setting up a G4 Tower Quicksilver 933 MHz

[MBongo]

Thanks @bigmessowires. I’ve a couple of larger Crucial MX300 (or 500?) series SSDs here but won't test them in this Quicksilver until I swap out the A mobo with the B. And I do have an Adaptec SCSI card in one QS here (for an internal JAZ drive) but now I won’t rush to test any SCSI HDs.

 

[bigmessowires]

I think my poor SCSI results are due to the drives I used, rather than the SCSI interface itself. The only SCSI drives I have handy are ZuluSCSI (limited to 8MB/sec max) and an old 1.2GB Quantum Fireball drive (even slower).

I tested a 40GB IDE hard drive in place of my original 60GB IDE, and surprisingly it performed much better despite being a nearly identical drive. They're both 7200 rpm Seagate Barracudas, the original 60GB is ST360021A and the "new" 40GB is ST340014A. For large transfer sizes, the 40GB performance was almost exactly 2x the 60GB drive across all test types. For smaller reads they were comparable, and for smaller writes the 60GB drive was faster. It's almost like the 40GB drive is two platters in parallel, and the 60GB drive is three platters in series, but the 60GB has more cache? Or maybe the 60GB drive simply has hardware problems, as I've suspected from the beginning. I'll post the full numbers later once I have all the drives tested.

I'm seeing many different drives max out around 55 MB/sec, so that number may be the practical maximum for IDE on this computer.

Whoever said that the second IDE channel on the Quicksilver was slower than the first channel was right! The 40GB Barracuda is like 2x to 4x faster on the main IDE channel (with the primary hard disk), compared to when it's on the second channel (with the optical drive). Bernie Sanders huuuuge difference. Don't put a drive on the second channel if you care about I/O performance.

 

[Phipli]

The only SCSI drives I have handy are ZuluSCSI (limited to 8MB/sec max) and an old 1.2GB Quantum Fireball drive (even slower).

The SCSI on the 6300 is limited to 5MB/s anyway.

Edit - wrong thread sorry

 

[bigmessowires]

If you’re going to use a single drive are you considering a dual-boot scenario with OS 9.2 and some flavor of OS X?
If so, initialize, format and multi-partition the new disk with Drive Setup 2.1 first and install OS 9.2 on the first partition before installing OS X on any subsequent partition afterwards. This yields an independently bootable OS 9 - without the need for “Classic Mode” under OS X.

*You can use Drive Setup 1.9.2 - but 2.1 is better.

Where does one find Drive Setup 2.1? The version on the 9.2.2 installer CD is 2.0.7, and I don't think Drive Setup exists under OSX?

 

[LaPorta]

Even if you can’t find it, you don’t even need to do that. You can just format the drive with Disk Utility under OS X and make the partitions that way.

 

[Phipli]

Even if you can’t find it, you don’t even need to do that. You can just format the drive with Disk Utility under OS X and make the partitions that way.

But remember to tick the checkbox to install the OS9 driver.

 

[LaPorta]

But remember to tick the checkbox to install the OS9 driver.

Correct! I had mentioned that in an earlier post as well.

 

[Phipli]

Correct! I had mentioned that in an earlier post as well.

Ah sorry only read the latest post.

 

[bigmessowires]

Thanks. I have the disk partitioned (using Drive Setup 2.0.7) and OS9 successfully installed on the first partition. I then booted from a 10.4 installer DVD and installed OSX to the second partition. This took a very long time, and I think the optical drive is on its last legs, but it said it finished successfully and prompted me to reboot to finish the installation.

Upon rebooting I get the normal gray screen with the Apple logo and the wait spinner, but after a while the Apple logo changes to a "no" or "empty" symbol (a circle with a line through it). I tried rebooting, removing the install CD, and holding down option to force the boot disk picker to the OSX partition. But no joy.

I can still boot into the 9.2.2 partition, and from there I can see the OSX partition. It looks normal I guess? It has a System folder, etc.

Did I miss a step somewhere, or did my OSX install fail in a mysterious way?

 

[volvo242gt]

Might be worth trying to boot in verbose mode (command-V) and see what it hangs on.

*edit* Also, what SCSI card are you using? If it's a 2940UW or U2W, try removing the card, then reinstalling. It may work fine.

 

[volvo242gt]

Reinstalling OS X, that is...

 

[Phipli]

My 10.4 install on my Pismo did the same last week. I tried installing again and it worked the second time. No idea why.

 

[bigmessowires]

The SCSI card is an Adaptec ASC-29160N. I tried removing it, as well as the not-yet-flashed Adaptec SATA card, but booting OSX still dies with the "no" logo.

I guess I'll try installing again, but it takes over an hour to do the installation so I want to avoid scattershot reinstalls without understanding what's wrong.

My 10.4 install on my Pismo did the same last week. I tried installing again and it worked the second time. No idea why.

Hmm, that gives me some hope I guess. When it prompts you to reboot to finish the installation, are you supposed to remove the installer DVD? Does it reboot from the DVD, or from the newly-installed OSX on the hard drive?

 

[volvo242gt]

Ok, good. That can remain in the computer. Was this the 10.4 install media from the garden? When I reinstalled 10.4 on the G3 last year, I used the four CD set. Didn't get the circle with a slash through it at reboot.

It reboots from the hard drive, but may need to have the DVD in the drive. Been about 16 months since the last time I dealt with it.

 

[LaPorta]

If you do suspect media, I can send you .cdrs of my original 10.4 installation discs. I’ve seen that happen before when the particular installation wasn’t compatible with the machine it was on. Usually the installer checks for such rings but occasionally things can happen.

Is this on a disk on the SCSI card or on the internal IDE bus?

 

[MBongo]

Sorry. Was napping here.

More to follow...

 

[Forrest]

I’m pretty sure the retail OSX 10.4 Install was on a single DVD

 

[Phipli]

I’m pretty sure the retail OSX 10.4 Install was on a single DVD

Or 4 CDs? Depending on which version you bought.

 

[bigmessowires]

I'm using a DVD-R of a single-disc 10.4 installer that I made quite a few years ago. I don't remember where I got it, and it's definitely not specific to this G4. It's also possible the media has gone bad, but I'd expect errors if that happened. I'm currently reinstalling from an external DVD drive plugged into the USB 1.1 port. It's working so far, but has set a new definition for slow. Can't wait for my USB 2.0 card to arrive!

 

[volvo242gt]

Or 4 CDs? Depending on which version you bought.

Yeah, it came in two different versions. The DVD version seems to be 10.4.6, and the CD version seems to be just plain 10.4.