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Beige G3 w/Tempo Trio No LBA?

LCARS

Well-known member
In my efforts to rehab my Beige G3, I installed a Sonnet Tempo Trio card (ATA133) and attached a OWC 500GB SSD.

The lovely MacOS9Lives restorer initialized the drive but reports its only slightly over 127GB. Now I could be completely mistaken but I thought that when using a newer ATA controller card, the OS could see larger drives. Is 500GB just too absurdly large for it?

Attempt Two: I formatted the drive on my MDD with 10.5, correctly sized the partitions to below 190GB, and used MacOS Extended. When I put the SSD back into the Beige, Drive Setup spins the black & white endlessly.

This makes me think that the SSD is just too big and the partitions aren't playing well with Drive Setup. The Tempo Trio has been fine with the original IDE drive that shipped with the machine. Maybe I'll just stick with that.

I welcome any thoughts! I'd be sad to have to find another use for all the bits that I just gathered.
 

LCARS

Well-known member
Thankfully, Sonnet keeps their legacy product alive online. There is a firmware update for large drives. I applied that years ago but I'll try it again. Maybe 3rd time is the charm. The SSD is properly recognized on the MDD, so at least its not a problem there.

I'll post when I get that update reinstalled.
 

trag

Well-known member
I'm not sure what effect the "MacOS9Lives restorer" might have, but generally, the ATA cards for ATA100 and above had built-in support for larger drives.

At least, that's the way I remember it.

However, a drive formatted on a built-in ATA bus might not work properly when you attach it to a card-based ATA bus.

I think that's an effect of the ATA cards masquerading as SCSI cards.

I think your 500GB SSD should work fine in the Beige G3 with an ATA card. I know I had a pair of 160 GB and one 200GB drives on an Acard 6280M in a Beige which worked great, IIRC. It's been a long while ago.
 

LCARS

Well-known member
Thanks, trag. Well I can report that when the MDD formatted SSD registers on the Beige G3 as mounted volume, it reports its true size. The way I see it, this "restorer" is a univerally bootable 9.2.2 disk with the proper software restore program for OS9-fussy machines like some MDDs.

The problem seems to be Disk Utility. It states the drive is 131GB. As I understand it, such a large drive should be partitioned under OS 9. The restore program sees it and will restore to it, but I worry that if I go that route, I'll be causing a problem later on.
 

trag

Well-known member
"restorer" is a univerally bootable 9.2.2 disk with the proper software restore program for OS9-fussy machines like some MDDs.

Ohhh. That would be nice. Getting the proper components on MDDs for OS9 is a pain. I wrote a longish article about it way back. I wish I remembered where I posted it. It had a list of things like this version of Sound Manager and such and such.
 

LCARS

Well-known member
I wrote a longish article about it way back. I wish I remembered where I posted it.
I recalling reading an article around here by that description a few months ago. When I have more time, I can take a look for it.

I downloaded the "Restorer" from OS9Lives two years ago but I don't see it there anymore. I can burn a copy for you. It did wonders for my G4 Gigabit that never worked well with X, even with the firmware update.

The Beige G3 continues to vex me. The Tempo Trio card (ATA, USB, FireWire) works fine now for ATA but not for USB or FireWire. Despite all the extensions being enabled, the USB sticks don't even get power. I'll try another PCI slot. I gave up with the SSD. I don't know where the disconnect is that the mounted drive reads as normal but the Drive Setup sees it as well. The regular ATA133 HDD works just fine.

I'll install the 9.2 disc tomorrow and see if the USB drivers on that one make a difference.
 

NJRoadfan

Well-known member
I seem to recall the Tempo Trio having compatibility problems with the Beige G3. Ah, from the datasheet:

†† Some Beige Power Macintosh G3 Minitower and Desktop machines (those with a revision 3 logic board) are incompatible with the Tempo Trio. To
determine your computer’s logic board revision, open the Apple system profiler utility and find the ROM revision line. If the information listed is
$77D.45F2, your computer has a revision 3 logic board and is not compatible with the Tempo Trio.
Also from the datasheet:
High capacity (larger than 137GB) hard drives are supported in OS 9.x and OS 10.2.x using firmware version 3.5.0, 4.5 or later. For complete details,
visit the Tempo Trio support page
 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Here's what I would do:

1) try the card in your PowerMac G4. If it works with everything else the same (same boot CD) then bummer but at least the card is good

2) try a better OS 9 boot/install CD.

I recommend the 9.2.2 CD from the 2003 eMac. This is the CD I use on all my personal machines, from Beige G3s up to QS'02s and a 1GHz TiBook. It's an OEM Apple CD and it should have everything needed
this one @Paulie made based on the eMac'03 CD should also work for basically any G3: https://pauliejb85files.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/eMac922noCD.iso (this also allows for putting the restore files on, say, a USB key.)

