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HDD not found on Sawtooth G4 (350mhz)

spikedmelon

spikedmelon

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 25, 2006
10
0
I have tried 3 different HDDs in this Powermac and nothing with each one of them. I then tried each one of them on the connection that the CDROM uses (which I know works cause I can get the OS 9 Cd to boot) and still nothing. Am I missing something here?

Also, on the original drive when it boots it eventually comes up to a folder with a flashing question mark in the middle. I am very new to Macs and don't know what this means either.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
 
yes, I made sure that they were all set to master before I installed them into the case.

How come the CDROM will boot off the Secondary then? That is where it is connected.

Sorry I am such a newbie, but I am trying to make the switch.
 
spikedmelon said:
yes, I made sure that they were all set to master before I installed them into the case.

How come the CDROM will boot off the Secondary then? That is where it is connected.

Sorry I am such a newbie, but I am trying to make the switch.
Click to expand...
Put the hard drive on the primary channel.
 
spikedmelon said:
It is, the HDD is on the Primary and the CDROM is on the Secondary.
Click to expand...
Ah, then I'm out of suggestions. It might be a bad hard drive controller. I had one Power Mac G3 that wouldn't boot off of a hard drive and I even tried a brand new one.
 
Don't scrap it. You can find parts for old Sawtooth models for dirt cheap (on ebay, or drop a post in the trading/sales section of this board).
 
spikedmelon said:
I have tried 3 different HDDs in this Powermac and nothing with each one of them. I then tried each one of them on the connection that the CDROM uses (which I know works cause I can get the OS 9 Cd to boot) and still nothing. Am I missing something here?

Also, on the original drive when it boots it eventually comes up to a folder with a flashing question mark in the middle. I am very new to Macs and don't know what this means either.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Click to expand...


uummmm........you have to format the drives before they will be recognized or mount on the desktop. Use Disk utility to do this, then install your OS........

The flashing ? mark means that the computer can NOT find a vaild bootable system folder on that HDD........

Boot up from an OS CD and install the OS :)
 
That's what is so puzzling. I boot from the OS9 CD and when I open the Idisk utility to format it the utility only sees my CDROM, no HDD.
 
SmurfBoxMasta said:
The flashing ? mark means that the computer can NOT find a vaild bootable system folder on that HDD........
Click to expand...

Or it can mean there's no HD detected or none at all present in the machine.
 
The OS9 CD only sees your CD-ROM? I'd recommend that if you can get into OS9.2, reformat the hard drive completely and then try booting with the OSX CD. OS9 is a good thing to have around for sure.
 
Daedalus256 said:
The OS9 CD only sees your CD-ROM? I'd recommend that if you can get into OS9.2, reformat the hard drive completely and then try booting with the OSX CD. OS9 is a good thing to have around for sure.
Click to expand...
Firmware update time?
 
Size matters

What size HD are you trying to install? The old G4 sawtooth can't recognize large HDs. For example, it will see a 60 gig HD, but not a 200 gig. i believe that about 120 gig is the larfest it can address with the original hardware limits. If you want to use a larger HD, then you will need to add a PCI card HD controller. Sonnett and Acard make ATA-66 cards. If you need to add a card, you might think about a SATA card and SATA drives which could be brought over to a new PM down the road.

Mike
 
It is a 20gig HD that I am trying to install. The original one was 10gig.

The problem with flashing the system is that I can't even access the OS on the original drive.
 
spikedmelon said:
It is a 20gig HD that I am trying to install. The original one was 10gig.

The problem with flashing the system is that I can't even access the OS on the original drive.
Click to expand...


What TYPE of interface is the drive? If you look at the original spec sheets, those models came with SCSI and ATA connections. If it is a SCSI drive, do you have it terminated correctly?

Mike
 
Did you check the About this mac info section in the Apple menu to see that the chain is indeed IDE? The CD Rom drive could be SCSI. Putting the HD on this chain wouldnt' work, and moving the CD drive to the other connector on the cable would just be moving on the SCSI chain. make sure the connector is IDE.

If that doesn't help, I'm out of ideas.

Sorry, I hope you get it up and running.

Mike
 
If your machine is a Sawtooth, then it's not SCSI, it's definitely IDE. And it will recognize a larger hard drive, it will just read it as 120 or 132 gb.

It sound to me like a hardware problem. First off, replace all the ribbons on your motherboard, and check around it, make sure that everything is seated properly. Next, take out all but one DIMM of RAM, preferably the one that came with your computer. Then test or replace the onboard PRAM battery (I assume you're already tried resettign the PRAM manually, right? Button below the battery, though check your manual to make sure you hit the correct one). COMPULSORY WARNING: USE STATIC PROTECTION. I realize we all hear that every day, but seriously, do it.

If all else fails, I suggest buying a processor upgrade (if it doesn't work, you'll get your money back on ebay, worry not) or picking up a cheap motherboard or processor or both off ebay.

And this may seem like a stupid question, but the three hard drives you tested, you didn't format them with your daul 1.25, did you?
 
Disconap,

thanks for the suggestions. I will try them all when I get chance. And to answer your question, no, I didn't format them with my dual 1.25 machine. I was going to use the utility that is included on the os9 install disk.
 
That is the right way to do it. It's never a good idea to format a drive on another machine, you end up with weird conflicts. I've tried this between a G3 and G4 tower (I no longer have the install discs for the G3, so I tried to make an OS9 hd on the G4 [original install discs for the G4] for the G3--it went all wonky and was incredibly unstable. Oddly enough, I was able to make a stable one using a build of Classic from my G3 ibook software...).

Let us know how it turns out!
 
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