Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tellab5!wiseman
From: wiseman@tellab5.TELLABS.COM (Jeff Wiseman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Installing non-Apple hard disks (Alex Nghiem)
Message-ID: <1966@tellab5.TELLABS.COM>
Date: 10 Jan 90 23:14:25 GMT
Organization: Tellabs, Inc. Lisle, IL
Lines: 57

This message was to Alex Nghiem but it kept bouncing back to me. Since it may
be of general interest, I will post it here.

Hi Alex.

> About changing the drive table of HDSETUP using ResEdit... Would
> you know how to modify the table so that HDSETUP will work with
> a CDC/Imprimus 150m Wren III?

In a word, no. But experimenting is free, right? so let me give you a thought
or two :-) Please note that the following includes some guessing

If you look at a copy of HDsetup with resedit and look at the A5init resource,
you will see a list of drive types. It appears that when HDsetup runs, its does
something like this:

It checks to see what kind of disk is out there. It then checks it's table to
see what kind of driver to install on the drive. It seems that it basically
just has a collection of "Apple standard drive packages" that it chooses from.

Now, one thing that is nice is that the drive parameters (eg. size, etc.) are
actually read somehow from the drive itself. This means that a drive that is
identical in all aspects to one of the ones in the A5init list except for its
size could use the drive softare for the like drive in the list. For example,
the Seagate 60M drive is identical in all ways except size to the Seagate 40M.
By modifying the string in the A5init resorce (a 251N or something like that
for the 40M) to that of the larger drive (ie 271N I think), the larger drive
will be able to use the smaller drive's driver software. Since the driver
adjusts itself to size (necessary since bad blocks are marked out sometimes)
the 60M will work.

HOWEVER. Some drives like the Quantums that Apple installs use custom firmware
installed by quantum for apple's use only. A third party drive cannot use the
Apple drive in HDsetup then unles the EPROM (or ROM) in it is replace with one
that has been copied form an apple disk. I'm not sure of the leagal
ramifications of copying this firmware!

Now the only drives that I know apple has done this with is the Quantums (the
most expensive). I know that the Seagates that apple uses are generic. I do not
know about the others (miniscribe I think is generic as well). In fact, I can't
remember what others HDsetup supported but by looking at the A5init list you
should get an idea.

Anyway, I hope this helps some. One thing that you should consider though is
that even though it will cost you more, Silverlining (by LaCie) would MORE
than solve your problem and you would get some of the most excellant soft
partitioning software on the market (my own opinion. I use liverlining on all
my drives). I think that you can get it at a significant reduction through
MacWarehouse or the like.

Good luck.

-- 
Jeff Wiseman:	....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM

-- 
Jeff Wiseman:	....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM