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[Gschultz]

Good morning all, I hope you can help me.  I recently purchased a 6500/300 at VCF Southwest.  The Monday after, I got called into HR and was told I'm being laid off.  The PowerMac runs very well but is hard to get files in and out of it.  I do have an external BlueSCSI that I can use to move files but I'm still learning so I struggle a bit.  Anyway, I spent some money to bring RAM up to 128 MBs, added a 10/100 PCI ethernet card and found the driver for it on line.  I also bought  a OS9 CD and a Power Macintosh 6500 Series Macintosh Restore CD.  I also just received a GODSHARK Internal USB 2.0 PCI Card from Amazon. 

In the Amazon page some buyers indicate they used it on older classic Macs without issue.  Also, there is high praise for it using the NEC chipset.  So, now that I have it, I've been trying to find an OS9.1 driver but haven't had had any luck.  I ran the restore disk on my PMac but it kept failing with every attempt at instillation.  I finally reinstalled the HD drivers and now, I've lost access to my Macintosh HD boot drive.  Also, I don't have the 8.1 installation CD (even though OS9.1 is installed and I'm not really sure where to go from here).  I do have installation images from BlueSCSI for OS 8.0 to 8.5 but since I've already blown up my first IDE partition, I need to figure out what to do.

So I hope I can be pointed in the right direction to repair my boot HD partition and install a driver for the internal USB drive.  I should also mention I made a CD-ROM of the universal OS 9.2.2 install disk but the 6500 complains this OS is not for my machine.

I'm feeling a little frustrated but I'm sure somebody can help me fix it.  Just to give you some background about me, I own a couple of Apple IIGSes, my first Mac was a G5 iMac, my wife hijacked my early 2013 MBP, I'm writing this on my M1 MBP, I own and repaired my beautiful SE/30, a couple of LC475s but I've never had such a thing as a PowerMac.

Thank you for your time, assistance and patience,
Gerry

[aBc]

Seems like almost always, when one acquires a new (used) machine… the very first thing one should do is to back-up the original HD as it was received. Especially if one intends to begin adding new cards or other accessories, other OS’es — or to simply retain what’s already on the HD.

Invariably, if this is not done… problems do occur.
In this case… now lost access to the Macintosh boot drive.

Perhaps I’m OCD, but I wipe drives and multi-partition first and then begin reinstalling [or installing clean OS’es.] Otherwise you’re just working with a drive that has already amassed a great deal of clutter (and other utter trash) from previous owner(s) throughout its lifetime.

SO, remove everything that you’ve added (USB PCI card, ethernet card, etc.) so far and back to square one.

Using the Power Macintosh 6500 Series Macintosh Restore CD, I would “restore” the original OS (and multi-partition the drive if possible also at that time). If no option to partition… then I might begin instead with OS 9 and multi-partition the HD with that install disc and work backwards for 8.0 - 8.5.

Sorry, haven’t had my head in System 7.5.5 for quite a very long time.

The 6500 Series Macintosh Restore CD, I assume will install OS 7.5.5 - but it seems that you are more interested in OS 8.0 to OS 8.5 and OS 9.1 (and eventually OS 9.2)? So… maybe 2 or 3 partitions? You can upgrade the OS 7.5.5 installed partition to OS 8 / OS 8.5 and then install OS 9 on the second partition perhaps? And then… with the assistance of the third party utility “OS9 Helper” — install OS 9.2.

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/os9-helper

Then, after successfully installing SysSoftware 7.5.5, OS 8.1 / 8.5 and OS 9 (to OS 9.2) on two or three different partitions… then begin adding back in your USB card, ethernet card, etc. (one at a time) configuring each along the way and working out any kinks that you might encounter. And again, you might wish to simply install 8.1 / 8.5 over and on the partition with 7.5.5?

This is all, definitely not a fun approach — but it will hopefully provide you with a very stable machine afterwards. There are likely other approaches that some might offer you here but this approach provides the best possible foundation upon which you might build.

You might also substitute a different HD, in order to retain and possibly access whatever you might wish from the original HD before overwriting it completely (if that is still possible).

There’s my two cents. Best of luck to you.

Anyone else care to comment?

[laulandn]

I have a 6360, which although it LOOKS more like a 6200 or 6300, is more closely related to the 6400 and 6500, as far as its motherboard goes.

I've done all sorts of really nutty things on it, and regularly switch between 7.6, 8.1 and 9.x (not positive which version).

I switch the "crazy way" in that I have multiple system folders on the same partition and move the Finder file to a sub folder away from the System file in the inactive ones.  I do NOT recommend doing this, and something like a "system switcher" utility, or having them on different partitions is definitely a more sane way to do it, but it works for me.

I've got a second partition which has a backup of the first on it.

Putting a "new" different HD in it and setting the original aside as aBc suggests is a very good idea.  The IDE drive I have in mine isn't the original, because I wanted a larger one.

