Performa 631 Compatible IDE to CF Adapter

[JustG]

I'm a bit stumped.  I am trying to replace the original, and failing, 500MB IDE hard drive in my Performa with an 8GB CF card.  I've tried two different IDE to CF adapters with no luck so far.  Each time I use Drive Setup, both versions 1.5 and 1.7.3, patched and unpatched, I get an Initialization Failed message.  The more sophisticated of the two adapters works just fine in my B&W G3, the less sophisticated one gives the same Initialization Failed message as in the Performa when attempting to partition and initialize the CF card.

I've tried initializing on the Performa in System 7.5.3, 7.5.5, 7.6 and 7.6.1.  Same error message.  If I initialize the card in the G3 and then move the card and adapter over to the Performa, I get a Sad Mac with:

0000000F

00000001

The card itself tests fine on a more modern computer and I'm partitioning it to three ~2.6GB pieces.  I'm not sure what I can do next.

 

[Fizzbinn]

Which specific adapters are you using? If they have jumpers for primary/secondary/cable select do you have it set to primary/master? 

 

[JustG]

I've tried both a StarTech.com 40/44 Pin EID to Compact Flash SSD Adapter:

and a CY CF Compact Flash Merory [sic] Card to Laptop 2.5 44 Pins SSD Adapter:

The second adapter I'm using a desktop IDE with molex connector adapter to plug into the Performa data and power.  Both are set to master.  Both from Amazon.

 

[Byrd]

Try another smaller CF card (1-4GB) and make the first boot partition < 2GB. It’s probably nothing to do with the adapter, but the early IDE implementation of the Q630 being incompatible with the card. I tried in vain with a 16GB Sandisk extreme in my Q630, gave up and ended up putting in a nice quiet 2.5” 60GB IDE inside.

 

[JustG]

I'll have to dig for a smaller card, hopefully I have one.  I'd prefer to stop throwing money at the problem, although 2.5" IDE drives are pretty inexpensive.  @Byrd, what OS are you running on your Quadra?

 

[jessenator]

Maybe a dumb question, or something you've already taken care of, but what do you have the voltage jumper set to? I guess the bottom adapter in your post doesn't (appear to) have a voltage jumper, but the top one might...

This is my CF adapter, and when I first got it it wouldn't work/boot at all—crashed at boot. Turns out the "default" supply voltage of 5V was the culprit*. Switching it to 3.3V solved the issue and it's been golden. But this was on a Power Mac 4400, so not sure if that's a direct solution for your Performa, but one would think a mis-portioned drive size wouldn't cause a sad mac, but I don't know for sure.

*I don't even recall if the jumper was mislabeled/reversed somehow, but switching mine to its 3.3V setting did the trick. Anyway, something to try/check. I'd also try Byrd's suggestion of limiting the primary boot partition. I'd maybe go one further and ONLY partition it in <2GB segments, or test a single partition under 2GB.
 

 

[JustG]

The first adapter I pictured does have voltage selection and has been set to 5V, I'll have to try that out!  I did attempt to build a single partition in varying sizes from 100 megs up to 4 gigs.  No change.

 

[jessenator]

Well, if the power/voltage is the issue, the changes in partition size most likely can't be written off just yet perhaps   Anyway, hope it starts working for you!

 

[JustG]

Success!  But not by changing voltages on the adapter.  I tested with a 4GB card and it works!  Just in case anyone is wondering in the future...The less sophisticated adapter designed for laptops isn't working at all.  It appears to have died, would not recommend.

 

[jessenator]

Success!  But not by changing voltages on the adapter.

Interesting! Glad it's working for you! Also, good to know about the laptop adapter. At some point I want to swap out the still-working spinner in my icebook, so I'll avoid that one.

I really wonder now if they flopped the screen printing on my adapter now... but it works, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[JustG]

For whatever reason, it works with either voltage selected.  Maybe it's a placebo?

 

[johnklos]

Most CompactFlash cards can work with either 3.3 or 5 volts.

I'd love to find a consistent way to format disks of any size for any m68k Mac. I still have to find a proper formatter for an SE/30. In the meanwhile, I have an 8 terabyte (yes, you're reading that correctly) drive working properly in a Mac Quadra 630 / Performa 631 / whatever (they're mostly the same). Only the first 128 gigs is available to Mac OS, but the full 8 TB is available in NetBSD.

 

[JustG]

8TB!  Here I was struggling and inevitably failing to get an 8GB "drive" to work with my 631.  What OS are you running on that machine on the Mac side?

 

[johnklos]

On the Mac side I'm running Mac OS 8.1. The boot volume is HFS and is 2,000 megs, then there's an HFS+ volume that's 20,000 megs that I plan to use to store all my Mac software & files.

 

[JustG]

Now you've got me curious.  I need to dig for a larger IDE drive and see if the computer would have problems.  You're running an adapted SATA drive I'm assuming?

 

[johnklos]

Yes, it's a SATA drive with a SATA-IDE adapter. It's a helium filled HGST drive that had been physically knocked hard while it was running, so its SMART status says it's failing, and the write speed is about 5 MB/sec (read is about 200 MB/sec). However, I wrote zeros, then random data, then zeros again to every sector on the drive without any issues, so I think the drive itself is usable.

Since 5 MB/sec is faster than a Quadra will do, I figured that's a good use for it

 

[360alaska]

I have a 32gb sata ssd in mine with a convertor. Works like a charm. CF to IDE adapters simply don't work on Performa 630 type machines.

 

[Bunsen]

Well, that doesn’t appear to be entirely accurate, as JustG got his working above.

 

[JustG]

Yup.  It may be a capacity issue with the CF to IDE adapted drives.  Still going strong with a 4GB card.  The next time I have a spare SATA SSD I'll give it a shot with an adapter.