I notice the case of a G3 B&W edition it has up to 3 hard drives it can mount in the case, but yet the ribbon cable included with the Mac can only attach to one drive. I tried mutli ATA ribbons to no avail and I'm not sure what else I can do.
Can someone help me?
Thanks
Power Mac G3 (B&W)-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 256MB/20GB/PPC
Hi,
I tried mutli ATA ribbons to no avail
Did any of those have a Slave connector in the middle of the cable? Like this...
http://www.impactcomputers.com/37l5098.html?gclid=CO7k77uow74CFY17fgodtH0AIw
You need to set one drive is "Master" and the other "Slave".
Is it a rev.1 or a rev.2? See #3 here.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/yosemite/newfeatures.html
If the multi-hard drive carrier plate in the bottom of the chassis is one piece, you've got a Revision 1 B&W. These typically shipped with a small IDE hard drive or a 9 GB Ultra Wide SCSI. These G3s don't support Master-Slave configuration of dual drives on the same ATA channel or the use of larger capacity ( 30 GBs ->) hard drives. There's the potential for data corruption, when larger drives are used. The solution for these models is to install a Mac-compatible ATA controller PCI card. I installed the (now-discontinued) Sonnet Tempo 133 in my Rev. 1 B&W, and it can handle up to (4) hard drives with support for large drives (128 GBs ->). The Acard AEC-6280M is another compatible controller card. If the hard drive in your B&W is mounted in a dual-drive "stack bracket" (closest to the rear of the chassis) and the middle and front locations for additional drives include separate carriers, you have a Revision 2 B&W. This model supported Master-Slave configuration of dual drives, with formatted capacities up to 128 GBs. Additionally, if your existing hard drive is a Western Digital, its configuration jumper may be set to "Single" for a standalone drive. This needs to be changed to Master w/Slave present, when adding a second "Slave" drive to the cable.
It is R1, because it was made in the last days of 1998 prior to the release in January 1999.
However I got some 120something GB hard drive and I haven't had any problems running it.
I'll see if I can find a PCI ATA contoller. This all makes some sense now.
I just yesterday fished a Sonnet Tempo ATA 133 card out of the recycling box at work. No guarantee, but it looks OK. Even has its special ribbon. See my eMail at my profile.
jws
"It is R1, because it was made in the last days of 1998 prior to the release in January 1999."
The final beige G3s were also manufactured in December 1998, so you have a very early edition. There's always the chance - given its age - that someone has previously replaced the logic board with a Rev. 2 board. From the linked article at the "Accelerate Your Mac" website, did you scroll down to the section about the Revised IDE controller Chip? From the article: "Rev. 1 and Rev. 2 logic boards are similar. To differentiate, check the number printed on the CMD chip at location U1. The CMD chip on Rev. 1 logic boards is PCI646U2 and on Rev. 2 logic boards is 646U2-402."
Yes, by all means, if you don't have it already get the Rev 2 motherboard with the '402' chip. It's really a necessity if you're going to upgrade the ol' Mac.
jws
This is on eBay for $20.
I used to have one in a B&W G3, and later a G4 DA running up to OS 10.5.8. It was very reliable.
There is a catch though. When you connect a drive to it, you have to format (erase) it to install the drivers.
An ATA controller card would bypass the motherboard chip and be faster in transfer speed.
It also would provide two "master" buses, which, with two hard drives (one on each cable), would eliminate master/slave delays.
Master drives and slave drives take turns with data transfers. Two master drives could operate simultaneously.
Dave makes a good point regarding formatting. Because the controller card's connected drives are recognized as "SCSI" devices by the system, the drive must have a SCSI driver written to it during the formatting process. This means that if you were to transfer the existing hard drive to the controller card, it must be reformatted. Obviously, this erases all data and guarantees the headache of reloading all software. There's also the choice of installing the controller card in the faster 66 MHz PCI slot (designated for the graphics card), as opposed to an available 33 MHz PCI slot. Feedback regarding this setup can undoubtedly be found at the "Accelerate Your Mac" website.
thanks all for responding back. So many too!
I hadn't gotten a chance to respond because of the holiday and wasn't able to get to the Mac. It is the model where the drives sit on the bottom and has a single IDE connector. I took a picture courtesy of my iPhone.
would this be the Rev A/1 board?
BTW: In fact this Mac of interest was made on December 31st, litteraly the last day before 1999.
what's the difference between a SCSI drive and an IDE drive? Can I tell by the connectors or something else?
I believe the drives I've used were all IDE/ATA and never had problems.
I guess I answered my own question, so essentially I have to format the drive to put drivers to make the HD "virtually" act like a SCSI?
Can this be compatible with OS X? I could do 9 for getting this to work, but if it can't do it on 10, I'd think my time would be better spent on some other project.
The formatting can be done in, and for, OS X using Disk Utility. Directions are in the card's manual here. http://dl.acard.com/manual/english/aec-6280m_ver11.pdf
"What's the difference between a SCSI drive and an IDE drive?" --- (shortened and imprecise version)
Small Computer Systems Interface is a protocol for moving data on a path between different devices on a bus between computer motherboard and hard drive(s) and various other drives and/or printer, scanner, &c. It is - or was fifteen or twenty years ago - a faster, better way to move data than the Advanced Technology Attachment / Integrated Device Electronics protocol common to Intel machines. It came with a controller on the motherboard that served as a traffic cop to send all the data in the proper direction and to the proper destination(s). It also required a special woven ribbon that differentiated between the numbered (jumpered) devices, reduced 'crosstalk', and terminated the path - sending the data back in the other direction. In the advance of progress, ATA improved much faster and especially much more cheaply - particularly with the help of the internet - as a way to move and store data. Later Macs adopted the ATA standard, and when they came with a SCSI system they included a separate controller card to replace the previously built-in controller.
Your ACARD or Sonnet controller card allows your hard drive to behave like a SCSI system.
A practical difference is that for an 80GB HD, ATA is about $200 less expensive.
Hope that makes it all perfectly clear!
Regards... jws
Adding second hard drive to B&W G3
