Classic mac fun (and some questions)

[Brian Lanning]

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 1:09 AM, Cameron Kaiser<spectre at floodgap.com> wrote:
> You could try zapping PRAM (Cmd-Opt-P-R as the machine starts up; let it
> chime a couple times with the keys held down) but this may not help as the
> bogus System Folder will still be blessed. A sure fix would be to boot
> from a valid secondary device, but with a bum floppy drive you're really
> hosed.

I'll try this tonight.

> I'm suspecting the Mac you have was messed up by its previous owner -- a
> lot of these errors would be inexplicable with normal use. A full reinstall
> of 7.6 or 8.1 from an external CD-ROM would be strongly advised.

An apple CDROM drive, like the 300 or 600 is on the shopping list.
Any ideas where I can get a OS image I can burn from vista?

Also, which version would be best on a quadra 700?  I've heard that
7.6 was best for performance, but I care less about performance and
more about functionality.  Is there an advantage to upgrading to 8.1?

The scsi hard drive that's in there now is a smaller capacity, but
it's half-height, slightly too big for the case.  The top latches in
place, but you have to bend it slightly to do that.  I have a 1gig
scsi drive(1" high, quantum iirc)  from an amiga that I can use
instead.  If I'm going to reinstall the OS, maybe I should go that
route.  Anything I should consider before trying to do that?

Does anyone make a scsi floppy drive that I could put in my external
enclosure?  Do these even exist?  What about zip/jaz/syquest drives?

Is it possible to install 7.6 or 8.1, then pull the hard drive and
attach it to a PC, mount the mac parition, and copy a large number of
disk images over?  I have a PCI adaptec scsi controller floating
around somwhere.  What about booting from an ubuntu CD?

Another angle is the adaptec scsi disk in a PC, copy files over, mount
the disk on a mac.  I have another 100gig disk I could use for this.
Are there any non-mac file systems that the mac can mount, like maybe
fat32?

Also, where can I buy two new/refurb mac floppy drives?

thanks

brian