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dwaxman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 4, 2002
10
0
My chair
I am the proud owner of a Dual 867 MDD PowerMac with a Superdrive. I am interested in adding a second hard drive to my machine, however I am not interested in opening the machine to peek around and what has to be done. I wish to open my machine only when I know what I am doing, how to do it and why I am doing it. I have built NUMEROUS Wintel boxes myself so working on the inside of the machine is not the issue, my issue is that I am still paying off this box and don't wish to do any harm and I have NEVER done work inside a Mac before. Here are my questions:
1) I would assume that the main drive is on an ATA 100 cable and there should be another plug on that cable for a second drive. Is this so? Do I need to set 'jumpers' to mark one drive as a primary and another as a slave?
2) I would assume there is a hard drive bay in the machine waiting to take another drive. Where is the bay? Does it have any shielding or guards I need to remove? What tool will be needed to do this?
3) All drives require power, is there an open plug on a power harness somewhere? Do I need to get some kind of adaptor to run the power?
4) Does anybody know of a SPECIFIC brand or model of hard drive that would run the best in my machine?
 

Mblazened

macrumors regular
Dec 20, 2002
237
0
The Valley
huh?

Stop being a puss and open the machine. You can't hurt it just by opening it. It won't void your warranty.

Just remember to unplug the computer first. Open the side panel, and take a quick look. The answers to most of your questions will seem obvious.

I trust western digital HDs

-m
 

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
To answer your questions, the MDD models use 2 disk carriers that hold 2 drives each.

Apple uses cable select, so master and slave is determined by where it is placed in the carrier.

The recomendation is when you have two drives is to put one in each carrier as that will give you better performance than having them both on the same controller.

All you need is the drive jumpered for cable select and I think 4 screws to mount the drive.

As for what brand, everyone has a different opinion. just make sure the box for the drive says it has a 3 year warranty, otherwise it's a one year warranty.
 

TEG

macrumors 604
Jan 21, 2002
6,618
165
Langley, Washington
About the HDs They face so the pins are toward the board in the rear of the bottom of the machine. You can set master/slave for faster responce times, or cable select to just "plug and play". The boards are very resilliant to static discharge, and you need not worry about anything, its easier than a PC. BTW, I Believe on the new MDDs there are 3 ATA Busses, an ATA66, an ATA100, and an ATA133. Your optical drives should be plugged into the 66, and your HDs in the 133. So if you have a slower HD, and plan to connect a 133 in the future, I suggest you install it into the 100 to save time in the future.

TEG
 

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
Originally posted by TEG
About the HDs They face so the pins are toward the board in the rear of the bottom of the machine. You can set master/slave for faster responce times, or cable select to just "plug and play".
...
There should be no difference in response times.

Also, some drives will not function properly if the drive isn't set to cable select.
 

iJon

macrumors 604
Feb 7, 2002
6,586
229
the new mdd's do not have ata133. only the xserves have 133. putting in a hard drive is not hard. when you open your case, leave the power plugged in and touch the power supply, that will ground you. then unplug it, and dont work on carpet. if you are really scared buy a grounding strip. there is one screw you do and undo the latch and you just pop the hard drive in. set it for cable select if you dont know what you are doing and put in the power connector and ide cable. they only go in one way. technically if you wanted to you could put 6 hard drives in your powermac, its only made for 4, but the cd-roms are on an ide cable so you could put two more hard drives in there. probably wouldnt recommend it though. if you are really that worried just take it to a dealer and they will do it for a small labor fee, probably 30-50 dollars and they can format it and everything for you.

iJon
 

giovanni

macrumors regular
Jul 1, 2002
214
0
manhattan
Being no expert, I used the manual and it was very simple. Just take a look at the instructions in there and it will take you about 5 minutes.
 

giovanni

macrumors regular
Jul 1, 2002
214
0
manhattan
bear,
are you sure about that ? if you have to ata/100 drives one gets better performance by installing on in each bay ? I thought by definition the ata/100 controller would be faster. Please let me know.

thx,
gio
 

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
Originally posted by giovanni
bear,
are you sure about that ? if you have to ata/100 drives one gets better performance by installing on in each bay ? I thought by definition the ata/100 controller would be faster. Please let me know.

thx,
gio
Yes, ata/100 is faster, but when you have two drives on the same controller, they share the available bandwidth.

