[suprz]

just wondering how i set up the beige g3 so i can have the original 8gb hd and a second hd (oh say, 40-80gb's) the beige g3 is down to 3gb's and the imac is down to *GASP*.....458 mb's.......

[Paul S]

Most beige G3 towers had a SCSI connector in the bottom 2 bays. Late revisions had IDE/ATAPI, but that was rare. If the connector has 2 rows of 20 pins, it's IDE. 2 rows of 25 and it's SCSI. If it's IDE, buy any drive with no worries (as long as it's below 137GB). If it's SCSI, you can get a PCI IDE card and get any IDE drive. That solution would be much cheaper than just getting a SCSI drive.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by Paul S:
<STRONG>Most beige G3 towers had a SCSI connector in the bottom 2 bays. Late revisions had IDE/ATAPI, but that was rare. If the connector has 2 rows of 20 pins, it's IDE. 2 rows of 25 and it's SCSI. If it's IDE, buy any drive with no worries (as long as it's below 137GB). If it's SCSI, you can get a PCI IDE card and get any IDE drive. That solution would be much cheaper than just getting a SCSI drive.</STRONG>

Actually, most Beige G3 towers had an IDE interface. See Apple's Spec Database.

But Paul is correct. Any IDE drive will do. I've got two Maxtor 40 GB drives in mine currently. Just make sure you have one drive set as Master, and the other as slave (most hard drives you buy will come with the appropriate jumpers and tell you how to set them for a specific configuration). One thing to note is that the supplied IDE cable that comes with the original drive is kind of short. When you have the side of the G3 open fully, most likely the cable won't fully reach the second drive. You'll have to push it back into place when you're closing the MoBo.

There's a great guide (with pics) over at Accelerate Your Mac.

[Paul S]

Trust me, I repair Macs. All but the last revision of the Gossamer logic board had a SCSI chain going to the bottom two bays. I also had an early one like it. Came with a SCSI Zip drive and I added a SCSI CD-RW to it. The main hard drive is on an IDE bus that's also connected to the CD-ROM drive. That's what your link indicated, but it doesn't mention the additional drive bays. Those were almost always SCSI.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by Paul S:
<STRONG>Trust me, I repair Macs. All but the last revision of the Gossamer logic board had a SCSI chain going to the bottom two bays. I also had an early one like it. Came with a SCSI Zip drive and I added a SCSI CD-RW to it. The main hard drive is on an IDE bus that's also connected to the CD-ROM drive. That's what your link indicated, but it doesn't mention the additional drive bays. Those were almost always SCSI.</STRONG>

This may depend on the revision of Beige G3 that suprz has. But for every revision B and higher I've worked on, I've simply added another IDE drive to the IDE chain (as the CD/DVD was on a different IDE bus). Only the Rev. A didn't support a Master/Slave drive.

Can we confuse suprz any further?

[jtc]

Originally posted by suprz:
<STRONG>just wondering how i set up the beige g3 so i can have the original 8gb hd and a second hd (oh say, 40-80gb's) the beige g3 is down to 3gb's and the imac is down to *GASP*.....458 mb's.......</STRONG>

If your original HD is 8 gigs, you most likely had the G3/300. All beige G3s have IDE (2 buses) and SCSI on board, and yours is a later revision which allows 2 drives on each IDE channel. You can verify this several ways, but the easiest is probably to check the apple system profiler for your video card. If you have a Rage II+ you have a rev. A, and can only have one drive/IDE channel. If you have a Rage Pro, it's a rev. B or C, and can add a second drive to each IDE channel.

I'm not sure what the poster above means by "SCSI and IDE bays," but don't worry about that - it doesn't matter what kind of drive is in there now. You can add any drive (IDE or SCSI), and as long as you can get the cable to reach the bay it will work (obviously).

[suprz]

o.k. per the system profiler, the display card is a
"ATI,mach64_3DUPro" so i guess i have a revision "B"

card model is
"ATI,GT-C"

the profiler says that i have a Quantum Fireball SE8.4A
and also says "internal ATA 0"

i hope that makes sense to you guys.........

[jtc]

That means you do have a later revision and can have up to 4 ide devices. IOW, you can buy any IDE drive (newegg sells 20 gig drives for around $60, 80's for around $130) and toss it in.

[ 03-28-2002: Message edited by: jtc ]

[suprz]

thanks to everyone that replied. it looks as if i will be going with a maxtor 40gb 7200rpm diamond max hd. but of course while searching for the hd i now have another question, i have seen hd's that say 'ATA 66" and "ATA 100" does that refer to the bus speed ? and if it does i have to get the ATA 66 right?

[jtc]

Originally posted by suprz:
<STRONG>thanks to everyone that replied. it looks as if i will be going with a maxtor 40gb 7200rpm diamond max hd. but of course while searching for the hd i now have another question, i have seen hd's that say 'ATA 66" and "ATA 100" does that refer to the bus speed ? and if it does i have to get the ATA 66 right? </STRONG>

No. It refers to the speed of the controller &lt;-&gt; HD. All IDE drives are backward/forward compatible (except for drives over 137 GB, but that's another story).

[drjoe]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by -Q-:
[QB]

This may depend on the revision of Beige G3 that suprz has.

*****

Don't know wether to laugh or to cry. The poor guy posts a simple question and gets a half dozen answers -all of them different. How do you compete with such misinformation when ANYTHING you say is going to be contradicted, at least in part. But here goes:

1.) ALL gossamers contain two (2) IDE buses. The master position is used on both since booting is only supported on a Master. The A bus is hooked up to an IDE drive that lives in the cellar :-) like my original 4 gig WD drive. The B bus is hooked to the CD-ROM so you can boot off of it.. The optional ZIP drive was also IDE and occupied a slave position on an IDE bus. The cable was a separate piece of hardware.

2.) All gossamers had on-board SCSI. There was a connection port on the back as well as an on-the-mobo connecter for internal SCSI drives. This was a rather slow form of SCSI. I use it [externally] for a ZIP, a burner [Yamaha 426] and a DAT. I also have a Miles Initio for an eternal array and wide Ultra-Scsi devices..

3.)There is, as posted, no slave enabling on the Rev A mobo. BUT, in OSX the roms are patched so that, in OSX, you can use slave positions. They are not there when you boot OS9.x BUT they are they and can be used in classic.

End of discussion.