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iMac G3 External HDD Problems

A

Archon Gold

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Hey,

I recently picked up an iMac G3 for $100, first off its a great little machine but with one problem, a noisy hard drive. So I dug around in my spare parts for my servers and found an extra 80Gb IDE drive that worked. I wanted to install it in the imac but there is major problem, the fact that I have to re install OS 9.2.2 to install OS X. I dont have the install cds that came with the computer, so I thought that I can just use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the main hard drive onto my Western Digital MyBook 600Gb External USB drive and put the new hard drive in and copy it back over.

But for some reason the external HDD doesn't show up on the imac (It shows up on my Mac Mini, but not the iMac). After a while it sometimes gives me a drive error message and tells me to initialize the drive, no problem. I go to erase it but I am only rewarded with a "Input/Output error" message every time no matter how much I try.

Why wont the external hard drive show up on the iMac?
 
It's possible that the USB 1.1 port is just too slow to do the job flawlessly.
G3 iMacs didn't come with USB 2.0.

Format it from the Mini. Plug it in to the iMac and it should recognize the drive. Then do your stuff.

Once it's formated if it's recognized by the G3 you can use CC or Disk Utility Restore to copy the initial HD from the G3.

If it has firewire (some G3 iMacs do) you can use that in target mode from the Mini to move required apps over or even clone the Mini HD if space allows.
I even used ethernet cable in the old days.
 
I did format it on the mini, but it just gives me an error on the iMac.

Last night I was trying to use Carbon Copy Cloner over ethernet to make it work. But in order for the application to have the right permissions you have to install a software called Authentication Credentials which installs fine on the mini, but fails for some reason on the imac.
 
Don't know what to tell you then since I gave away my last G3 iMac and can't try some other things out.
 
Ok I got the iMac G3's HDD replace yesterday (the reason the damn thing wasnt working is because the jumper for the internal HDD was missing.) but I still cant solve the problem of my WD external not being recognized. I know that it IS possible since thecreativeone (p0intblank on the forums) was able to hook up his WD external MyBook drive to his iMac G3 when he upgraded it.
 
PROBLEM SOLVED!

I used some drivers to accelerate the USB connection for the drive and it magically fixed it! just gotta change the ugly icons that the accelerator made the external MyBook look.
 
Re Problem Solved

I have the same problem.
Can you tell me which drivers you used. how you installed them etc

Thanks Pete
 
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