Viking II HD Not Recognised

I had my Beige G3 366 MT (512MB; OS9) parked for several months; with power attached to the same strip surge protector as the G4 I use daily...in order to save the battery.

It has had 10.3 installed on it before.

When I fired 'er up, the Viking II was not on the desktop. When I start from my OS9 Install CD, the Viking is not recognised in D. Utilities. ASP does not see it. I have not changed anything from before when it was working and I parked it. It's connected to the Atto SCSI card. The Atto shows in ASP. I've noticed that on restart, the Viking makes a couple clicks and (with the side cover off) I can see a light flicker toward the back of the drive. But then nada. I added a jumper to no avail (It's never been jumpered before).

The IDE HD is okay. I've tried starting with the IDE HD disconnected; but I get the flashing question mark until I restart with the Install CD.

Is the issue with the SCSI card or the HD? I just kinda thought HD's would make ugly noises when they failed. This one just clicks a couple times and then is silent. Did maybe the platter freeze from inactivity?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

David

G4 500, Mac OS X (10.4.8), 700mhz upgrade; 768MB; Geforce FX5200; Acard 6280; NEC 3540A

Posted on Jan 7, 2007 5:35 AM

26 replies

Jan 13, 2007 4:14 PM in response to David Cun

Yes, at the back right hand corner of the beige motherboard are three interface connectors. Two are IDE and one is SCSI. That should give the same results as the external socket.

Jan 18, 2007 10:22 AM in response to Appaloosa mac man

There is one thing you need to keep in mind. For my G3 tower (333, same card and drive as David), the drive is connected with a 68-pin SCSI interface, while the onboard interface is a 50-pin header type connector. You will probably need an adapter to use this drive on the onboard SCSI connection.

That being said, I'm leaning toward mechanical failure inside the drive as well.

Also, I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, but there is a firmware update available for that particular SCSI card: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n25176

Platinum G3, Minitower (333/AV), Desktop (266 and 233) Mac OS X (10.4.8)

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Jan 18, 2007 3:57 PM in response to EmanModnar

Yep, the onboard SCSI slot has a different number of pins than the Atto controller. So, I don't see anywhere to attach internally.

I already checked the firmware thing...
"...Note: If you see:
Card Revision: 4
120
your firmware is already up to date, and you do not need to use this update..."

Mine says 4 / 120.

I note that with OS X About this Mac...it's listed in Drives and Devices as Viking II etc but then says, "not mounted".

I note also that when the MT is powered on, there's a green light coming from the Atto card. And again, the HD makes a couple clicking noises on Restart but then is quiet and seems to be operating (quietly) soon thereafter.

I appreciate yall hanging with me...I've been busy and the Beige was kinda put on the back burner...but I'll try to do better.

Thanks!
David

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Jan 18, 2007 4:21 PM in response to David Cun

And ... in OS9, ASP, Devices and Vols, SCSI Bus 1>ID 0...HD...Viking II ... not mounted.

In Drive Setup it calls it, "not supported" I believe.

I also searched and found 'Atto Updater v1.6.6', but after running it the report was 'no cards updated'. And the problem persists.

Jan 18, 2007 4:40 PM in response to David Cun

Try this wonderful free OS 9 utility called "Mt. Everything"
It sometimes will give you an additional clue about why a SCSI drive is not happy:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/3043

Jan 18, 2007 8:47 PM in response to David Cun

David,

"the onboard SCSI slot has a different number of pins than the Atto controller. So, I don't see anywhere to attach internally"

Two options:

One is to get a 50 to 68 in adapter. Be sure it is the correct gender. Allan Jones suggested puting the adapter into the onboard interface connector and continuing to use the 68 pin cabling. He used this trick to upgrade drives in 6100/8100 series Macs. That does disable the 50 pin CD-ROM drive if it is also on the same chain but it gets around incorrect gender issues.

Second, find a $5 external hard drive/CD-ROM drive case at a thrift store or computer recycler, remove the internal drive and connect up the hard drive (adapter needed if it is an old enclosure). That will allow you to test the drive on the external port.

Jim

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Jan 19, 2007 9:44 AM in response to Appaloosa mac man

Grant:
Cool...I just downloaded it and I'll let yall know.

Jim:
I think I have an adapter lying around somewhere. I'll try that too. I'm loathe to go to all you mention in "Second..". That's just too much work...lol.

Just trying to get the thing running cleanly so I can try to sell it on Fleabay or see if a 'shelter' nearby might take it. I'll include lots of legacy stuff like orig manuals, Performa floppies, DOS system floppies, ext zip, OS 8 and manuals, orig CD-ROM, extra RAM sticks, Adaptec controller, PrintShop, Norton Util, etc etc etc....lotsa stuff.

Thanks for all the suggestions!
David

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Jan 21, 2007 7:17 AM in response to David Cun

I ran Mt Everything. In the window there was:
flashing between "Medium Error" and "Viking II..."

The Viking II is listed but 'mount' and 'update' don't seem to do anything.

ID: 7>Bus options: .Apple Virtual Bus
O Apple Computer Motherboard
1 Apple Computer PCI Card

The latter (...PCI Card) displays first; default I guess. I tried 'update' and 'mount' with all three. Whatever that means...lol. Nothing happens; just keeps on flashing MediumError/Viking II...

Jan 21, 2007 10:31 PM in response to David Cun

The medium is the surface coating on the hard drive platters.

"Medium Error" is not a good error message for someone wanting to retrive data. The most common example is the difference in coatings for double density floppy disks and High Density disks (HDD).

Might be time to make some wind chimes : (

Sorry,

Jim

David Cun Author

Level 4

1,428 points

Jan 22, 2007 7:51 AM in response to Appaloosa mac man

Lol...a wind chime out of a HDD...that'll be a clunker wouldn't it.

I give up.

Jim, I appreciate your continued efforts. Weird that only you and Grant responded....out of the hordes of Biege users.
😀

Thanks again,
Dave

Jan 22, 2007 6:48 PM in response to David Cun

"Medium error" is telling you that there are read errors on the drive, but that the controller is fine. It responds properly when asked to read, but there was a read error. It can't be mounted because it gets read errors in some of the essential stuff right at the beginning.

You can ask Mt. Everything to use its own drivers (rather than the ones on the drive) to read the data. If the driver is the block that is bad, it may be able to tell you more. If that is successful, you could try the "Update Driver" function in Drive Setup.

I do not want to get your hopes up. Errors near the beginning of a drive are often fatal. I find them to be terribly frustrating. The drive almost works... but not quite well enough to trust it with your data.

SCSI drives were used in older Macs. They were good then, and are even better now. But most users were not willing to pay extra for them, so Apple gave in to the pressure and converted to IDE drives for most Macs.

Adding an external SCSI drive was supposed to be easy, but was just a little too geeky for some users. If you did not read the rules and follow them, suddenly nothing worked. That spawned the term "SCSI Voodoo".

It seemed like black magic, but most of time boiled down to:
• Use cables designed for SCSI, not RS-232, not 25-pair telephone, not other unshielded cables.
• The last device on the chain must be terminated, and other externals not terminated.
• Every device must have a unique address -- the Mac itself is already ID=7, your factory internal drive is ID=0, and the factory SCSI CD is ID=3.

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Viking II HD Not Recognised