Power Mac 7300/180 second hard drive

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Level 1

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Power Mac 7300/180 second hard drive

I have two questions that hopefully someone can help me with. I have a Power Mac 7300/180 with a PowerLogix ZForce G3 upgrade card running Mac OS 9.1. Question 1) It has another drive bay and I want to add a second hard drive but when I open it, all I see is the 4 prong power connector. Do I have to also install the 50-pin data wire connector, or can I make it into a 68-pin connector and how would it be done? Also, the original hard drive is a 2GB scsi drive and can that be replaced with a bigger one? Can it be converted to an ATA/IDE drive? Or should I leave a SCSI and convert it to 68-pin? Question 2) it is missing the L2 cache card and can that be replaced or is intended to be removed being that it has the G3 processor upgrade daughtercard?

Posted on Oct 23, 2005 11:09 AM

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Answer 1

Jeff

Level 6

12,328 points

Oct 23, 2005 8:39 PM in response to john nyto

You can add another drive in the lower bay, but be aware that it uses a different plastic sled than the type used in the top bay. The OEM SCSI ribbon cable has three device connectors, one of which is used for the CD-ROM drive, and the last one for the OEM hard drive. There should be an extra (middle) connector, tucked away in the lower bay. There are 68-to-50 pin adapters, but if you decide to install an LVD drive used in SE mode, you'll need a spare connector on the ribbon cable for a terminator. The original Quantum 2 GB SCSI drive can be replaced with a larger drive, if desired. Perhaps you should consider a Mac-compatible ATA-133 controller PCI card (like the Acard, SIIG, or Sonnet Tempo), so that you can buy/install the less-expensive IDE/E-IDE hard drives. The card and drives could be transferred to a newer Mac, when you retire the 7300. Removal of the L2 cache card is often recommended by the third-party processor upgrade manufacturers, which would explain its absence. A G3-upgraded 7300 is a nice computer, but it's not the equivalent of a native beige G3 because of inherent hardware limitations. Keep that in mind before deciding to invest a lot of $$ in it, as its current market value is probably about $20.

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