Disk Jockey, a disk image file maker for your retro stuff - Beta for version 3!

[JDW]

Yesterday, something happened when I was using an external BlueSCSI and my SE/30 froze but later refused to boot. I put the microSD card into a full sized SD card adapter and then put that into my modern Mac, but it can't even see it in the Finder or Disk Utility or SD Card Formatter. Seems like the SD card is now totally dead. It was a 16GB PNY card that really hadn't been used all that much. Anyway, I then ordered two SanDisk Extreme 32GB microSD cards from Amazon which arrived today, and I formatted them ExFAT, which is correct for BlueSCSI. Because I didn't have a backup of the data I lost, I copied one of the bootable *.img files from my MacSD's SD card to my new microSD for BlueSCSI, then renamed it: HD10_512 OS71.img

I've heard that the .hda extension no longer matters on BlueSCSI, so I tried it like that with *.img at the end, but it refuses to boot. I then copied over another image from my MacSD which is a bootable 7.5.5 image, also 2GB in size. That one started to boot, but it had Bad F-Line instruction and Bus errors, which is very odd. I then turned to Disk Jockey for help, trying to get the System 7.1 image to be compatible with BlueSCSI.

I dragged the System 7.1 image file to Disk Jockey and it shows me this...

I then clicked "Create a Volume image" which it saved to my Downloads folder. Sadly, that image won't boot on BlueSCSI either, even if I changed the extension from .img to .hda. I tried and failed on a BlueSCSI with June firmware and on a different BlueSCSI with April firmware (2022).

I then turned to the Image Creator tab of Disk Jockey to create a blank 2GB image like this...

My intention was to mount my MacSD image and mount the new Disk Jockey created image in Basilisk II so as to manually copy the files from one image to the other. Sadly, Basilisk wouldn't mount the image created by Disk Jockey, even after I changed the filename extension from .img to .dsk. And yes, I have my Basilisk II preference file setup with the correct path.

Here is the problematic System 7.1 boot image (2GB in size), copied straight off MacSD's SD card and zipped (not modified by Disk Jockey):

OS_71.img.zip

drive.google.com

And here's the System 7.5.5 boot image (2GB in size), also copied straight off my MacSD's SD card and zipped (boots off BlueSCSI but with Bad F-Line Instruction and Bus Errors using my BlueSCSI with June 2022 firmware):

OS_755.img.zip

drive.google.com

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong in conjunction with Disk Jockey so as to make BlueSCSI boot from it?

 

[rikerjoe]

James, for the 7.5.5 image did you edit the gusd resource to enable booting on an SE/30?

 

[JDW]

James, for the 7.5.5 image did you edit the gusd resource to enable booting on an SE/30?

Yes. I have both a hacked and stock version for use with a stock or non-stock SE/30 ROM, in addition to a System 6 System folder, and System Picker can select among them...

My external BlueSCSI has June 2022 firmware, and it was that unit in which my PNY 16GB SD card suddenly died. The card is dead because my Mac cannot see it when inserted. But it shouldn't have died due to overwrites because it was never in continuous use. The dead of that card is odd. Anyway, when I formatted my brand new 32GB SanDisk Extreme microSD card as ExFAT via Disk Utility (since SD Card Formatter stupidly formats it as FAT32 and gives me no option to use ExFAT), I then copy my 7.1 image and my 7.5.5 image to the card. The 7.1 image is not recognized at all, and it tries to boot from the hacked 755 System Folder on the other image, but I get Bad F Line instructions and Bus Errors. However, if I then move that card to my desktop edition BlueSCSI with April 2022 firmware, it will boot into 7.5.5 without those errors. But even then the 7.1 image will not mount on the Desktop, despite the fact the BlueSCSI Log file is showing nothing wrong with either image.

This is why I turned to Disk Jockey, in hopes it would work some magic and resolve the problem, but thus far it has not.

---

I was told via PM that my earlier post wasn't very clear, so the following is a simplified and numbered recompile of what I had previously written. My hope is that someone can offer me help out of this deep hole of confusion I'm in right now. Thanks.

1. I have 2 BlueSCSI devices:
   a) External type with June 2022 firmware
   b) Internal type with April 2022 firmware
2. It was the External type in which my 16GB PNY SD card suddenly died two days ago when used with my SE/30.
3. I had no backup of my dead PNY card, but the content was largely what is used on my MacSD devices, which work perfectly.
4. I copied 2 images from my MacSD SD card to a brand new SanDisk Extreme microSD card freshly formatted as ExFAT in Disk Utility on a Monterey M1 MacBook Pro:
   a) OS_71.img — which I renamed: HD10_512 OS71.img
   b) OS_755.img — which I renamed: HD30_512 OS755.img
5. I put that brand new SanDisk card inside my External type BlueSCSI with June 2022 firmware.
6. When I try to boot with that card containing 2 images, it tries to boot into 7.5.5 from HD30_512 OS755.img, but it gives me Bad F-Line Instruction or Bus Errors during repeated reboot attempts. One time it did boot to the Desktop before it froze with a Bus error, and only the OS_755.img was mounted on the Desktop. The HD10_512 OS71.img is not recognized at all.
7. I then tried renaming the files with an .hda extension, but to no avail.
8. I then tried dragging the images one at a time from my MacSD's SD card to Disk Jockey so as to allow Disk Jockey to create it's own image, but those Disk Jockey recreated images sadly don't have any good effect when used in BlueSCSI.
9. When I put my new SanDisk Extreme microSD card into my other BlueSCSI internal type with April 2022 firmware, it boots to the System 7.5.5 Desktop without any errors at all, from the HD30_512 OS755.img, but the HD10_512 OS71.img is no where to be found. Here is LOG.txt as copied from the SD card after that boot:
   
