Beige G3 Hard Drive Slave IDE cable problem

Red,

I have a WD 30 gig IDE drive in my G3 on one channel and a Yamaha CD burner on the other channel. That is all that I can add because my initial G3 is a Rev A. Rev A does not support master slave. So, the first thing to do is to determine if you have a newer G3 or an original.

Check here for details:

http://www.macgurus.com/products/motherboards/mbppcg3desk.php

I use the external SCSI chain for all my odd jobs. Not looking for speed.

Your power supply will handle the added load but an external hard drive bay/power supply is another alternative for augmenting power to some devices if you are worried.

Sounds like your Zip is IDE. If you changed it to SCSI you could just add a SCSI drive to the bay above the zip. I would not talk you out of adding a PCI controller card for more affordable HDD additions. If you have a bunch of SCSI drives, a SCSI card would give you another whole chain and accomodate more drives but the ATA card will allow you to by more gigs per dollar but limit you to two drives per card.

By the way, is your G3 a desktop or an mini-tower?

Ji˜m

" Am I going to have to add an IDE/SCSI PCI card? If so, do you have any recommendations? How would adding a card affect the existing SCSI chain?"

Your G3 natively supports IDE/ATA/ATAPI devices, having two ATA channels to do so. There is also an onboard SCSI-1 bus (max. 5 MB/sec), for connection of external/internal SCSI devices. Your profile info indicates the G3 Server, so you'd likely have an Ultra-SCSI PCI card and hard drive, if the hard drive is a SCSI device. The CD-ROM and Zip drives undoubtedly share one of the ATA channels. If that's the case, you still have an extra ATA channel for connection of extra IDE/ATAPI drives. What does the Apple System Profiler ("Devices and Volumes") indicate about the type(s) of installed drives? If your existing hard drive is connected to one of the ATA channels, you can configure dual drives as master/slave on that channel, provided that your G3 has a ROM revision $77D.45F1 or $77D.45F2

Assuming that you have the mini-tower model, the lone IDE hard drive in the top of the chassis usually has the single device OEM ribbon cable attached to it. If you want to connect a second drive as slave on the same ATA channel, you'll need a 24" (no longer) ribbon cable with connectors for both drives. The 24" cable has adequate separation between the drive connectors, enabling connection to each. Several years ago, I bought four of these ribbon cables (40-conductor, 24") from Radio Shack, but I don't even know if they still carry that item in their stores today. A PC store should have them. You can't use the newer 80-conductor Ultra-ATA ribbon cables, because they're typically only 18" long, and that's not long enough. Cables longer than 24" are prone to causing data corruption, so avoid them. For ease of connection, you may have to move the CD-ROM and Zip drives down one bay each, and install the slave hard drive in the bay formerly occupied by the CD-ROM drive.

Appaloosa,

Are you sure about the rev. A's not supporting master/slave? I have a rev. A beige MT and i am running the stock 6gb(master) along with another 7gb(slave). And they work fine. I bought a new 18 inch pc cable and put the 7 gb in the zip drive bay just resting on top of the zip drive.

Patrick

Patrick,

There is a link somewhere on my other internet machine that has the specs. If the G3 has a certain ATI Rage chip number, you have the earliest motherboard, which does not support multiple drives per channel. My son had the next G3 with the later ATI Rage chip and his would support Master/Slave.

Rev A is not precise enough. The ATI chip does not affect the controller. These are just clues to which manufacturing batch your computer came from.

Jim

A master/slave configuration of dual drives isn't supported in beige G3s, having the first release ROM card (version $77D.40F2) installed on the motherboard. When the computers were new, one could use the ATI graphics chip to identify the motherboard as a Rev. 1, 2, or 3, and assume that the corresponding ROM card was installed. Eight years later, these computers have changed owners (often multiple times) and undoubtedly had numerous hardware modifications. Because of this, the ATI chip or motherboard part number isn't the litmus test for determining support for master/slave drives.

Patrick: Using the Apple System Profiler to check your ROM version (Production information -> ROM revision), I'm sure that you'll find it reporting $77D.45F1 or $77D.45F2 - the two versions programmed to support master/slave configurations.

mmmmmmm.....my favourite subject...
I have been running 3 beige machines in here (two of them have been pensioned, and one is still crunching MP3's in the Rumpus room).

I've had a master/slave configuration on my Beige (Rev. B), and it worked flawlessly.
For instance, my son's G3 would not accept a configuration like that under any circumstance.
We tried to connect 2 IDE drives and it would just not work, leading to irreparable data corruption on both drives.

After several experiments with different machines, I can certainly say that:

A - it depends on the brand and model of the IDE drives you are trying
to connect;
B - as already said with Jim some time ago in a different topic.... it seems
that beige G3 machines have a brain and a soul of their own: Two
exactly identical machines would not accept a transplant of hardware in
the same configuration. 2 IDE drive would run on one and not on another;

My personal configuration on the Beige Rev.B was:

- IDE burner (master) and IDE drive (Slave) on one channel;
- IDE Drive (Master on the second channel.

Also note that (and this is valid for both the Beige and B&W machines) they
do not seem to like some brands and models of HD, even when they are
installed in single Master configuration. The result is extremely erratic
behaviour, data corruption, late startups and so on.

cheers

Ah yes, i have the $77D.45F1 ROM version, lucky me i guess. I wish my rev. 1 B&W would take even single drives on its ultra ata channel.

The major programming oversight causing non-support for master/slave configurations in beige G3s was easily remedied with revised ROM cards. When one considers that an old 1995 Performa 6200 can handle a 120 GB IDE hard drive, the problems with the Rev. 1 B&W's IDE controller were inexcusable. If third-party ATA controller cards were only needed for mega-sized drives, Rev. 1 B&W G3 owners wouldn't have such a tough pill to swallow. Buying a controller card to master/slave a pair of 30, 40, or 80 GB drives is money that could have been spent on other upgrades.

Well put Jeff, the card that I need to run my SINGLE 80 gig HDD costs more than what I paid for the Hard Drive it will be running, that is once i get the money to buy the card.