[X-Newbies] how to seamlessly use added hard drive

[Philip J Robar]

On Sep 10, 2006, at 12:01 AM, Robert MacLeay wrote:

> Not all G4 Macs support cable select; I do not know the cutoff model.

Even though Apple only documents using jumpers, my AGP G4 (Sawtooth)  
works fine with cable select. I think my B&W G3 (Yosemite) also does,  
but I haven't played with it in a while.

> A further complication is that not all _cables_ support cable  
> select, even
> when the drives and host adapters do support it. Most that do are
> 80-conductor,

While I don't have access to the official ANSI standards, based on  
what I've read elsewhere I'm pretty sure that the standard says that  
all ATA 80 wire cables must implement cable select. All Macs from the  
Yosemite on have shipped with 80 wire cables

> and will have pin 28 on only one of the connectors actually attached
> to the cable. While the current standards say end connector should
> be the master, not all early cables followed them.

If the cable is an 80 wire ATA cable it must be the end connector.

> When the instructions don't work, ignore them; you could try  
> setting the
> jumpers on the two drives to master and slave.

Jumpers should always override cable select.

> On 9/9/06 11:41 PM, "Chris Beamis" <beamis at drizzle.com> wrote:
>
>> Okay, I now have near success. Got SuperDuper, copied the boot drive
>> over to the new big drive and made it the boot drive, and now in the
>> Finder window it says 319GB free whereas before it said 3.1GB free.
>> So I'm using the new drive. The only problem I'm having is that I
>> can't seem to move the new drive to the end of the data cable. When
>> I put it there the machine won't boot, but if I leave it in the slave
>> connector (position #2) it will boot with or without the other drive
>> connected. Problem is I want to put it on the end and put the old
>> smaller one in the middle for temporary so I can clean it off for
>> sale. Does anyone know how to do that? The jumper switches for both
>> of them remain in the Cable Select position.

Hmm, putting a single drive on the middle of an 80 wire cable is an  
invalid configuration. It may work, but you're asking for trouble  
given the speeds and signaling characteristics of modern drives.

Some thoughts:

Is your drive a Western Digital by any chance? Some WD drives insist  
on being jumpered as a single drive when they are used alone. This  
single setting is unique to WD's drives.

Try another cable. You should be able to get one for a few dollars -  
probably even at Wal-Mart.

Have you tried the new drive in the middle and the old drive on the  
end? This would a way to test the cable.

Have you tried hooking both drives up in the configuration you want?

Try resetting the startup drive in the configuration that works and  
then trying the configuration you want.

Phil