G3 Not seeing new hard Drive

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hi,



I have a G3 300 Blue and White with a 6GB HD and OS 9.2.2



I rcently bought a new sealed 40GB Maxtor hard disk drive (Jumpered as Master) to replace the internal 6GB HD but have failed to get the G3 to even recognise the HD.



If I boot from my Panther CD and run Disk Utility (DU) it sees a maxtor 6e040l0 drive but when I choose to format it as MacOS Extended with os9 drivers it just hangs. The progress bar remained static for over hours.



If I boot from my os9.1 cd then the HD does not mount on the desktop and Drive setup cannot see the drive at all.



I checked the drive by installing it into my G4 dual 450 and it worked fine. It was visible to both os9 and osx and could be low level formatted and checked in both!



I just cannot get this drive to show up at all in the G3 even though the stock 6GB HD works perfectly.



I'm tearing my hair out as this is the first ever weird hard drive issue I've ever had on a mac.



does anyone have any ideas on what could be up or any suggestions for me to try out?



thanx in advance

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    I plugged the IDE cable in upside-down once. Fairly easy to do in my Beige G3. Try setting it to slave if you haven't already.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    Hi Ebby, thanx 4 your reply.



    I have tried Master, Slave and cable select all to no avail. I have also tried out 2 different IDE cables. Frankly, I'm baffled. In all other respects this machines behaves sweetly. I just can't imagine what the problem is. I find it hard to belive that a BW G3 is restricted to a maximum 6GB hard disc!
  • Reply 3 of 8
    hello i recently spent 4 hrs struggling to get a 20 gb hard drive to work in my g3 i found out the problem was with the hard drive being from dell origin(hahah i stripped its insides) so i got another 20gb made sure that the hard drive was partitioned with the first smaller than 8gb and it worked. Have you tried another larger hard drive with the mac if theres still no luck you could install the OS on the 6gb and use the 40gb as a slave for all the large stuff
  • Reply 4 of 8
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by spooky

    I find it hard to belive that a BW G3 is restricted to a maximum 6GB hard disc!



    No, the limit is around 127GB. I have a 80GB Maxtor drive in my Beige G3.



    I'm a bit puzzled by this.

    You know the new drive works in another machine.

    You original hard drive still works in your G3.

    That doesn't leave too many possibilities. I'm guessing, but the error is likely somewhere between the drive and your computer.

    #1) The drive jumpers are configured wrong - Check

    #2) The IDE cable is not plugged in right - Check



    Some more possibilities:

    1) Power is not plugged in. (Unlikely)

    2) Are you using a added PCI card or the main IDE bus? A PCI card may be the problem.

    3) Try setting the drive's 2GB limit. (I think it is a jumper setting)



    I've run out os ideas.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    You may need to install a firmware update ... check apple.com.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ebby

    No, the limit is around 127GB. I have a 80GB Maxtor drive in my Beige G3.





    #1) The drive jumpers are configured wrong - Check




    I've tried master, slave and cable select on the drive. are there jumpers on the g3's motherboard to try?

    #2) The IDE cable is not plugged in right - Check

    I've carefull reattached the drive again paying extra attention to the ide cable and it seems to fit nugly and securely!



    1) Power is not plugged in. (Unlikely)


    Checked this and it is ok

    2) Are you using a added PCI card or the main IDE bus? A PCI card may be the problem. I am attaching to the ide connector on the motherboard as I do not have a pci card on the ide bus. the only pci card i have is the stock ati graphics card. I've read in places that the only way to replace the drive is to use a pci ide card whilst other users claim to have replaced their drives without problem - I'm really confused!!

    3) Try setting the drive's 2GB limit. (I think it is a jumper setting)

    Just tried this (limit capacity) - No Luck!

    I've run out os ideas. [/B]



    BTW Ebby I have updated the firmware and still no luck
  • Reply 7 of 8
    skipjackskipjack Posts: 263member
    This sounds familiar, but I haven't dealt with the problem in three or four years. I'm looking for a reference, but haven't found it yet. I thought it was an OS X problem, but maybe not.



    I think the boot partition is limited to 6 GB or 8 GB and must be the first partition. That is, partition the drive into 8 GB and whatever is left over, then install the operating system on that first partition.



    Again, I thought this was for OS X beta, but I'm getting old and don't remember what I did last month or last year. Anyway, I'll do more looking.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    skipjackskipjack Posts: 263member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Skipjack

    This sounds familiar, but I haven't dealt with the problem in three or four years. I'm looking for a reference, but haven't found it yet. I thought it was an OS X problem, but maybe not.



    I think the boot partition is limited to 6 GB or 8 GB and must be the first partition. That is, partition the drive into 8 GB and whatever is left over, then install the operating system on that first partition.



    Again, I thought this was for OS X beta, but I'm getting old and don't remember what I did last month or last year. Anyway, I'll do more looking.




    EDIT: Sorry, what I was thinking of was an early OS X thing.



    The only thing I can offer is some instructions with pictures for the jumpers

    From xlr8yourmac.com
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