Need help with unknown file format

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Need help with unknown file format

So I have a new CMS scsi II card however I cannot create or modify the card or partitions without the utility. I found a couple sources for the CMS utilities here: https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ground.icaen.uiowa.edu/apple8/Utils/

 

and here: http://www.apple2online.com/web_documents/cms_hard_drive_utilities.zip

 

Maybe I have been living under a rock but I have no idea what a .SHK file is or how to get it working on an apple II disk. I am familiar with ADTPro and .dsk, .PO, and .WOZ file formats. Can anyone give some advice or possibly get these files into a usable .DSK image I can use? 

 

 

 

 

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I could make a master disk

I could make a master disk for you. Normally I use a floppy emu to creaye real disks. .shk is a ShrinkIt imge, so you need to convrt it to a .sk or a .po image with CiderPress:

 

https://a2ciderpress.com/

 

With this tool, you can convert the .shk to anothr format. 

 

What drive are you using on the SCSI card?

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Timelord if you can make a

Timelord if you can make a master disk image for me, that would be super appreciated. I havent spent any time with ciderpress yet so I guess this is a push to learn it. In the meanwhile if you could attempt tomake the disk images.

 

So if thats a compressed file format I need to use one of my old macs to decompress it first then huh? If So I really need to get my LC wtih Apple IIe card working just for this type of situation.

 

What drives? I dunno, start at the top of my stack and see what still works. I did get a Scsi2SD recently [ https://store.inertialcomputing.com/SCSI2SD-V5-1-p/scsi2sd-v5.1.htm ] and havent tried it yet. I was waiting on a 25 pin connector so I can also use it as an external solution. So maybe give that a shot on the CMS card too.

 

 

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CMS.SCSI_.zip

 

These are the three .shk files, converted to 5.25 ProDOS Order (.po) format. 

 

Please inform me if you need it written to physical media. In your OP, you stated that you use ADT Pro, so I expect that these will suffice?

 

You may want to install CiderPress, too, for when you encounter .shk images in the future. 

https://a2ciderpress.com/

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Thank you so much Timelord!

Thank you so much Timelord! Yes I use ADTPro, I will give these a shot and post back. This is a huge help!

And I will give Ciderpress some time and effort now that I know its becoming a necessity for disk making.

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Success!

Timelord you really came through for me! The card sees my 1GB SCSI card and was able to format it and I was able to load GS-OS and boot from it! When I ran the utility it said I had a bios from 1990. Looks like someone updated this card as the rom is not original. Since the card has a date of 1986 its good to know a newer rom works!

 

The only strange thing is it made 32 X 32MB partitions and formatted them. IT took a long time. But under GS-OS 6.0.2 It only showed the first two. Ill pay around more but thanks so much!

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CMS SCSI Driver to the Rescue!

I have a soft spot for the CMS SCSI card as while it is so quirky, it was the first mass storage device I had for my IIgs.

 

The driver attached below was often thought to not exist, but I did manage to find it after extensive searching back around 2007 when I was still using the CMS card (I no longer have one).

 

Package iconCMSHDUtils.zip

 

Loading this driver in GSOS will allow you to see *all* partitions in GSOS. Back when I was using the CMS card, I had a ~900Mb SCSI drive attached and had around 26 drive icons scattered over my Finder desktop.  :-)

 

The only drawback with the CMS card is that it only allows for 32Mb ProDOS partitions - you cannot make larger HFS partitions like you can on other SCSI cards of the era (Apple SCSI cards, RAMFast, etc).

 

If you have the 1990 ROM (I upgraded mine by burning a new ROM), you get the SCSI utilities available in the ROM via a key on bootup (I don't recall the details, but I could probably find out for you). I think the new ROM had other benefits too, but I don't recall what they were. I would suggest doing this if you have the capability (i.e. a suitable ROM burner and the know-how).

 

Hope this helps!

 

Cheers,

Mike

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Mike my card was upgraded to

Mike my card was upgraded to the 1990 ROM But I dont know how to access the utilities without the software. And thanks for the GSOS utils, I will try that out as well.

 

 

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Open-Apple

OK, just did a quick Google and it would seem holding Open-Apple down during boot will bring up the ROM interface for the 1990 ROM, but I think that only allows you to swap drives in and out when using the default "2 drives at a time" mode.

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

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