There's also a copy at http://vtools.68kmla.org/~/coryw/iso-temp/ along with a couple other images

Drive Setup should see and allow you to use the full capacity, although OS 9 does wants to boot off of volumes under around 200 gigs. Any other volume w/ OS 9 can be up to 2TB, however. (bigger may be possible but I haven't tested, so we're going off of what Apple's KBs say.) (I want to call this out because OS9Lives is, specifically, wrong about this point w/re data volumes, or at least used to be.)

As trag said, support for >137GB disks was added with ATA-6/UltraATA 100. I've seen a few ATA/100 machines that aren't confirmed to work, but I don't how that shakes down on machines that have UltraATA100 but aren't listed on Apple's machines that support big disks.
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
OOOOOOH! I wish I had one of those restorer CDs for my next round of PEx testing!

Thanks to this thread I discovered I had snagged a set of eMac CDs at some point! They're in the MDD project drawer., now I have to check the BG3DT build's board revision. I've got a pair of Trios long awaitng installation in somethingorother. Thanks gang!
 
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Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
PEx testing!

For that you'll probably want something in the 8.1 through 9.1 range, the emac'03 CD doesn't run on anything pre-beige-g3 in my experience. I also haven't tested with an MDD but I don't see why not, the emac postdates the MDD'02 and IIRC the MDD'02 and XPress Edition MDD platforms are the same.

IME 9.2.1 installs work nearly as well as 9.2.2 installs for anything prior to the QS'02 in particular, but if you have the emac03 CD why not.
 

trag

Well-known member
I seem to recall the Tempo Trio having compatibility problems with the Beige G3. Ah, from the datasheet:
†† Some Beige Power Macintosh G3 Minitower and Desktop machines (those with a revision 3 logic board) are incompatible with the Tempo Trio. To
determine your computer’s logic board revision, open the Apple system profiler utility and find the ROM revision line. If the information listed is
$77D.45F2, your computer has a revision 3 logic board and is not compatible with the Tempo Trio.

Hmmm. As usual, Sonnet/OWC are confused about Beige G3 versions.

Is the problem with revision 3 logic boards, which, as far as I know, only changed to a slightly newer version of the Rage Pro (?) chip?

Or, is the problem with the Beige G3 ROM revision?

The only thing that seeing $77D.45F2 in ASP will tell you for certain is that you have a Rev. C ROM installed. It could be installed in any revision logic board.

It might be interesting to try a rev. B ROM in there.

Here's what I know about the three ROMs for Beige:

Rev. A: Does not include support for Slave drives on the built-in IDE busses. $77D.40F2
Rev. B: Adds support for Slave drives on built-in IDE busses. $77D.45F1
Rev. C: As 'B' but is also incompatible with some network cards. There was one brand. I can't remember which. $77D.45F2

Presumably, the C provides some kind of improvements over B, but since Apple never bothered to tell the consumer we don't know. All we know is about the network incompatibility, and possibly the Tempo Trio issue.

I can't remember if I have Rev. B ROM code on hand or not. I'll have to check my archive at home.

Now that we've got the translation worked out, it wouldn't be difficult for someone to dump a Rev. B and massage it into something we can build a new ROM module out of.
 
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trag

Well-known member
OOOOOOH! I wish I had one of those restorer CDs for my next round of PEx testing!

Thanks to this thread I discovered I had snagged a set of eMac CDs at some point! They're in the MDD project drawer., now I have to check the BG3DT build's board revision. I've got a pair of Trios long awaitng installation in somethingorother. Thanks gang!

Are your eMac CDs the same content as the images on-line that Corey linked to?
 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Almost certainly, I'm sure bought it at his ofttimes suggestions, just forgot I had it on hand.

eMac Software Restore (c)2002
Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 Applications
Mac OS 9.2.2
CD Version 1.0
691-3983-A
 

LCARS

Well-known member
Thank you all! This is not only interesting to know useful. This ROM is $77D.40F2. I am working on updating the Sonnet firmware again. Despite downloading the "drv450" file from their site, the updater states its updated it to 4.0 not 4.5. The card is working in the MDD. I had it working in the Beige G3 in 2011 (the last time I really used the machine) and I don't see anything from the older installation that would have enabled it other than a Tempo AV Tool for the ATA function. My hunch is that if I install 9.2.1 again with the card installed, we might see a different outcome.

That machine has been a bit vexing recently. I didn't realize that OWC/Sonnet had some discrepancies.
 

DracheMitch

Well-known member
The Mac OS 9 Lives Universal 9.2.2 CD has never worked for me using Software Restore. I just mount the disk image and copy over what I need, and that always works.

As an aside, I just got my first beige G3. It’s the desktop model that I wanted so badly when they first premiered. I need to clean it up and see if it even boots. I got it at a Goodwill for $50.
 

LCARS

Well-known member
$50? Wow, well done! I enjoyed cleaning up my 8600. That case design is wonderful. I have the original software restore disk that came with my G3 desktop model. If its not up on MG or MR, let me know and I can make an image.
 
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