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yg17 · Jan 30, 2003, 05:52 PM

I know RevA beige G3s dont support slave drives, but I thought I read somewhere that OSX will support slave drives even on the RevAs. Is this true? Thanks

D'Espice · Jan 31, 2003, 01:02 AM

Never heard that rumor and I don't suppose it's possible. The reason why the Beige does not support slave drives is not software but hardware: The ATA controller simply doesn't support it.

yg17 · Jan 31, 2003, 05:13 PM

Really? I could have sworn I read somewhere that OSX did something to allow slave drives.

Can anyone else verify if this is true or not?

tooki · Jan 31, 2003, 06:32 PM

Some beige G3s do allow slave drives. There's some way to check; I don't remember off the top of my head. Check xlr8yourmac.com, I'm pretty sure they have a page describing it.

tooki

Tom N · Feb 1, 2003, 08:11 AM

Originally posted by D'Espice:
Never heard that rumor and I don't suppose it's possible. The reason why the Beige does not support slave drives is not software but hardware: The ATA controller simply doesn't support it.

It wan't the hardware that didn't support slave drives, it was the firmware. If you take a Rev A beige G3 and change the Mac ROMs out to a Rev B or C, the computer will then support slave drives. It will also remove the 390 MB (I think thats the limit for Rev As) memory limit.

At one time OWC was selling Rev C ROMS, but I was a bit late in placing an order and they were out of them.

Tom N.

phidauex · Feb 2, 2003, 02:37 PM

Rev. A Beige G3s don't support slave drives, even under OS X (I tried).

However, mine does support 768 megs of ram, so that memory limit doesn't seem to be an absolute.

I see roms on ebay pretty regularly, and sometimes mac parts suppliers end up with a handful that they sell off.

peace,
sam

yg17 · Feb 2, 2003, 02:43 PM

I just did a search and found this: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...e+slave+drives

Actually, under X, the rev A beige boxen DO support slave drives. OS X patches the roms. I have such a drive set up: bus 0: 45 gig IBM as master and original WD 4gig as slave.Bus1: cdrom as master and IDE zip as slave. It actually doesn't require the cdrom as master but until X boots the slave drives don't work so you can't boor off of the slave cdrom. I am using the stock processor [although the PL 500 works just fine, i just rereplaced it to do some hardware driver beta testing.]

can anyone else verify this is true though?

also, phidauex, where in StL are you? (im in chesterfield)

MaccyMoo · Feb 2, 2003, 05:39 PM

Hello,

I have a Rev A Beige G3 and have installed a IDE slave drive. I have replaced the original 4 GB hard drive with a 20 GB Maxtor one and slaved the original drive off it .

I tried slaving the old hard drive off the CD drive, but it had a few problems. It worked but would frequently lock up the Finder for minutes at a time during large(ish) copies.

I'd better mention that this all works in Mac OS X, but OS 9 can't see the slave drive.

As far as I know Beige G3s are a bit fussy about the drives you stick in them, so good luck.

drjoe · Feb 2, 2003, 09:53 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by phidauex:
[B]Rev. A Beige G3s don't support slave drives, even under OS X (I tried).

You didn't try hard enough. In front of me, on my desk is a rev A G3 beige. On one bus is an IBM 45 gig IDE drive set as master. It also has a 55 gig WD drive, configured as slave. In OSX [10.2.3] they both work, all the partitions are seen and there are no problems with data corruption. The other bus has an LG combo 1410 [?] combo drive configured as master. In OS9.2 the slave WD drive is not seen. I do not know how many times this has to be hashed out in these fora but for the [hopefully] very last final time revA G3's desktop support slave drives. End of discussion.

phidauex · Feb 2, 2003, 09:56 PM

Well I'm glad some people are having luck with slave drives on rev A beiges under OS X. I had tried it and failed, and assumed that I was out of luck due to the rom issue. I might try again with a different drive, just as an experiment. It would be nice if it works. Actually, what I might do instead is hook up a DVD-rom i've got lying around as a slave, and see if that works.. The fact that it wouldn't work in OS 9 isn't a problem, I don't use OS 9

btw, I'm in University City! I'm trying to get a job in chesterfield right now though, at the butterfly house.

peace,
sam