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bbales · Jan 26, 2005, 04:19 PM

OK, so I took advantage of a sale at Best Buy and purchased a 120 GB Seagate internal drive ($50 after the rebates). Since my current drive is only 20 GB, and 3 of those are devoted to an OS9 partition, I'm looking forward to the extra space inside. (Have some external FW drives for backup and my music and photos.)

I haven't done anything yet, other than to realize I better get my rebate forms in pronto. But I've never isntalled a new internal drive. How hard is this going to be? People make it sound really easy -- my husband claims that on the PC side it IS really easy. But I'm always nervous about messing with my mac's innards. So I'm just wondering...

And yes, I will back everything up first!

-Q- · Jan 26, 2005, 04:42 PM

Well, it depends on your machine. Any PowerMac of recent vintage will be a snap to install a new drive in. If it's a PowerMac 8600, get band aids. Lots of band aids.

Seriously, one of the strengths of the PowerMac design has been the ease of upgrading components like the hard drive. It really should be a piece of cake to open your machine, connect the power and IDE cables, screw the drive to the tray (or in the case of a PM G5, lock it in place with the screws) and be done. You can boot up your machine and the new drive should be automatically recognized if you keep the old drive in place while you install the new os.

Just make sure you keep the jumpers on the appropriate setting (cable select usually, but it could be master or slave depending on your mac). We can give a better answer once you tell us the machine you have.

bbales · Jan 26, 2005, 04:50 PM

Soory, forgot those details. It's a gigabit ethernet G4, purchased in late 2000, with a 400 MZ processor upgraded to 933 MZ. (Did that last year -- was quite easy! Actually, I supervised, but I made my husband actually do the work. I told you, it makes me nervous.)

My intetnion was to keep the original drive in there and clone it over to the new drive when all was in place.

Actually, I'm looking at the "setting up" booklet that came with the computer. It looks doable, but again, I don't like this stuff.

I have another question -- If, after I transfer everything from the first drive to the new one, will I have to do anything else to make it the "main" drive? Or will it function just fine and I should leave everything alone?

MORT A POTTY · Jan 26, 2005, 04:52 PM

Id imagine you have at least a B&W, so it will be VERY easy. literally seconds. fold down the door, take out the plate, screw the drive to the plate, slide the plate in and put in the one screw, then connect the cables and boot up.

if it's a G5 it's even easier.

Chinasaur · Jan 27, 2005, 07:17 AM

This might help - http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/add_2nd_drive/index.html

Just go slow. Record jumper settings you will need. Decide if you want to make the new drive master or slave and go slow. Watch those upturned plastic edges as they can slice your knee (from experience) pretty good if you work on the floor . And remember to breathe if you get tense.

You'll do fine

ThisGuy · Jan 27, 2005, 08:02 AM

If there is a "Cable Select" setting for the jumpers try using that first. I was once told that Macs do not care about master/slave settings and will boot off of either one (but I've never tested it).

bbales · Jan 27, 2005, 08:40 AM

Thanks for the help. The article, in particular, looks very, very useful.

I think I'm going to do this tonight. Must remember to breathe...

chris v · Jan 27, 2005, 08:52 AM

Originally posted by ThisGuy:
If there is a "Cable Select" setting for the jumpers try using that first. I was once told that Macs do not care about master/slave settings and will boot off of either one (but I've never tested it).

I've got two G4 towers with 2 drives in each, both set to a master/slave configuration, and they all boot just fine.

chris v · Jan 27, 2005, 08:54 AM

Originally posted by bbales:
Thanks for the help. The article, in particular, looks very, very useful.

I think I'm going to do this tonight. Must remember to breathe...

The most difficult part I've found, is disconnecting the cables from the current drive so that you can get the tray out. Usa a flathead screwdriver to work either side of the connector back and forth a little bit a time until it loosens up.

bbales · Jan 27, 2005, 12:30 PM

Originally posted by chris v:
The most difficult part I've found, is disconnecting the cables from the current drive so that you can get the tray out. Usa a flathead screwdriver to work either side of the connector back and forth a little bit a time until it loosens up.

Hmmm -- This is implying I want to REMOVE the current drive. That will still have all my info on it! (though I will back up first, of course). I'm nearly positive (and I have looked in my manual) that there should be enough room for both drives. So I was going to leave them both in, leaving essentially the system folder and OS on the old drive and moving all the data onto the new one. So I'm a little confused by all that slave/master stuff, too, and whether the new drive will be fine as the "slave," or if I'm going to have to go back in and change things around after I move stuff to the new drive.

In short, I'm perplexed. I'll be reading all my info over again first, before doing this, obviously, however.

bbales · Jan 27, 2005, 01:38 PM

Anotehr question -- I'm going to run into other issues if I have a Western Digital drive.

According to the profile, this is my existing hard drive: WDC WD205AA-40BAA0

I'm afraid to ask, but does "WD" stand for "Western Digital," as I suspect. No other info on the drive.

Thanks. And sorry for seeming stupid. Part of me wishes I would just go for an external drive, but I really do think it's a good idea to have a larger internal one, which is why I'm willing to go through this brain damage.

yikes600 · Jan 27, 2005, 03:26 PM

Whenever I install a 2nd hard drive in a G4 now, I always put the drives side by side rather than stacked (as shown in the XLR8YourMac tutorial). The reason is I had a new Maxtor drive fail in 3 months in a stacked configuration, possibly due to heat. Stacking the drives will subject them both to more heat. Side by side is the way to go and I haven't had a single failure since.

Or... it might be that Maxtor just sucks. Anyway, now I don't stack drives or buy Maxtor.

Detrius · Jan 27, 2005, 04:52 PM

Originally posted by ThisGuy:
If there is a "Cable Select" setting for the jumpers try using that first. I was once told that Macs do not care about master/slave settings and will boot off of either one (but I've never tested it).

Apple didn't support Cable Select for a very long time. I believe the MDD model was when Apple added support for this. Therefore, the G4 in question will definitely be a master/slave configuration.

In general, you want your fastest drive to be the master drive. The slave drive gets controlled by the master drive. The Mac does not care which is the boot drive. Optimally, you would only have one drive per ATA bus, but that's not usually feasible.

tooki · 12:50 AM

Master/slave is the worst computer terminology ever invented.

The master drive in NO WAY "controls" the slave drive.

Master/slave are just IDs to keep the commands for each drive separate. They could just as well have called them IDs 1 and 2, or A and B, or Sonny and Cher. (In fact, Mac OS 9 calls the master drive "ID 0" and the slave "ID 1".)

There is absolutely no performance difference between a master and slave drive.

The only thing is that you can't have a drive set to slave if you don't have a master. The master "slot" must be populated first.

The thing about Macs not caring just means that unlike some computers, a Mac does not require you to boot off of the master, it is flexible and will boot from any hard disk you connect.

tooki