Upgrading my old G3 iMac (DV+)

haro!haro!
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
So I know it's futile and a waste of time and money but I want to upgrade this thing's hard drive since it holds a special place in my heart. I've found a manual on how to do the physical portion of it online. However I do have a few questions which would probably be best answered here.

First purchasing the replacement drive. I know it has to be an ATA 100 but just wanted to make sure at least one of the following worked (and if there were anything else I needed to know):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144122



or



http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4018547



In regards to the latter I am aware that i would only be able to use up to 128GB but the price for the amount of storage made for a good value in my opinion. Anyway, would I have to create a 128GB partition on it before-hand in order for it to work?



Another tricky issue is although I am running OS 10.3 on it, I only have my OS 9 disks that came with the computer and will be getting 10.4. Will I be able to just install 10.4 without having to install OS 9?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    Yes, you can install OSX without installing OS9.



    I know the 80GB drive will work...

    As for the 160... if the rumored 128GB limitation is indeed true, I'd bet you'll need to partition it BEFORE install... also make sure that the partition you intend to use is completely contained in the FIRST 128GB of the disk (meaning, leave room for the formatting info). So maybe limit yourself to a 120GB partition to leave yourself some "wiggle room". I'm just guessing on all that stuff though.



    I used my G3 iMac (266) for another year after I intalled an 80 GB drive and 384 MB of RAM... it ran 10.3 just fine, it's only real limitation on the 'net was the inability to run video and flash smoothly ... yours might work much better with the faster (400?) cpu.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    sherman homansherman homan Posts: 167member
    The KingOfSomewhereHot is pretty much spot on. There is a 128 gig formatted drive limit, common to all G3 Macs and most G4s. Do it on another PPC chipped Mac and use the remaining space for "stuff". It really is something like 137 gigs of unformatted space, but his advice to go to 120 is smart. It will take two 512 PC100 168 pin sdram chips, that will be the biggest bang for your buck, performance wise.

    You don't need System 9 at all, at any point, if you don't want it.

    However, make absolutely certain that it has the iMac Firmware 4.1.9

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75130

    Or for some bizarre reason you will fry the graphics processor as soon as it boots OS X.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    haro!haro! Posts: 32member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post


    I used my G3 iMac (266) for another year after I intalled an 80 GB drive and 384 MB of RAM... it ran 10.3 just fine, it's only real limitation on the 'net was the inability to run video and flash smoothly ... yours might work much better with the faster (400?) cpu.



    Yeah the same is pretty much the same here, only flash videos and naturally H264 encoded videos run sluggishly on the 450 cpu. I was thinking of getting a processor upgrade originally, but seeing as it won't get me anything past Tiger anyway I decided to keep the same processor (not to mention I'm very much a newbie and the thought just scares the crap out of me).

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sherman Homan View Post


    The KingOfSomewhereHot is pretty much spot on. There is a 128 gig formatted drive limit, common to all G3 Macs and most G4s. Do it on another PPC chipped Mac and use the remaining space for "stuff". It really is something like 137 gigs of unformatted space, but his advice to go to 120 is smart. It will take two 512 PC100 168 pin sdram chips, that will be the biggest bang for your buck, performance wise.

    You don't need System 9 at all, at any point, if you don't want it.

    However, make absolutely certain that it has the iMac Firmware 4.1.9

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75130

    Or for some bizarre reason you will fry the graphics processor as soon as it boots OS X.



    I should be able to format it by means of a firewire enclosure through disk utility right?



    As far as Firmware 4.1.9 I'm assuming I have it since I believe it was needed to upgrade to Panther, but I'll double check as soon as I get home.





    Also another kind of related but unrelated question, is there a way to format a hard drive to FAT32 on OSX? I have a Mac (HFS+ is it?) formatted hard drive that I was using for back ups but now I need that drive for a PC...
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