So by putting the second drive on the slower controller, they each have a dedicated controller.

If a third drive was being added, putting it on the ATA/100 would yield you best performance possible for the 3 drives.
 

giovanni

macrumors regular
Jul 1, 2002
214
0
manhattan
thank you Bear,
let me just make sure I get it right. If one has one additional drive (the one that comes with the Mac is installed in the ata/100 bay): you are saying I should install my new ata/100 drive in the ata/66 so that performance is better? I believe this is what you said... just want to check as I finally received my MDD and I was w/o a doubt going to install a WD 120 SE that I just purchased in the ata/100, but I guess that is not optimal.


gio
 

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
Originally posted by giovanni
thank you Bear,
let me just make sure I get it right. If one has one additional drive (the one that comes with the Mac is installed in the ata/100 bay): you are saying I should install my new ata/100 drive in the ata/66 so that performance is better? I believe this is what you said... just want to check as I finally received my MDD and I was w/o a doubt going to install a WD 120 SE that I just purchased in the ata/100, but I guess that is not optimal.


gio
That is correct. To put it another way, what is faster two drives on one ATA/100 bus or two drives on seperate ATA/66 buses?
 

giovanni

macrumors regular
Jul 1, 2002
214
0
manhattan
ok, since I am here.
I just tried to install the drive, in the lower ata/66 bay. I don't see it on the desktop ! I had had no problem with my previous MDD, the difference being that those were drives I had already used before (in a g3 b&w). This is a brand new drive. Now is there any initialization that I need to do ?
I just installed, it is on CS plugged in the first ide cable. How come I don't see it ?


thx
 

zimv20

macrumors 601
Jul 18, 2002
4,402
11
toronto
Originally posted by giovanni

I just tried to install the drive, in the lower ata/66 bay. I don't see it on the desktop !

is the drive pre-formatted? probably not. use disk utility to format it (hfs+ recommended) and give it a name (i recommend: "farfel", 'cuz it's a funny name :).
 

giovanni

macrumors regular
Jul 1, 2002
214
0
manhattan
but if the system does not "see" it, how can I initialize it ?
I am pretty sure the drive is not initialized, but how do how do I go about that ?
I did launch disk utility but again, no drive is there to be initialized, I only see the drive that came with the Mac (and a firewire drive I have, external).

thx
 

iJon

macrumors 604
Feb 7, 2002
6,586
229
Originally posted by giovanni
but if the system does not "see" it, how can I initialize it ?
I am pretty sure the drive is not initialized, but how do how do I go about that ?
I did launch disk utility but again, no drive is there to be initialized, I only see the drive that came with the Mac (and a firewire drive I have, external).

thx
then you didnt do it right. the cables shouldnt be the problem because they only go in one way. take out the hard drive and set the jumper for cable select so you dont have to screw with slave and master. the settings for jumpers should be posted on the hard drive itself, if it isnt your screwed.

iJon
 

zimv20

macrumors 601
Jul 18, 2002
4,402
11
toronto
Originally posted by iJon
take out the hard drive and set the jumper for cable select so you dont have to screw with slave and master.

and if THAT doesn't work, then try setting the master/slave jumpers.

if i read your previous posts correctly, your drives are on two separate controllers? fool around w/ that, maybe move the new drive to the same controller as your master drive and set the jumpers as i said above.

if your new drive is on the ata/66 chain, that means it's with the optical drive(s), right? does anyone know if there're any special rules for that?


