Hard Drive upgrades for Sawtooth G4

[sp00nix]

Hello again.

This time i am trying to install a bigger HDD in my G4 tower. It came with a 10gb drive. I cannot get 10.4 to install on there with any other HDD other then the one it came with. I have tried 6 or 7 drives now and the DVD hangs while booting, it either freezes or the spinning wheel keeps going for hours. Is there something i am missing or is it that picky about the drives i put in? I have tried a few different brands and models ranging from 20 - 40Gb. Ideally i would like something in the 80-120Gb range for it. Any ideas?

G4 400MHz, 448MB RAM, No AGP, PCI Graphics.

 

[Byrd]

Hi sp00nix,

sounds to me like you've not set the correct master/slave jumper on the hard disk; this must be set otherwise the drive won't detect properly and screw with whatever else is plugged into the same IDE chain.

I'd call your G4 tower a Yikes! model - same as a B&W G3 but with graphite case and G4 CPU.

JB

 

[sp00nix]

I have tried all of that, the OEM one is set to cable selct, i tried that, i tried as a master and master single, master with legacy support, master with 15 heads instead of 16 (theres tons of settings on the DeskStar hard drives.) The thing is it runs fine with the OEM drive and a 2nd one hooked up, i can access it with no issues, but if its hooked up the installer DVD locks up >_

 

[Christopher]

If you have say, a spare 6GB or something, install os x to that and then get OverDrive installed/turned on so you can then get drives bigger then 128GB in there.

http://mac.profusehost.net/overdrive/index.html

 

[sp00nix]

Oh cool!

Now does this just pretty much modify the NVRAM making it independent of the software once installed? Like i install it, turn it on, and i can swap out the hard drive with a bigger one? And i guess that means i should make sure my PRAM battery is tip top?

 

[Byrd]

I'd try another IDE cable. Can you get the new HD to work off a single IDE chain on its own?

JB

 

[sp00nix]

I'd try another IDE cable. Can you get the new HD to work off a single IDE chain on its own?
JB

I tried it piggy backed off the CD-ROM. I have tried a hand full of drives, and i tried 2 in my G3 iMac and they worked fine. My 10.4 disk is kinda scratched so i will try and make an image from it and burn a fresh copy, try a brand new HDD and if i can a new DVD rom.

I have a 10.3 disk, that booted but its meant for a G5 iMac. I could get to the disk utility but it got stuck in an infinite spiny thing while trying to "prepare to erase"

 

[Christopher]

Oh cool!
Now does this just pretty much modify the NVRAM making it independent of the software once installed? Like i install it, turn it on, and i can swap out the hard drive with a bigger one? And i guess that means i should make sure my PRAM battery is tip top?

yes, I did this for my Gigabit Ethernet G4. It now see's the full 160GB of the hard drive.

 

[Byrd]

My 10.4 disk is kinda scratched so i will try and make an image from it and burn a fresh copy, try a brand new HDD and if i can a new DVD rom.

Could also be the source of the problem - old optical drives don't take kindly to scratched DVDs!

JB

 

[iMac600]

Oh cool!
Now does this just pretty much modify the NVRAM making it independent of the software once installed? Like i install it, turn it on, and i can swap out the hard drive with a bigger one? And i guess that means i should make sure my PRAM battery is tip top?

I would know- I programmed it! :lol: LeopardAssist and Overdrive were both my "spare time creations". The software is written around some code I found a few years back that puts a flag in the NVRAM to enable what i'm guessing was an experimental LBA48 mode (at the time).

This enables the LBA48 mode of the drive controller. You're now able to use drives larger than 128GB in these machines.

Unfortunately Overdrive was a bit of a risk app for me to write and release for two reasons. First being that the LBA48 in these older machines was experimental and although it worked fine on most machines, it had issues on others. Secondly and most importantly, if you use Overdrive and the NVRAM somehow clears, Mac OS X will still think the full 160GB is available. Write past it though, and your data's toast. I included "Overdrive Agent" in 1.0.1 and higher to help mitigate the second issue, but if the user doesn't know what they're doing, it can still go ignored. That's why development on Overdrive was dramatically slowed.

 

[sp00nix]

Oh cool!
Now does this just pretty much modify the NVRAM making it independent of the software once installed? Like i install it, turn it on, and i can swap out the hard drive with a bigger one? And i guess that means i should make sure my PRAM battery is tip top?

I would know- I programmed it! :lol: LeopardAssist and Overdrive were both my "spare time creations". The software is written around some code I found a few years back that puts a flag in the NVRAM to enable what i'm guessing was an experimental LBA48 mode (at the time).

This enables the LBA48 mode of the drive controller. You're now able to use drives larger than 128GB in these machines.

Unfortunately Overdrive was a bit of a risk app for me to write and release for two reasons. First being that the LBA48 in these older machines was experimental and although it worked fine on most machines, it had issues on others. Secondly and most importantly, if you use Overdrive and the NVRAM somehow clears, Mac OS X will still think the full 160GB is available. Write past it though, and your data's toast. I included "Overdrive Agent" in 1.0.1 and higher to help mitigate the second issue, but if the user doesn't know what they're doing, it can still go ignored. That's why development on Overdrive was dramatically slowed.

I under stand what you are saying.

I did grab a 160gb drive from micro center the other day on the clearance table, a made a refreshed copy of my OS 10.4 disk and i am now up and running. I did not install over drive yet because my pram battery is still in the mail some where. So for now i can deal with 128GB, i don't think i would fill it up on this machine.

Thank you for all of your helpful info everyone!