[G4] Newcomer to G4 - query on hard disks

[Richard H. Blount]

On 12/23/05 17:53, "Philip J Robar" <pjrobar at areyoureallythatstupid.org>
wrote:

> 
> On Dec 23, 2005, at 1:55 PM, John Baltutis wrote:
> 
>> On 12/23/05, Ian Piper <ianpiper at mac.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Is it possible to put an internal hard drive in the bay where the
>>> zip drive
>>> would normally go (there is a second IDE bus with the DVD-ROM drive
>>> on it and a spare IDE connector)?
>> 
>> Yes, but that bus is much slower because it uses the ATAPI protocol
>> (intended
>> for CD/DVD, tape, and ZIP drives) vice the ATA protocol (for HDs). See
>> <http://www.ata-atapi.com/hist.htm#T4> and
>> <http://www.stanford.edu/~csapuntz/ide.html> for details.

> 
> Note that the difference in performance between an ATA 6/5/4 (ATA
> 133/100/66 in marketing speak.) interface is very small. A modern
> hard drive will perform nearly identically on each. There isn't a
> noticeable drop in performance until you get to an ATA3 (ATA 33)
> interface.
> 
> 
I don¹t know how to post new topics to this list yet, but I have a very
closely related question/problem with my Mac G4 so I figured I could place
it in this thread.

I was given a Mac G4 with the mirrored doors as a gift. It was in pieces but
I was able to put it back together. The only part missing was a Hard Drive.
I have several hard drives in my collection that I have tried with the G4
recovery disks. I reset the pram, the nvram and did the whole schmeer aside
from standing on my head and wiggling my ears. Either the recovery screen
doesn't show the drive at all, (just shows the recovery volume and the CD
itself) or it show the drive and says the machine doesn't support the
configuration. I had to build a volume on my trusty G3 B&W in order to get
it to even see the drive, and even then it was only on the drive bay under
the DVD drive. The one at the rear of the machine, with the cable attached
to the board next to the processor never seems to see any of my hard drives.
I removed the drive from the B&W and tried it in both bays and never get
past the grey apple screen. It just sits there... Mocking me....

I surmise that I have all the wrong speeds or something drives. Admittedly
the drives are older. One is a Maxtor 5T040HD (40g) and the other is a
Western Digital Caviar 26400. Probably both are too slow. B&W has no trouble
seeing, reading and writing to these drives. Is the newer machine that much
different? 

Another new guy..
Rich
-- 
Maj. Richard H. Blount (OHMR Ret.)
It is not enough to aim, You must hit.