the settings for jumpers should be posted on the hard drive itself, if it isnt your screwed.

iJon

lol. though it may be on the documentation, if you have that for the old drive.
 

giovanni

macrumors regular
Jul 1, 2002
214
0
manhattan
no, it is already on CS (that is how it came, and also there are labels that confirm that on the drive). I think with only one drive one might have to set it to master....



wowowowo......(a few minutes later). Before pushing "submit" I decided to check those cables (here I am on my iBook). All of a sudden I find myself playing with 3 ide connectors...I am like wondering, shouldn't there be just 2 ? one was blue...so, a bit of thinking and there we go, the blue was the connection to the motherboard ! Go figure it would come with that cable disconnected.
All problems solved. All is good - yeha !

gio

I actually read of somebody else finding out about the same thing. So I guess these macs just come like that.
 

iJon

macrumors 604
Feb 7, 2002
6,586
229
Originally posted by zimv20
and if THAT doesn't work, then try setting the master/slave jumpers.

if i read your previous posts correctly, your drives are on two separate controllers? fool around w/ that, maybe move the new drive to the same controller as your master drive and set the jumpers as i said above.

if your new drive is on the ata/66 chain, that means it's with the optical drive(s), right? does anyone know if there're any special rules for that?



lol. though it may be on the documentation, if you have that for the old drive.
from what ive read there are spots for 4 hard drives, then a slot for another cd-rom. there is nothing in the documentation saying you must sacrifice a hard drive for another cd-rom. so technially you could put 6 drives in this baby, not sure though, and since im watching the ring and it is squashed between some stuff i cant open the case.

iJon
 

DreaminDirector

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2002
646
0
Ladera Ranch, CA
awesome....

I've just read this entire thread and I've got to admit, I've learned alot. I'm going to install a 120 GB WD SE drive soon and this info is great.

Basically, I just wanted to tell you guys that it's awesome that fellow mac users help out the less educated (being me, of course...)

Thanks in advance, peeps!
 

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
Originally posted by zimv20
if your new drive is on the ata/66 chain, that means it's with the optical drive(s), right? does anyone know if there're any special rules for that?
Actually there are three ATA controllers in the MDD Mac. 2 for hard drives and one for optical drives.

So you can get 4 hard drives and 2 op0tical drives in the system.

Hard drives should be set to cable select. The drive must go in the first slot in the drive carrier when it is the only drive in it. This is the slot for Drive 0 (master).
 

wormy

macrumors member
Dec 5, 2002
35
0
Originally posted by giovanni
thank you Bear,
let me just make sure I get it right. If one has one additional drive (the one that comes with the Mac is installed in the ata/100 bay): you are saying I should install my new ata/100 drive in the ata/66 so that performance is better? I believe this is what you said... just want to check as I finally received my MDD and I was w/o a doubt going to install a WD 120 SE that I just purchased in the ata/100, but I guess that is not optimal.


gio

Giovanni,
We have a very similiar situation. I bought a 120gb WD SE as a scratch drive for video editing (Scratchy), hence the 8mb cache investment. Obviously I want this to be as fast as possible. So I yanked the factory drive (Itchy) out of the ata/100 and threw it in the ata/66, and I put Scratchy in the ata/100 drive. Itchy has the OS and all programs. So far it works great. Tell me peeps- is this not the optimal set-up?
 

giovanni

macrumors regular
Jul 1, 2002
214
0
manhattan
ok DreaminDirector, I see your point - sounds like an obvious point as I intend to use my drive for the same purpose (and it is the same drive).

best,
giovanni
 

DreaminDirector

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2002
646
0
Ladera Ranch, CA
huh? I was giving these guys props for helping you (and me) out.

I thinking you were refering to Wormy, which by the way, has great names for his two HDs (I'm a big Simpsons fan....)

p.s. - Wormy, how is the 8mb cache for video? I haev yet to use one and excited because I will in about a week. Is there a obvious speed difference for video?
 
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