Resolved FirmTek PCI SATA card not booting in OSX?

[r6mile]

Hi all,

I've got a couple of two-port PCI SATA cards (one is FirmTek branded, the other is Sonnet Tempo, but my understand is that these are essentially the same cards). But in my Digital Audio, while booting into OS9 works fine, I cannot get them to boot into OSX Tiger - the loading wheel goes on forever and then I get some weird textual error in black. Non-bootable drives are recognised fine though, and the card shows up properly under System Profiler - it is just the booting Tiger (and Jaguar) that doesn't work.

I have installed the firmware that FirmTek recommends for PowerMac G4s - version 5.1.3 - as well as the driver they provide. But still no luck. I get the same behaviour with both the cards. Is this some weird incompatibility with the Digital Audio? Unfortunately my other G4 is out of action so I can't test the card there. Anyone with experience of these cards recognises this behaviour?

 

[eyoungren]

…and then I get some weird textual error in black.

That is called a Kernel Panic.

It might be revealing to know what it says. If you could post a picture of the KP (Kernel Panic) then we might be able to help.

PS. I've never heard that FirmTek and Sonnet are the 'same thing'. They are two different companies. FirmTek is decent, but Sonnet is the equivalent of Apple itself when it comes to quality of design and manufacturing.

Unless you meant something else with that?

 

[r6mile]

That is called a Kernel Panic.

It might be revealing to know what it says. If you could post a picture of the KP (Kernel Panic) then we might be able to help.

PS. I've never heard that FirmTek and Sonnet are the 'same thing'. They are two different companies. FirmTek is decent, but Sonnet is the equivalent of Apple itself when it comes to quality of design and manufacturing.

Unless you meant something else with that?

What I meant is that both cards are recognised as FirmTek SeriTek by system profiler, and the Sonnet support page points you to the FirmTek Web page to update the firmware. And bar the colour, the cards are identical and have the same chip. So I concluded that under the hood these are the same card.

Here is the picture I get when trying to boot from the SSD plugged into the SATA Card. The same drive (Samsung EVO 850) boots fine into OSX using a IDE-SATA adapter.

 

[eyoungren]

What I meant is that both cards are recognised as FirmTek SeriTek by system profiler, and the Sonnet support page points you to the FirmTek Web page to update the firmware. And bar the colour, the cards are identical and have the same chip. So I concluded that under the hood these are the same card.

Here is the picture I get when trying to boot from the SSD plugged into the SATA Card. The same drive (Samsung EVO 850) boots fine into OSX using a IDE-SATA adapter.

Gotcha.

Can you boot into Safe Mode?

Turn the Mac off, wait ten seconds, press the power button and then immediately hold down the SHIFT key while booting. Keep holding it until you get to the login screen (if you do).

 

[XaPHER]

What I meant is that both cards are recognised as FirmTek SeriTek by system profiler, and the Sonnet support page points you to the FirmTek Web page to update the firmware. And bar the colour, the cards are identical and have the same chip. So I concluded that under the hood these are the same card.

Here is the picture I get when trying to boot from the SSD plugged into the SATA Card. The same drive (Samsung EVO 850) boots fine into OSX using a IDE-SATA adapter.

There's no panic on that screenshot, but if you leave it there for a while, does a panic call trace eventually appear? There's also nothing on-screen that mentions the pci card driver, but if you're absolutely certain the system on the SSD isn't bricked, the link between the SSD and the card might be the issue. Try another and/or a shorter SATA cable or if possible, try to boot off something else in SATA (not an SSD). The usual.. I have two of these cards (Sonnet-branded two-port SIL3112) and OS X just works out of the box (my DA has one at the moment). I use spinners, though..

 

[r6mile]

So you guys were right. I tried an old SATA spinner, cloned my Tiger install onto it, and it booted just fine (using the same SATA cable I was using before). So either the PCI SATA card doesn't like the Samsung SSD, or there is something wrong with the SSD. One indication that it might be the latter is that my Jaguar partition seems to have got corrupted, and I can't successfully repair it with either Disk Utility or DiskWarrior. I just didn't think of testing this as I thought the SSD was fine, given it worked using the IDE controller.

It's a good thing SSDs are very cheap these days! Thanks for your help!

 

[r6mile]

PS: Also tried a Crucial SSD I forgot I had lying around, and can confirm it works fine!