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Help with Power Mac G3

mloret

mloret

6502
Good evening folks. I just picked up my first beige g3. It’s very nice! I am having some trouble with it. The machine did not come with a hard drive. I have a 6360 that I am running with a IDE to SD card adapter (pictured). It works fine. I decided to try this in the G3. When I connected th adapter with the sd card I am using in the 6360 it told me that the software is unsupported. Not sure why. I have two partitions, one is OS 8 and the other is OS9. Okay so I decided to pop another SD card in there, boot from my OS9 install disc, initialize the SD card and install a fresh install of OS 9. Nope. I tried two different SD cards and neither will initialize.

Any idea what I am doing wrong? Is it possible that this cheap adapter is not compatible with this venerable g3?

Please let me know if you have ideas.
 
mloret said:
Good evening folks. I just picked up my first beige g3. It’s very nice! I am having some trouble with it. The machine did not come with a hard drive. I have a 6360 that I am running with a IDE to SD card adapter (pictured). It works fine. I decided to try this in the G3. When I connected th adapter with the sd card I am using in the 6360 it told me that the software is unsupported. Not sure why. I have two partitions, one is OS 8 and the other is OS9. Okay so I decided to pop another SD card in there, boot from my OS9 install disc, initialize the SD card and install a fresh install of OS 9. Nope. I tried two different SD cards and neither will initialize.

Any idea what I am doing wrong? Is it possible that this cheap adapter is not compatible with this venerable g3?

Please let me know if you have ideas.
Click to expand...
IDE adapters are hit and miss, especially in beige Macs and the B&W G3.
 
If you want to use an SD card in the Beige G3 I would say a ZuluSCSI is the way to go, since you have SCSI. If you want something faster, you've got PCI slots so a flashed SATA adapter and older SSD.
 
What would be the best option for this machine? Why doesn’t the IDE work? Just compatibility with the diaper im using?
 
mloret said:
Good evening folks. I just picked up my first beige g3. It’s very nice! I am having some trouble with it. The machine did not come with a hard drive. I have a 6360 that I am running with a IDE to SD card adapter (pictured). It works fine. I decided to try this in the G3. When I connected th adapter with the sd card I am using in the 6360 it told me that the software is unsupported. Not sure why. I have two partitions, one is OS 8 and the other is OS9. Okay so I decided to pop another SD card in there, boot from my OS9 install disc, initialize the SD card and install a fresh install of OS 9. Nope. I tried two different SD cards and neither will initialize.

Any idea what I am doing wrong? Is it possible that this cheap adapter is not compatible with this venerable g3?

Please let me know if you have ideas.
Click to expand...
What happens exactly? Is the SD card even seen and it won't format, or Drive Setup won't even recognize it?
 
mloret said:
Hey thanks for the note! Would you recommend just trying another and hope for the best? Is there something with a proven success record?
Click to expand...
The fastest option is a PCI-SATA card with SATA SSDs - see https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads...ge-sil3112-to-work-in-macs-2025-edition.1494/ but it's not a trivial solution. I have multiple of these on assorted PPC machines including a Beige G3.

Another fast but easier option is a DOM plugging directly into the motherboard. See https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806263639292.html?src=google&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa

If you just want to run macOS (Classic and/or OSX), the cheapest SD card adapter is the SD35VCO SD-to-IDE adapter such as https://www.amazon.com/SonilcoⓇ-Memory-Adapter-Digital-Converter/dp/B09MNX2TZ2. This has issues with other OSes but it's a good and reasonably fast option for macOS.

NB: many SATA-IDE adapters appear to work at first blush but they're unreliable and will corrupt data. Other cards won't work at all on this generation of Macs. Avoid them all.
 
mloret said:
What would be the best option for this machine? Why doesn’t the IDE work? Just compatibility with the diaper im using?
Click to expand...
The crappy implementation of IDE on the Beige G3 is part of why. You might have more luck with a CF card adapter as they’re just straight through/passive.