   BlueSCSI <-> SD - https://github.com/erichelgeson/BlueSCSI
   VERSION: 1.1-20220404-USB
   DEBUG:0 SCSI_SELECT:0 SDFAT_FILE_TYPE:3
   SdFat version: 2.0.6
   SPI speed: 50Mhz
   SdFat Max FileName Length: 32
   Initialized SD Card - lets go!
   Sd MID:3 OID:SD
   Sd Name:SE32G
   Sd Date:5/2016
   Sd Serial:849571216
   - HD10_512 OS71.img / 2147418624bytes / 2097088KiB / 2047MiB
   Not an image: ._HD30_512_OS755>img
   - HD30_512 OS755.img / 2147483648bytes / 2097152KiB / 2048MiB
   ID:LUN0:LUN1:
   0:----:----:
   1: 512:----:
   2:----:----:
   3: 512:----:
   4:----:----:
   5:----:----:
   6:----:----:
   Finished initialization of SCSI Devices - Entering main loop.
   
   
10. Frustrated, I then thought about using Disk Jockey to create a blank 2000MB image, thinking I could just use Basilisk II to mount that blank and also mount my MacSD image, then do a Finder copy within Basilisk II to move all files from my MacSD 2GB image to the newly created Disk Jockey 2GB image. Sadly, Basilisk II won't recognize the Disk Jockey created image even if I rename it *.dsk, which prompted my post in that Disk Jockey thread, asking for help.

Any further thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[OneGeekArmy]

I have just posted a beta of Disk Jockey 3. Check out the top post in this thread!

It's a huge one. I need a nap.

 

[JDW]

I have just posted a beta of Disk Jockey 3. Check out the top post in this thread!

It's a huge one. I need a nap.

A well deserved nap too! Absolutely amazing work.

 

[OneGeekArmy]

A well deserved nap too! Absolutely amazing work.

View attachment 13997

Thank you

 

[JDW]

@OneGeekArmy

I did my first test of the Apple II features today. You edited your opening post to say the following:

• Look inside DOS 3.3 disks

Unfortunately, I am not able to get a file listing for my DOS 3.3 disks. ProDOS disks do work, however.

Attached is a ZIP archive for you to test both image types.

One is a blank DOS 3.3 *.DO image and the other a blank ProDOS 143KB *.PO image. The *.DO throws the following error:

I have other disk images with a *.DSK extension which also throw the same error as above. One of them is named "Apple II Diag v4.7-1986.DSK" for example.

 

[OneGeekArmy]

@OneGeekArmy

I did my first test of the Apple II features today. You edited your opening post to say the following:

• Look inside DOS 3.3 disks

Unfortunately, I am not able to get a file listing for my DOS 3.3 disks. ProDOS disks do work, however.

Attached is a ZIP archive for you to test both image types.

One is a blank DOS 3.3 *.DO image and the other a blank ProDOS 143KB *.PO image. The *.DO throws the following error:

View attachment 14003

I have other disk images with a *.DSK extension which also throw the same error as above. One of them is named "Apple II Diag v4.7-1986.DSK" for example.

Thanks for the test!

Are you certain you are using the beta version? It's a separate link, the regular version will not update to it: https://diskjockey.onegeekarmy.eu/files/diskjockeybeta/Disk-Jockey.dmg
Also, the error message above is different in the beta version.

Your DOS disk works fine for me:

In the view showing the surface of the disk, orange sectors are system reserved, red sectors are catalog sectors and dark blue are for user files. When you select a file in the list (there are no files in your image so it won't show anything), its sectors will highlight in purple.

I should probably add a legend to the diagram

 

[JDW]

Very interesting. I'm here at work right now on my late 2015 5K iMac 27", and I am definitely running version 3.0 here. Sure enough, no problem. So I guess I was using an old version at home last night.

One thing I do notice though on this Mac OS Mojave machine is that the very top content is getting cut off a little bit, and making the window taller does not fix that...

Here's a different disk image and the result is the same...

I will check it on my MacOS Sonoma M1 Mac later when I get home and report back then.

 

[JDW]

I'm at home now on my MacOS Sonoma M1 MBP, and it works great. The top part of the dialog is not cut off either.

So the problem I reported in my previous post about the top part being cut off seems to be exclusive to MacOS Mojave. Not a major problem at all. I just wanted to mention it.

And as I said earlier, your app is amazing. Bravo!

 

[OneGeekArmy]

I'm at home now on my MacOS Sonoma M1 MBP, and it works great. The top part of the dialog is not cut off either.
View attachment 14007
View attachment 14008
So the problem I reported in my previous post about the top part being cut off seems to be exclusive to MacOS Mojave. Not a major problem at all. I just wanted to mention it.

And as I said earlier, your app is amazing. Bravo!

That's super. Glad you like it!

Yes, I need to run a little bit of regression testing on previous versions of macOS. Little things have changed in the way interface bits are calculated and it's not always obvious which parts are impacted.

Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[OneGeekArmy]

Well the beta is going to have to stay in beta for a while longer because Xcode 15 (which I use) doesn't create correct builds for some older versions of macOS. And I still want to support at least 10.13 High Sierra with Disk Jockey.

https://github.com/apple/swift/issues/68163

Thanks @JDW for making me do non-regression testing. This might have flown under the radar.

(the Disk Jockey beta should still run fine on macOS >= 10.15 Catalina)