big HD's and 9.1; look out Jaguar

[Jack Honeycutt]

At 01:17 PM 8/31/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>Not at all. Go to any article link, such as the above, and click on the
>Guided or Expert (search) buttons, enter the info you're seeking, and hit
>the GO button.

Thanks for the great tip!  I will try this in the future.

>Jaguar will support the drive, but your computer won't. Apple means it when
>they say on the mirrored drive door or Xserve model enable more than 128 GB.

I will be confusing my 7600 more so than it ever has been.  As well as 
installing a Sonnet G4 700Mhz processor card, I have installed a Sonnet PCI 
combo card called a Sonnet Trio.  It gives me one external Firewire port, a 
external USB port, and support for 4 internal ATA 133 devices (HDs DVD 
drives, etc):

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_trio.html

Out of the box, Sonnet's G4 card will support a OS up to 9.1.  If one wants 
to upgrade to a OS higher (like Jaguar for example), one needs to start off 
with a HD running 9.1,  then install Sonnet's $29.95 software, which will 
let one upgrade to Jaguar.  Sonnet's software patch will only allow one to 
upgrade to a flavor of X, if you start with a OS of 9.1.  It will not work 
if your Mac is running   9.2:

http://www.sonnettech.com/downloads/osx_upgrade_sw.html

The directions with the above software say to make two partitions on a 
large drive.  Have one partition be 9.1, and load the  Sonnet software on 
that 9.1 partition, then load Jaguar (or any version of X) on the second 
partition. Well, as you and I now know, 9.1 will not see or partition this 
160GB HD.

I am going to call Sonnet's tech support on Tuesday and ask, but I wonder 
if using the Sonnet Trio card, plus the Sonnet software, it will allow me 
to boot to the SCSI  HD running 9.1 (with the Sonnet software on it) and 
then get it to see my ATA 160 GB HD.  If so, maybe I can then load Jaguar 
on the 160 GB ATA HD and run it.

I will your use Apple knowledge search tips to see if Jaguar will support a 
HD as large as 160 GBs.

Perhaps another solution would be to buy a very small ATA HD and pull my 
SCSI drive.  Then install two ATI drives in my 7600.  One being small with 
9.1 on it, and the second being my big drive.

What to do, what  to do....

I found a support page that gathers information from readers. When I am 
finished, I will write up what I have done and sent it to the web master to 
post.  His site is made up of folks that share experiences that are a bit 
odd, like upgrading old Macs and trying to make them do what they usually 
don't do.  It is a page that talks a lot about accelerating older Macs and 
the information sounds well thought out and reasonable:

http://xlr8yourmac.com/

Do you think my HD plan has any merit?  I am afraid that if I were to init 
my 160 GB drive and partition it in a modern G4 or G5 Mac running Jaguar, 
that my Sonnet software may not recognize it.  Could this be a valid 
concern?  I hope Sonnet Tech Support can answer most of the above questions 
on Tuesday when I call them.

Thanks again for all the tips, especially on how to search Apple's 
Knowledge Base. That was a big help.

jack in Portland Oregon