FWIW on mine, I run a SATA PCI card and 500GB hard drive.
 
I'd challenge by adding the cheapest and best flash-based storage for the early IDE implementation in a beige G3 would be a reasonable quality 3.5" CF to IDE adapter + good quality large CF card like Sandisk Extreme or equivalent. Failing this, a low hour 120GB 3.5" 7200RPM IDE hard disk would also be quite suitable and super cheap to source nowadays.

JB
 
Byrd said:
I'd challenge by adding the cheapest and best flash-based storage for the early IDE implementation in a beige G3 would be a reasonable quality 3.5" CF to IDE adapter + good quality large CF card like Sandisk Extreme or equivalent. Failing this, a low hour 120GB 3.5" 7200RPM IDE hard disk would also be quite suitable and super cheap to source nowadays.

JB
Click to expand...
Yes, an IDE/PATA hard drive is an excellent option. Most people seem to discount them because they’re not solid state, but as stated they’re super cheap. Also, compatibility will be excellent. PATA drives were pretty reliable once we got to 120GB+.
 
An old IDE drive is what I would recommend as the bus speed doesn't really limit them at all and I have stacks of them anyway.

I can see why people recommend SCSI adapters because of price and reliability of old SCSI drives, but IDE is still around and cheap.
 
Given the price of anything SCSI I wouldn't be using SCSI if I had IDE available.

I'd use an IDE disk, StarTech IDE to SATA adapter or a Compact Flash adapter in that order.

Some Beige G3s have issues with the common Mac SATA card just to warn people, apparently, depending on ROM version.

StarTech adapters might seem expensive, but they just fing work :


Save money by buying once.
 
croissantking said:
Yes, an IDE/PATA hard drive is an excellent option. Most people seem to discount them because they’re not solid state, but as stated they’re super cheap. Also, compatibility will be excellent. PATA drives were pretty reliable once we got to 120GB+.
Click to expand...

Yep, there is nothing bad to be said for a nice quiet spinning drive with heaps of space and compatibility. CF cards of the era you still get performance quirks and probably shouldn't run virtual memory on them.
 
croissantking said:
Yes, an IDE/PATA hard drive is an excellent option. Most people seem to discount them because they’re not solid state, but as stated they’re super cheap. Also, compatibility will be excellent. PATA drives were pretty reliable once we got to 120GB+.
Click to expand...
If you don't mind a spinny, I agree.

Recently, I was restoring a Bondi Blue G3 iMac RevA - see post https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/bondi-blue-imac-restoration.5481/ - this machine has a similar (identical?) IDE interface as the Beige G3 and I played with several drive options. I almost went with a decent, bog standard, ATA hard drive. I also tried a CF card: compatibility was good but the write performace was awful. I finally went with a 64GB DOM that I'd previously used in my Beige G3 for years.

And note that on these machines you can't go over 128GB and only the first 8GB is bootable.
 
cgp said:
And note that on these machines you can't go over 128GB and only the first 8GB is bootable.
Click to expand...

There is a bit of a misunderstanding about this, unfortunately propagated by Low End Mac.

The 8GB limit is an Open Firmware limitation. It affects the Rev A-D iMac regardless of OS, but not the Beige G3 if running Mac OS 9.2.2 or below. This is presumably because it loads the ATA driver from Toolbox rather than OF.

Whatever the reason, my testing has shown that a Beige G3 will boot classic Mac OS not just off a partition that extends past the 8GB limit, but also one that is *completely* outside the first 8GB.

The iMac is different, and I found that it would refuse to load a Mac OS ROM file past the 8GB limit.
 
croissantking said:
The 8GB limit is an Open Firmware limitation. It affects the Rev A-D iMac regardless of OS, but not the Beige G3 if running Mac OS 9.2.2 or below. This is presumably because it loads the ATA driver from Toolbox rather than OF.
Click to expand...
Hum, this predates LEM - I've heard this back to when they were almost new. I swear I've experienced it... But it's good to challenge established norms. They're often not right :)
 
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