[G4] Hard drive installation problem

[Kenneth Smith]

Ok Ron, Rich, Tom, Harry, S. Kennedy, Kathi, and Dan (I hope I didn't  
leave anybody out), give yourselves a tentative pat on the back;  I  
think I have resolved my problem.  I hope this post reveals something  
new and interesting to someone among you.  My problem appears to have  
been a formatting issue.  You may recall that I had two 180 GB IBM  
hard drives that came on my, mirrored door, 1.42 gh computer, and one  
drive had OS X on it.  The two drives were in the rear mounting  
tray.  I installed a new 750 GB Seagate Barracuda, Serial ATA hard  
drive, in the lower front tray.  I installed OS X on the new drive  
and formatted both the IBM drives.  I made one IBM drive a backup and  
the other a place for media storage. The problem I presented to you  
guys was that both the old drives were now showing that they were  
about 72 % full, when they were supposed to be formatted and  
"empty."  Due to my limited technical knowledge, I thought one erase  
by the OS X disk utility erased the drive.  After I looked farther  
and discovered the options for more thorough erasing, I picked the "7- 
pass" option and now both disks appear to be showing the accurate  
capacity and functioning normally.

Thanks to all of your information and suggestions, and the research  
that I did as a result, I had a major learning experience.  I learned  
that the technology of my mirrored door G4 represented a significant  
technical plug-and-play milestone by Apple toward rendering  
insignificant the master/slave jumper settings.  I also learned that  
the new serial ATA drives were manufactured to accommodate the new  
plug and play technology.  There seems to be a consensus of  
information that connections for drives mounted in the front tray  
make the G4 operate a little slower than the rear tray connections.   
Mine now seems a little slower.  My new question is this:  If I move  
the 750 GB Seagate, with the OS on it, from the front to the rear  
tray, and move one of the rear IBM drives in the rear tray to the  
front,  will my computer still recognize the Seagate as my startup  
disk, and boot up, or will there just be a smoky hole in the ground  
where my computer was?


On Nov 25, 2007, at 8:29 AM, C D T wrote:

> Check the manufacturer's web sites.  You use jumpers to program  
> Master/Slave and each manufacturer has instructions on which pins  
> to put the jumpers on.  The drives do not need to be from the same  
> manufacturer, but the should be properly configured as master or  
> slave.  I went through this about a year ago and I remember there  
> was some significance as to whether the Master was in the bottom or  
> top of the carrier, but I don't remember where it goes.  If I find  
> the info, I'll forward it.
>
>
> On Saturday, November 24, 2007, at 04:36  PM, Kenneth Smith wrote:
>
>> Dan,
>>
>> Perhaps the Master/Slave thing is my problem.  I didn't see  
>> anything about Master/Slave in my mirrored Door G4 hard drive  
>> installation info, and I wouldn't know how to designate one or the  
>> other.  I bought this computer in March of 2003, if that is of any  
>> significance.
>>
>> Kenneth
>>
>> On Nov 24, 2007, at 2:37 PM, C D T wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Actually Rich, it's 28.52 GB available on one 180 GB drive, and  
>>>> 29.23 on the other media storage drive.   The new drive is not  
>>>> SCSI ( Link to Drive: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ 
>>>> ST3750640A/ ).  My G4 simply came with the two ATA drives in the  
>>>> rear tray, then I added the new ATA drive in the front tray.  I  
>>>> don't think the two original drives are in a raid array.
>>>>
>>>> Floy
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 23, 2007, at 9:51 PM, Richard Klein wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Nov 23, 2007 8:19 PM, Kenneth Smith <kdorpat at suddenlink.net>  
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> Thanks Ronald,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My G4 was a build-to-order purchase with two 180 GB drives so  
>>>>>> that i
>>>>>> can do media projects.  After I installed the new 750 GB drive  
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> made it my system drive, I used Disk Utility to erase and  
>>>>>> format the
>>>>>> old 180 GB system drive, but saw no need to do anything to the  
>>>>>> other
>>>>>> one for which I only used to store media.
>>>
>>>>>> snip
>>>
>>> Assuming you got the PATA and not the SATA version of the New  
>>> drive, I would install the New drive as master and the  
>>> reformatted drive as slave in the rear tray and install the  
>>> second of the original drives in the front tray for storage and  
>>> maybe scratch files.
>>>
>>> I have a 2002 Quicksilver (dual 1 gig) with two ATA drives in the  
>>> rear tray, and 3 SCSIs center and front.  All three work fine and  
>>> show full capacity.  I do allow the computer to put the drives to  
>>> sleep when possible so I sometimes have wait for them to wake  
>>> up.  Other than that, no shortcomings.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>>> G4 mailing list
>>>> G4 at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
>>>> http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/g4
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>