Hello, I have a question for all you IDE fans.

Currently, I have four internal ATA devices in my B&W G3: a DVD-ROM and Zip drive on Internal ATA 0, and two IDE hard drives on Internal IDE 1. Everything runs beautifully as is.

What I would like to do is add another Ultra ATA/66 drive to that 3rd hard drive bay in the bottom of my G3 (the empty space is just calling my name... ). Is this possible? Obviously, my computer is out of built-in ATA space, so I presume I would need some kind of PCI card for this?

I'm a college student on a college budget, so I guess what I'm looking for is the cheapest possible way to safely add this component to my computer, while still getting a decent speed out of the drive.

I already have a drive I could use --- I would just need a card, some hardware for mounting the drive in the slot (no screws or anything came with the drive), and a little instruction about how to make it all work!

Please forgive me if anything above doesn't quite make sense... although I work Macintosh tech support, I am much more competent with the software side of things than hardware, and my knowledge of ATA/IDE is particlaurly lacking. Feel free to educate me .

Thanks! Any help is extremely appreciated.

[This message has been edited by Uberfetus (edited 09-22-2000).]

[MacOS761]

Well, you are absolutely correct about needing an ATA PCI card. This is a very common question on these boards, so I would suggest reading the other threads on this topic and asking folks who have had the same dilema as you which card they got. Once you are satisfied with your PCI card, setup should be pretty straightforward. You will need IDE cable if some does not come with the card, but there should be plenty of power connectors already rarin' to go inside your computer. You may also need a mounting sled depending upon the drive. Those supplies can be had at any computer shop. Once everything is connected, the drive will probably be accessible enough to format, and then usable right after that! Good luck!

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We're supposed to sing about piraty things!

I have a few other questions about the cards.

• Would the OS recognize the drive as SCSI even though it's really ATA? I've heard of this happening with some cards.
  
• Would I be able to make the drive my master drive?
  
• Would I be able to install Mac OS X Public Beta or LinuxPPC on the drive? If I partition it, could I install both and have them actually work?

[This message has been edited by Uberfetus (edited 09-23-2000).]

[Blakhawkg3]

I think the Mac OS recognizes all IDE drives on PCI cards as SCSI, regardless of what card you're using. I don't know about your other two questions...
Try this site: Xlr8 Your Mac
Go to the G3 Zone and look around for PCI IDE card info.

-Blakhawkg3

[MacOS761]

I don't know anything about drives showing up as SCSI, but I guess that's possible.

Each IDE bus usually has one drive designated as the "master", and other drive(s) as slave. I think you can have pretty much any setting if you only have one drive on the bus (there is also single disk mode and something else I can't remember). Master drives always have the priority on that bus, so it is in your best interest to make the fastest drive on a bus the master if you want performance. So the answer is yes, you can have the drive as the master, but it is only the master of that bus.

As far as booting OS's from a PCI ATA card, the Mac OS (9 and earlier) can boot from basically any mountable drive. For other operating systems, it depends how much support they have for such things. I've never used LinuxPPC, but I would imagine it is possible to start up into it if you know how to tweak it. I've had problems getting DP4 to properly dual boot from a slave drive on my main hard drive's IDE bus, and Apple is sketchy on what will change in regard to such a situation with Beta. I hope it has improved... but I can almost guarantee that the final version will be able to boot from most any drive just like the current Mac OS. Hope that helps.

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We're supposed to sing about piraty things!

Thanks, folks.... I think I now have a pretty good idea about what I'm going to have to do... now it's just a matter of finding the right card to do it!