I've used a couple different USB cards with it, when running MacOS 9 and it works like a charm.  The one I have in it right now uses an OPTI chipset.  I haven't used the card with the older OS's, but I've heard it is possible if you use the correct drivers.  I just use whatever came with MacOS 9.

You can find disk images of all versions of MacOS on macintoshgarden.org, and, with some luck, burn them on another machine to install on the 6500.  (I say luck because I'm always seeing people burning system disks not QUITE right).  You don't need a 6500 specific one, and the "retail" versions should work fine.

You can also boot off the BlueScsi, and set up a good image on it using a modern machine...that'd give you a known good environment to fix up the internal drive.  If you haven't done that before there is a little bit of a learning curve to get the files right.

I wish you luck, the 6500 is a very nice machine, always wished I had one instead of my not quite so pretty 6360.  Let us know what you run into.

[V.Yakob]

I don't have 6500, and I've never even seen them live, but I think everything will work on it in the same way as on G3MT, 9600 and 9500 that I have.

I left a note here about how to make USB work on these vintage computers. USB will require a minimum of OS 8.6.

PCI USB 2.0 card with NEC chip never worked on my computers before G3/G4, you need a card with an OPTi 82C861 chip. ~NEC~ works perfectly in G4 Quicksilver, for example.

To get USB, you need a card with an OPTI chip, usually they have only 2 USB ports.
For 8.6
For 9.1-9.2.2

But keep in mind, there is only USB1.1 here, which can be very, very slow to transfer files, I tried it earlier, it's impossible for a long time. It can also be inconvenient if you need to work in OS 7.6.1, for example.

BlueSCSI Internal or Desktop is a great way to transfer files through the BlueSCSI ToolBox utility, great for downloading/uploading files in several megabytes immediately to the SD card in the shared directory. I use it myself sometimes.

If you have a version with Wi-Fi, then when using SSW 7 / Mac OS 7.6 you can use BlueSCSI to transfer files over the network, it's not fast, but fun.

The fastest and most reliable way to share files on vintage Macs is the network.A few years ago I left a mess about it here.

OS 9.2.2 can also be installed using OS9-Helper, which aBc wrote about, but without installing processor updates, installation can take a long time, sometimes it may even seem that it has frozen, but you have to be patient and wait. I remember installing it for the first time on PM9600/300, and then once with the Sonnet G4 450 Mgz processor update and it was so fast that I didn't even have time to drink a cup of tea. 

I have several BlueSCSI working images, I can share, it works on my Mac.

P.S. If you get a USB card, you can look for the Bluetooth adapter D-link DBT-120 (rev 4), after the firmware it will be possible to connect a mouse and keyboard, the main thing is that they support the old version.

[laulandn]

Dang!  I had heard that in MacOS 9, you only get USB 1 speeds even with a USB 2 card (and drives) but had forgotten.  I've been using it, but only copying over smaller files, or leaving it to copy and coming back later so didn't notice how slow it was.  The same cards in MacOS X work at full speed.

Lately I've been working with some very old machines without decent networking and using iomega zip drives to transfer things between them and more modern machines.  Not fast, but "good enough".

I have a couple different usb cards and both use the same chip as the one pictured, although otherwise look very different.

I've also got a combo usb firewire card, but have only ever used the usb part in MacOS 9.  Never even tried to find the right firewire drivers, if they exist.

Now, if you could get that to work in MacOS 9 it'd be at 400 mps, which is quite close to usb 2's 480 mps, so a good solution.  I've been meaning to look into that one day...

[indibil]

Dang!  I had heard that in MacOS 9, you only get USB 1 speeds even with a USB 2 card (and drives) but had forgotten.  I've been using it, but only copying over smaller files, or leaving it to copy and coming back later so didn't notice how slow it was.  The same cards in MacOS X work at full speed.

Lately I've been working with some very old machines without decent networking and using iomega zip drives to transfer things between them and more modern machines.  Not fast, but "good enough".

I have a couple different usb cards and both use the same chip as the one pictured, although otherwise look very different.

I've also got a combo usb firewire card, but have only ever used the usb part in MacOS 9.  Never even tried to find the right firewire drivers, if they exist.

Now, if you could get that to work in MacOS 9 it'd be at 400 mps, which is quite close to usb 2's 480 mps, so a good solution.  I've been meaning to look into that one day...

I added Firewire to a Lombard G3 via PCMCIA following these instructions.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1382517?sortBy=rank

[laulandn]

FYI, tried three different firewire PCI cards in MacOS 9.1 PM 7600, w/ sonnet G3, and SATA:
"Orange Micro" usb fw combo: usb portion worked.  Has large chip and no identifiable FW phy chip.
"Belkin" with lucent fw chip.
"ActionTec" with agere chip.

The machine couldn't start with the Belin or ActionTec cards in it, but instead gave flashing question mark.  Both have "hard drive power" connectors on them, but connecting didn't make any difference.  Possible that sonnet G3 or SATA cause a conflict, and may try without one or both of them at some point.