Dual hard drives in iMac G5? Possible?

[elmateo487]

Hi,

I have an interestingly stubborn iMac G5 that will NOT recognize the internal hard drive, I can boot it off a dvd, I can even boot it off a USB HD through open firmware, but I cant get it to recognize the internal hard drive.

Occasionally it will in System Profiler show a SATA device is registering, but besides that, no signs of it. Nothing in Disk Utility. I have tried two different sata cables, and the drive is getting power because it warms up.

So, question being. Is it possible to replace the optical drive with an IDE drive? Maybe that would be a possibility for me...

Does anyone have any ideas what might be wrong? Is it possible the Sata connector on the MB is faulty?

Any help would be appreciated...

Thanks

 

[polotska]

Try a different SATA HDD in place of the original one. It's very possible that the original HDD has failed.

 

[elmateo487]

Sorry, I should have noted. The hard drive can be removed and booted with a Universal Drive Adapter on my iBook. So the drive is not dead. As for using a different drive, I do not have one. But I HAVE tried a SATA 200GB laptop hard drive in there (haha I know a stretch) but it reacted the same way.

Question stands, is it possible to put a hard drive in the optical drive spot, google has found me nothing yet. The words are not unique enough to be found.

 

[elmateo487]

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks

 

[rtrt]

dont know if you still have this problem but here goes anyway.

can confirm ive done this on an imac g5 ambient light sensor 2Ghz.

you need a replacement for the optical drive that provides the option to instal a 2.3 inch hdd.

there are a lot of posts on here about those devices - some of them are called optibay iirc.

but if you're stuck let me know and i'll see if i can dig out my source - imported from the US for$20-30 iirc. ebay may also be a source.

or alternatively you could try to run a sata cable from the optibay over to the 3.5inch drive - if you're diy minded.

have a feeling the machine takes a while to boot if your hdd is connected to the dvd ide port - think you get a ? on the screen indicating that there's some sort of problem with the boot device but after a while it boots anyway.

all of this is based on my recollection from months ago and experience with my machine - ymmv.

i'd offer to check but my imac is in pieces right now having just repaired the psu.