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Help Replacing Optical Drive in G3 iMac

post #1 of 13
1/18/08 at 6:18pm
Thread Starter 
Hi all.

A few weeks ago, I set up an old G3 iMac for a friend to let her 4-year-olds use.

It took them 2 days to shove TWO CDs into the optical drive and kill the drive. I had her order a replacement drive (upgrading to DVD) from Wegener Media, and the drive arrived and works properly.

HOWEVER.

The damned thing doesn't have any selector for Master/Slave. There's a slot in the drive casing, but no switch. I took a peek inside, and there's nothing in there to allow me to tell it to be a slave drive.

When I plug it in to the iMac, the thing won't boot, which I assume means that the new drive is set as a master and is fighting with the HDD.

Can anyone render assistance? After fighting with it for a couple of hours, I'm about ready to have her send it back and just pick up an external CD driveor spend $15 and get an external case for this one.
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post #2 of 13
1/18/08 at 8:00pm
OK, generally, the master/slave status is set by a "jumper" among the pins on the back of the drive. There should be documentation with the drive that tells how to set that properly. (If not you might look it up on the internet.)
Any drive I've ever installed has a large 4-pin connector for power, the connector for the IDE cable (big flat ribbon) and then an area with 6 pins that will be the "jumper" setting... unfortunately the pin set-up is often different from one manufacturer to the next, so I can't say which pins to "jumper". (and then a connector for the audio, and a 2-pin for something or other.)

Just as a test, to see if your assumptions are true, you could stick a boot CD into the drive and see if the computer will boot from it. If not, that may not be the real problem.

And while you're in there, are you also putting in a bigger hard drive?
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #3 of 13
1/18/08 at 8:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

OK, generally, the master/slave status is set by a "jumper" among the pins on the back of the drive. There should be documentation with the drive that tells how to set that properly. (If not you might look it up on the internet.)
Any drive I've ever installed has a large 4-pin connector for power, the connector for the IDE cable (big flat ribbon) and then an area with 6 pins that will be the "jumper" setting... unfortunately the pin set-up is often different from one manufacturer to the next, so I can't say which pins to "jumper". (and then a connector for the audio, and a 2-pin for something or other.)

That's what I'm saying. There is no jumper. At all. There's a hole where the switches would be, but there's nothing there. I even opened up the drive as much as I could without tearing off the warranty-void tape. Nada.

Frankly, it's pretty strange.

Quote:
Just as a test, to see if your assumptions are true, you could stick a boot CD into the drive and see if the computer will boot from it. If not, that may not be the real problem.

Stuck 10.5 in there and the result was an endless boot sequence. Unless 10.5 won't work on G3 iMacs.... I hadn't thought about that until just now.

Quote:
And while you're in there, are you also putting in a bigger hard drive?

Thought about it...I have a 60 GB and a 40 GB in my stash, but since this is a kids' compy, it's not really an issue.
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post #4 of 13
1/19/08 at 3:44pm
Wow, don't know what to tell you ... I've never seen an IDE drive with no jumpers!
What's the processor speed?... 10.5 would not install on my 466 G3 iBook. I don't know if it would install on a faster G3 or not. (though 10.4 works just fine on it.)
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #5 of 13
1/19/08 at 4:12pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

Wow, don't know what to tell you ... I've never seen an IDE drive with no jumpers!
What's the processor speed?... 10.5 would not install on my 466 G3 iBook. I don't know if it would install on a faster G3 or not. (though 10.4 works just fine on it.)

Heh. Yeah. It's weird. I suspect that the drive is hard-wired to cable-select. If I set the HDD to cable-select will they play nicely? I don't want to take the damned thing apart again unless I have to.

I have 10.4 on it now and it runs fine.
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Gangs are not seen as legitimate, because they don't have control over public schools.
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post #6 of 13
1/19/08 at 7:49pm
Certainly worth a try.... and taking it apart/re-assembly gets easier/faster each time you do it
How much RAM have you ? There's a chance i've got some around here for that machine that'll never get used by me.
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #7 of 13
1/19/08 at 10:24pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

Certainly worth a try.... and taking it apart/re-assembly gets easier/faster each time you do it
How much RAM have you ? There's a chance i've got some around here for that machine that'll never get used by me.

It's got 256, I believe. While that's not anywhere near optimal for OS X, this is a machine for four-year-olds and they don't seem to mind. But hey, if you're offering....
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post #8 of 13
1/20/08 at 12:21pm
Leopard won't install on ANY G3, and only on G4's that are 867MHz and faster, and all machines must have at least 512MB of RAM to run it.

As for your disc drive issue, I don't know of any ATA bus settings that need to be set in order for it to work. Most slot-load drives (I'm assuming this isn't a tray-load G3) don't have those settings, at least not ones accessible to anyone but the manufacturer.
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post #9 of 13
1/20/08 at 12:52pm
Thread Starter 
Well, I took it apart again this morning, put the HDD jumper to Cable Select, booted up and...

nothing.

Then, I thought to myself, "Self, there's one place you haven't tried that jumper!" and I put it there, booted and VOILA!

Working fine. All is well.
Gangs are not seen as legitimate, because they don't have control over public schools.
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Gangs are not seen as legitimate, because they don't have control over public schools.
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post #10 of 13
1/21/08 at 5:11pm
It's always in the last place you look!
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...
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post #11 of 13
1/8/09 at 9:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post

Wow, don't know what to tell you ... I've never seen an IDE drive with no jumpers!
What's the processor speed?... 10.5 would not install on my 466 G3 iBook. I don't know if it would install on a faster G3 or not. (though 10.4 works just fine on it.)

10.5 will install on a G3 computer if the clockspeed is above 867 Mhz
they discontinued support for anything slower though
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post #12 of 13
1/8/09 at 10:44am
Thread Starter 
Um. Happy anniversary, thread o' mine!

By the way: that G3 iMac is still running just fine. The family is on their SECOND dell in the same year they've had that iMac. They're now convinced that they should get a Mac.
Gangs are not seen as legitimate, because they don't have control over public schools.
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Gangs are not seen as legitimate, because they don't have control over public schools.
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post #13 of 13
1/12/09 at 2:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by midwinter View Post

Um. Happy anniversary, thread o' mine!

By the way: that G3 iMac is still running just fine. The family is on their SECOND dell in the same year they've had that iMac. They're now convinced that they should get a Mac.

Man, I wish I could get my brother's family to see it that way.

They needed to replace their (few years old) PC and I was agitating for an iMac or Mini. Nope, they said, too expensive. Off they went to Best Buy or Walmart or some damn place, to get sweet talked into one of those $400 with monitor and printer deals.

And then they did that again a year and a half later. And again just recently.

So all and all, they're something like $1200 into "cheap" PCs for about 4 years of ownership. But when I tell them that their PC using ways is an insult to God and a grotesque aberration and actually immoral, do they take my advice in the spirit in which it was offered?

They do not! Because they are PC gobbling dogs!
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They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.
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