System Folder. Then close and re-open the System Folder and put the 'System' file back inside.

 

[Opry99er]

I'll give that a try here in a bit.

Thanks.

 

[Opry99er]

I attempted all the steps you suggested and had the same results. I even trashed my existing system folder which is on the root of the Syquest drive and replaced it with a copy of my current startup system folder on the other drive.

Starting to wonder if the drive is even capable of being a boot drive...

 

[MacTech68]

The only thing I can suggest is to use Silverlining Lite (Syquest) to re-initialize (format) the cartridge.

This is the bare form of "driver" that originally shipped with the EZ135.

The Control Panel's 'About' does say it's compatible with System 6

DOWNLOAD HERE:
Silverlining Lite™ v2.0.sit.hqx.zip

Make sure you set the advanced options: (full instructions are in the readme)

I STRONGLY suggest selecting "Test Media for Bad Sectors" - this will take some time but should prevent further difficulties.

To get that option you need to click the last checkbox in the first image below:

I'm not sure if the last image below is something that flips a switch on the cartridge's partition map or driver, but it seems selecting the "Startup Volume" (after selecting the formatted & initialized cartridge) might be prudent. It may be as good as setting the startup disk in later MacOS versions. I have no idea.