Q: PATA/IDE Jumper configuration
I recently bought an iMac G4 Flat Panel ("Snowball") 1.25 GHz, Model M9168LL/A, with 756 MB RAM, a 160 GB HDD and a non-working optical drive.
the previous owner did intend to replace the optical drive and had already gotten a replacement, but didn't get around to installing that before he decided to sell the machine, which came in nicely for me since I figured the upgrade should be fairly doable and I could directly upgrade the RAM while I had it open.
as I always do I did give it a test-run before working on it, and the machine worked as expected (that is everything but the optical drive worked).
I'm now working on it, and I have ran into one little issue, everything I can find about replacing the optical drive in these machines tells you to configure the jumpers the same as the drive you are replacing.
sounds sensible, but I don't think it will work this time, because that original drive is working just fine on a USB/ATAPI adapter.
the iMac didn't see the drive at all, but I was able to install an Microsoft Windows 10 Tech Preview into a virtual Machine on my PC using that drive and the USB adapter.
(VM Config: CD/DVD -> Connection -> Use Physical drive "G:")
so, if it didn't find it, the current settings are probably not right, I know the USB adapter is flexible about it, but from what I can find these iMac's are not.
the drive is on Cable Select now, but does anyone know what it should be?
a second issue I have because of this, is cleaning the old thermal paste off the heat-sink, as I have to apply new paste, and I have some (Arctic MX4), but I can't get the old stuff off, so far I can only come up with scraping it off, but I'm somewhat worried about possibly scratching the metal itself, which could affect the system's cooling performance.
Posted on Jun 18, 2015 12:17 PM