Internal SATA HDD Help

[fymbscu]

Hi folks,

I have been trying to add a 500GB hard drive to my G4 MDD 2003 and ended up with a SATA drive because I couldn't find and IDE drive of that size available. I recently tried a SIIG SC-SAT212 Serial ATA PCI card with the Silicon Image chipset, that I picked up at the Goodwill for $8, but it was bad and had to be returned.

Prior to that, I have tried a Kingwin ADP-06 "SATA TO IDE Bridge Board" mounted on the butt end of the HDD. That position meant that the drive had to be mounted in the deep spot in the back bay to fit into the case. (I have since learned that this is the faster ATA bus space) Cable length plus the board only allowed for the one drive to be installed in that bay.

This allowed the drive to mount, but I had some crashes, I believe, in getting the computer to wake up after sleep. After rebooting the computer, the SATA drive does not mount. Also, the drive cannot be seen in Disk Utility either, to mount or otherwise.

After the SATA PCI card has now failed, I want to see if I can resurrect this option. Looking for any advice about getting the bridge board to work. Maybe you know of a driver that will help me out? I have found a SATA male to female jumper that would allow me to place the drive elsewhere inside the case. Looking forward to your ideas.

Best regards,

Mark Harrison

 

[jbarley]

I use Sata II SSDs in all my powerPC systems, MDD, G4 Cube, and G5 PowerMacs.
I use the same interface card, this one, on them all and have never had a problem.
I have had problems though, when trying to use the newer Sata III SSDs, they are somewhat hit and miss
when it comes to being backward compatible.

 

[for this]

Prior to that, I have tried a Kingwin ADP-06 "SATA TO IDE Bridge Board" mounted on the butt end of the HDD. That position meant that the drive had to be mounted in the deep spot in the back bay to fit into the case. (I have since learned that this is the faster ATA bus space) Cable length plus the board only allowed for the one drive to be installed in that bay.

You can install two SATA drives with adapters in that bay providing that the adapters have the master/slave settings. But you can't mix an IDE drive and a SATA drive. The cable just doesn't allow that (as you've said), unless you move the SATA drive up a bit (and find a way to secure that position).

This allowed the drive to mount, but I had some crashes, I believe, in getting the computer to wake up after sleep. After rebooting the computer, the SATA drive does not mount. Also, the drive cannot be seen in Disk Utility either, to mount or otherwise.

After the SATA PCI card has now failed, I want to see if I can resurrect this option. Looking for any advice about getting the bridge board to work. Maybe you know of a driver that will help me out? I have found a SATA male to female jumper that would allow me to place the drive elsewhere inside the case. Looking forward to your ideas.

Best regards,

Mark Harrison

Your SATA adapter problem might be from a loose connection. Try checking the female molexes at the cable, if they're too wide, squeeze them a bit. No driver can help, since this kind of adapter doesn't have or need one.

 

[fymbscu]

Thanks for this,

I won't get a chance to test this out until tomorrow, but in thinking about the crashes and reboots, I remember something else.

To make space for the SATA drive, I ended up moving a 50GB IBM drive to an external Maxtor One Touch enclosure. The OneTouch originally came with a 200GB Maxtor drive that went bad. I've tried to place other drives larger than 120GB into the case, but only 120GB were recognized. Supposedly some proprietary Maxtor technique allowed only their own larger drives to work in the enclosure. Is there some way to flash the enclosure to correct this?

Also , this drive is the third device in a Firewire chain that includes a DVD burner and another hard drive. After the crashes with the SATA drive installled, I had to remove the Maxtor enclosure from the chain to reboot. I never experienced this before putting the IBM drive in the case. It most recently housed a 30GB Western Digital drive. Any thoughts?

Best regards,

Mark Harrison