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blizzard · Dec 29, 2003, 10:58 AM

My dad just bought a Maxtor 80GB ATA/133 hard drive and expects me to install it in his RevA G3/266 desktop while I'm home for the holidays (I always get saddled with things like this). If I just pop it in I get the flashing question mark, and research to try and figure out whether it's compatible with the G3 hasn't turned up anything so far (I've spent all morning on it and frankly am tired of trawling the internet). Can anyone tell me straight up if this will work? If not, will the HD from my G4/466 work instead?

Matters are complicated somewhat by the fact that the computer no longer seems to be bootable from a CD...I've been trying to get him to buy a newer computer for a while now but no luck. Anyways, thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Macola · Dec 29, 2003, 11:12 AM

I had a similar problem with a rev A beige G3 where I couldn't get it to boot from a CD. I tried both OS 9 and Jaguar install CDs but no go. Finally, I put the drive in an external Firewire case, plugged it into my TiBook, and installed from there. Popped the drive back into the G3, and all was well.

BTW, I assume you formatted it using Disk Utility.

blizzard · Dec 29, 2003, 11:39 AM

Disk Utility in OS X with the option for OS9 drivers checked, yes.

Same problem occurred with the 30 gig Maxtor from my G4, too. Wouldn't boot from CD and the HD did this thing where it would spin up, then tick, then spin down, repeat ad infinitum. That one already had Panther installed too...so I think it should have booted.

tooki · Dec 29, 2003, 02:21 PM

That drive will work fine, just boot the G3 from an OS 9 CD and run Drive Setup from the CD, then install whatever OS you want.

tooki

Edit: just saw you said it won't boot off CD... do a CUDA reset on the machine, then see if you can boot from CD. Or, rather than holding C, press command-option-shift-delete, which forces the computer to ignore the set startup drive.

blizzard · Dec 29, 2003, 04:40 PM

Thanks for the responses...here's what we have so far.

I did a CUDA reset (I assume it was - I found only one button on the motherboard and it was labeled 'reset'). The computer still won't boot from the CD (either a retail OS 9 or the Power Mac G3 CD that came with the computer), and the hard drive still isn't being recognized. It spins up when the computer is turned on, then chugs a little bit like any normal hard drive would do, then spins down and the question mark appears on the screen. It does this by itself, with the C key held down, and with command option shift and delete held down.

The box says that a PCI card may be needed on any computer other than a G4. Any chance this is what's happening? Or would the fact that the computer doesn't want to boot from the CD any more indicative maybe of larger problems with the computer in general that may be causing these issues with the new hard drive?

Macola · Dec 30, 2003, 08:33 PM

FWIW, I never figured out why my G3 wouldn't boot from the CD. All I can tell you is that after I installed the hard drive as described in my earlier post, the CD-ROM worked fine. I had gone through everything you did--CUDA reset, zapped PRAM, etc.

Can you boot into Open Firmware?

blizzard · Dec 30, 2003, 10:23 PM

As a matter of fact, I can't. If I try, then the monitor only shows wavy black lines on a white background.

This computer is really starting to cheese me off!

Macola · Dec 30, 2003, 10:43 PM

The G4 HD with Panther won't boot the beige G3 unless it's installed within the first 8 GB. What OS is on the new Maxtor drive that you're trying to install, or is it blank?

blizzard · Dec 30, 2003, 11:04 PM

I'm not trying to boot from the HD actually, although that would explain why my 30 gigger didn't boot Panther on the G3 (also the lack of Xpostfacto).

An update; the machine WILL boot from the CD if there is NO hard drive (not even the stock 4 gig) in the machine AND the CD is selected in the Startup disk control panel. No other combination seems to work. Not tremendously useful to me in this endeavour, however, as the Maxtor still won't work. On the bright side, I HAVE been enjoying a faster 80 gig HD in my G4 while I've been sorting this all out

Electric Zombie · Jan 1, 2004, 02:51 AM

Make sure you're NOT trying to slave the 80GB HD. The Rev A G3 does not support master/slave configurations. You can only have 1 HD per ATA channel. I think Apple assumed that if you wanted multiple devices you can use the SCSI channel.

The option is to buy a Rev D ROM off eBay.

blizzard · Jan 1, 2004, 06:03 PM

Yep, there was only the one in there.

Thanks for the help everyone, but it seems it's a moot point now...I told him to return the drive before the grace period expired. The machine seems pretty messed up, all things considered...so now he's asking me about buying my G4, which doesn't seem like that bad an option.

Cheers!

P · Jan 6, 2004, 01:49 AM

Moot point or not, it might be worth noting what can be the solution.

The early G3s have a weird IDE controller, and Maxtor drives all come jumpered as "Cable Select" these days. Cable select means that there is a signal in the IDE cable that sets what the drive should be, Maste or Slave. If the cable does not support this (and the G3 cables don't, that I know) it won't work. It may very well be the IDE controller gets so confused about all this that it refuses to boot at all.

Later Macs have better IDE controllers, but I tend to avoid Cable Select in any case.