I have an Apple IIgs with an external SCSI hard drive. I'd like to backup that SCSI drive's boot partition with GS/OS System 6 onto a bootable Floppy Emu image. Is there a special procedure for copying a System 6 boot disk? I am having issues. Here's what's happening ...
I loaded a blank Smartport image called smart0.po on my Floppy Emu. Then I tried booting from the hard drive into the GS/OS Finder and copying the files from the hard drive boot partition to the image on Floppy Emu including the ProDOS application, System folder and Icons folder. However upon restart and selecting Slot 5 as the boot slot, I am getting the "Check startup device!" message with the sliding apples.
Any ideas as to how I can successfully copy SCSI hard disk while preserving the ability to boot from the copy? I’m trying to move away from SCSI and physical drives as I have already had one fail.
I recall from the early Mac days that you couldn't just copy a Mac OS System folder without "blessing" it. That isn't a thing in GS/OS, though, is it? Does GS/OS require the destination disk to be specifically formatted or designated as a boot disk somehow or can I just copy a hard disk's boot partition to another disk and then boot from that new copy?
Any help you can provide is appreciated!
If you're getting a "check startup device" error, then the GS is not finding the file PRODOS.SYSTEM properly.
The best course of action is to make sure to copy that file onto your new drive first, followed by whatever .system files need to be run afterwards.
The GSOS version of PRODOS.SYSTEM is not really ProDOS, but that is what the computer looks for, and it needs to be first in the drive catalog, if I recall correctly.
Good point Baldrick. I have run into issues with Apple II software if you don't copy it right where the wrong .SYSTEM file is found first.
OP... a FloppyEMU is going to be painfully slow as a HDD compared with a SCSI device. I have used a BlueSCSI DB25 version with my Apple II's before, and it's very fast/small, no mechanical drive. Keep your floppy EMU for emulating floppies, trust me. It's an incredible device for emulating floppies (I own several) but the limitations of the floppy port on apple/mac machines kneecap it as a fast HDD solution. It's a useful one, but not a fast one.
For my main IIgs I use a Microdrive Turbo in slot 7 as the boot device. Cost effective and wicked fast. I also have a GGLabs SCSI device for use with BlueSCSI, in Slot 1 of the same machine. This is because I can take the SD card out, use it in an emulator on a Mac, and pop it right back in the BlueSCSI. Very useful for getting files into GSOS.
This is the way to go.
I use a MicroDrive/Turbo as well, except I put it in Slot 2 because this allows me to boot a floppy image from the Floppy Emu whenever I want.
If there is no disk image loaded in the FEMU then the IIGS just ignores slot 6 or slot 5 and scans down to slot 2 and boots the MicroDrive.
And it's wicked fast compared to anything else on the market.
Just FYI in case you did not know, If the microdrive is in slot 7, you can hold escape at boot/reboot to skip it and start scanning lower slot numbers i.e. to boot from FloppyEMU. I do that, personally, but your setup works as well :)