Not recognized Drive
I recently moved and when I did I took my PowerMac G4 MDD with me. When I arived at my new place I set up my Mac and when I did I got the flashing "?" and Mac OS face folder. This had happened to me before when I had my computer shipped to me, to fix it the first time all I did was unplug the ribbon from the drive and replug it, viola it worked. However this time it did not work, I tried it a few different times, nothing. After a few attempts the ribbon no longer fit into the slot, I had bent a pin on the drive. I straightened it and the ribbon went in as before. I then unplugged and the replugged the ribbon from the logic board, fired it up and...nothing, same flashing "?". What I think happened was that the ribbon was damaged by the bent pin, one of the holes had some scrapped off plastic, possibly blocking the male pin to connect into the female part. Should this be fixed with a new ata 100 ribbon. And also are ATA 66 and 100 ribbons interchangeable (the one that came in the case). Any help is much appreciated. Just so you know wvwrything on my machine had been working just fine, I have never had a problem with it other than this.
Comments
Originally posted by BPFLTD
I recently moved and when I did I took my PowerMac G4 MDD with me. When I arived at my new place I set up my Mac and when I did I got the flashing "?" and Mac OS face folder. This had happened to me before when I had my computer shipped to me, to fix it the first time all I did was unplug the ribbon from the drive and replug it, viola it worked. However this time it did not work, I tried it a few different times, nothing. After a few attempts the ribbon no longer fit into the slot, I had bent a pin on the drive. I straightened it and the ribbon went in as before. I then unplugged and the replugged the ribbon from the logic board, fired it up and...nothing, same flashing "?". What I think happened was that the ribbon was damaged by the bent pin, one of the holes had some scrapped off plastic, possibly blocking the male pin to connect into the female part. Should this be fixed with a new ata 100 ribbon. And also are ATA 66 and 100 ribbons interchangeable (the one that came in the case). Any help is much appreciated. Just so you know wvwrything on my machine had been working just fine, I have never had a problem with it other than this.
Use a new ATA-100 cable. Yes you could use the 66 but this will create more problems than it solves. Check the power cables to your drive. Use apple hardware test, and check that the drive is detected. Boot from a CD if possible. Your hard drive may be dead. Listen to it and hear if it starts up, (that is if you can hear it above the obscene noise of the MDD fans). If your drive is as old as your computer, it probably is worth replacing anyway.
Have fun.
Originally posted by BPFLTD
Well I got a new ribbon, but the store only had an ATA 133 ribbon, so I got that after the guy said it would work, and if not I could return it. It did not work, I listened for my disk to spin up and I didn't hear it, I thought I heard it before with the ATA100 in (maybe I was wrong).
The 133 ribbon is fine, and on the plus side, no noise is good noise. (Kind of)
Try removing the data cable altogether, leaving in the power cable. Power up the machine. If the drive still doesn't spin up, then your data cable is not the issue. The problem is that means either your power supply or drive is bad. Try connecting the drive to another power connector.
Also if you have a multi-meter (and you know what I'm talking about), check the voltages on the power connector. The blacks are both ground. The red cable should be at +5v, the yellow at +12v. (Forget about this if you don't know exactly what to do here)
If your drive clicks a bit but doesn't spin up then it is probably dead. If there is no noise from the drive it'll most likely work in another mac.
Ok, so if you do get it to spin up, make sure that 'master' is set on the jumpers on the drive. One may have fallen off in transit, leaving the drive inaccessable. If you don't know what I'm talking about, tag another msg back here.
-t