Using an IDE to SD board with custom build Performa 637

[LaPorta]

Hi everyone,

I am new here, and wanted to raise an issue that I am having building a custom-case machine for my kids. I am building it out of a Performa 637, one of the first machines that had an IDE Drive internally. I obtained an IDE to SD adaptor to use a 2 GB card for an internal HD on it. Problem is, I can't get the thing to be read at all. I formatted the card with my iMac G4 under OS 9 with an Apple Partition Map and standard HFS. No issues. When I have the card in the adaptor, the power light is on, but no drive activity is seen. IDE bus works fine; the original internal HD works fine on it. Here is the adaptor that I got:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DG … UTF8&psc=1

I have a feeling that there is some hardware issue, and that the IDE types are not compatible. Any suggestions, let me know.

 

[Alex]

I don't know much about this but you may want to drag and drop a pre-configured System Folder on the SD card. That's my first guess or perhaps you have to use a modified version of what's it called, the disk formatting app for the older Macs, sorry the name slips my mind.

I actually ran across an article on this about one month ago and there were indeed some caveats. I will try to find it and post it below. For the time being I'll simply encourage you to view but I only skimmed it. I will watch this post.







By the way, $11? WOW! If your setup works I think we will drive the guy out of stock.

 

[trag]

There was a guy who did this in the PowerBook 150, which is a similar age to the P637, and he ended up having to hack a couple of the signals between the compact flash card and the bus.  There was some problem with how it was reporting (or how the Mac was handling) some kind of initialization ID.    Last time I checked, within the last year or so, he still had a little web site up with the project fully described.

Not 100% sure it's relevant to your problem, but here it is.  It's an interesting read, if nothing else.

http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/hardware/pb150/PB150_and_CompactFlash.html

If this is the problem, it might be solvable, with a ROMinator board with the ROM modified in the way the fellow above originally did to make his PB150 work.   Does the Q637 have a space for a ROM socket?

 

[LaPorta]

That's some complex stuff! IF anything, I'm content using my SCSI2SD the way it is...it already works. I'll save the IDE to CF for a later machine.

 

[AlpineRaven]

Nah those don't work as its shorted on full sized IDE (you'll notice the chip gets really hot)

You need full size IDE (40pin to SD) ** not 44pin to SD...

Then it'll work, but performance wise isn't that great.
Cheers

AP