Help with Power Mac G3

[mloret]

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.

 

[Phipli]

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.

IDE adapters are hit and miss, especially in beige Macs and the B&W G3.

 

[mloret]

IDE adapters are hit and miss, especially in beige Macs and the B&W G3.

Hey thanks for the note! Would you recommend just trying another and hope for the best? Is there something with a proven success record?

 

[treellama]

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.

 

[mloret]

What would be the best option for this machine? Why doesn’t the IDE work? Just compatibility with the diaper im using?

 

[LaPorta]

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.

What happens exactly? Is the SD card even seen and it won't format, or Drive Setup won't even recognize it?

 

[cgp]

Hey thanks for the note! Would you recommend just trying another and hope for the best? Is there something with a proven success record?

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.

 

[croissantking]

What would be the best option for this machine? Why doesn’t the IDE work? Just compatibility with the diaper im using?

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.

 

[Byrd]

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

 

[croissantking]

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

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+.

 

[Phipli]

What type of adapter are you actually trying to use at the moment?

 

[Unknown_K]

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.

 

[Phipli]

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 :

https://amzn.eu/d/09SM17MF

Save money by buying once.

 

[mloret]

What happens exactly? Is the SD card even seen and it won't format, or Drive Setup won't even recognize it?

It’s seen but initialization fails. I tried writing zeroes to it. Goes through the whole process and initialization fails at the end.

 

[Byrd]

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+.

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.

 

[cgp]

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+.

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.

 

[croissantking]

And note that on these machines you can't go over 128GB and only the first 8GB is bootable.

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.

 

[Phipli]

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.

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

 

[joevt]

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.

The Beige G3 has a Mac ROM in ROM.

The iMac uses Open Firmware to load a tbxi file ("Mac OS ROM" or BootX) from a system folder.

There is code in Open Firmware to detect LBA but it has a bug until Open Firmware 3.2.4f1.

The LBA detection bug is also fixed in these:

• 3.1.1f4 B&W G3
• 3.1.2f2 G4 Yikes

For 3.1.0f1 PowerBook G3 Lombard, there are two Open Firmware ATA drivers. LBA detection is correct for ata-disk package (used for ata-3/disk devices where ata-3 is a heathrow-ata compatible device) (similar to B&W G3, Yikes). LBA detection is not correct for pci104c,ac1a (Texas Instruments PCI1210) or pci104c,ac1e (Texas Instruments) PCI1211 CardBus bridges.

These versions have incorrect LBA detection (Ignoring versions of Open Firmware that are headerless):

• 2.0a9 Power Express (9700 Prototype)
• 2.3 Power Express (9700 Prototype)
• 2.4 Beige G3 rev C
• 2.4 Beige G3 rev D
• 3.1.3f2 iMac (233 MHz) Bondi Blue
• 3.1.3f2 iMac (266,333 MHz)

4.3.2f1 adds 48-bit LBA support.
Earlier LBA is 28-bit (128 GiB) which has the same limit as CHS (actually CHS limit is 127.5 GiB)

The 8 GiB limit comes from using CHS since LBA is not detected correctly.

CHS can do 127.498 GiB if the HD reports 65535 cylinders, 16 heads, and 255 sectors.

CHS can do 7.87 GiB if the HD reports 16383 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors per track = 16514064 blocks like some 9.54 GiB HDs do.

My Open Firmware Extender 2.4 has a small patch to enable LBA28 which can fit in nvramrc.

The heathrow-ata Open Firmware fcode driver exists for Open Firmware 2.x up to 4.9.6f0. I'm currently working on a method to add LBA48 support (actually limited to LBA32 in Open Firmware) by replacing the entire ide and disk fcode images (i.e. doesn't fit in nvramrc) using the fcode from 4.9.6f0. And I have modified kexts for Mac OS X to support LBA48 for padington/heathrow/ohare ATA and for CMD646 for the B&W G3 which I haven't tested yet.

 

[NJRoadfan]

No HD should report more than 16383/16/63 via CHS addressing. That is, of course, if the drive is following the ATA standards. You may see higher heads and sector numbers in software, but they are purely fictitious as CHS above 8.4GB is meaningless. Even the translating BIOS did this to fool DOS by increasing the number of sectors and heads to reduce the cylinder count below 1024 (since DOS couldn't support more!). Its also why the limit is 16383/16/63 since it roughly translates to the approximate size as 1024/256/63, the DOS limit (which wasn't practical since DOS could only handle 255 heads)