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Nevermind, I googled it. Wow, looks cool! And free, too. So, I'm all set, huh? :)
 
Yeah, I found an IDE/SATA enclosure on newegg for 25. not bad!

That sounds a bit suspicious to me. Normally, it's either IDE (PATA) or SATA.

Do you have FireWire on your iMac or you're going the slow route with USB1?
 
Oh, it's an IDE. Will that work?

And I do have Firewire on my mac.
 
I wouldn't buy a cheapo noname case from a PC store that I'm not sure how well it will work. I would spend $20 more a get one from www.macsales.com

Purchasing it from newegg should be fine shouldn't it? Admittedly the more you can afford the better but seeing as the drive that will be put in it is on its way out, is there a need to spend more if it's barely going to be used?

Oh, it's an IDE. Will that work?

And I do have Firewire on my mac.

Should be fine. You'll need a firewire to firewire cable of course ;-)

It all adds up in terms of cost, but once you've got it, you'll have it and in the future if you buy another HDD, an external drive with the ability to back up and store stuff is very handy!
 
I have an iMac G3 700 MHz that had its original hard drive stop working (it was a 60 GB). Once I put the new drive in it sounded much more quiet. I don't know if the HD was always loud or if it had become louder, though. It now has a 120 GB HD. I think it's a Maxtor. I hope that helps.
 
Sure does, thanks. Well, I'm going to order the things tonight!

By the way, will the trial of SuperDuper be okay for my use?
 
I'd say you should get an enclosure, put in your current HD, slap in a new quiet drive, boot off the Enclosure and use said program "superduper" to transfer info. Just make sure you get a FW enclosure.
 
By the way, will the trial of SuperDuper be okay for my use?

Yup. Will be fine. IIRC, the free version lets you do full clones. When you pay for a licence, the extra features include smart update and custom updates which you don't need [at the moment].
 
Okay, so I connected all the parts, but the mac doesnt seem to recognize the drive. It's through Firewire. Does it need to be formatted or anything? Thanks.
 
I have a question for a purchase I'll be making when I get a new iMac. My current G3 iMac uses IDE ATA100 hard drives. The iMacs use and will probably use the SATA drives. If I were to buy an internal HD and put it in an enclosure would I be able to buy a newer SATA drive and use it on both the G3 and intel iMacs as a backup external drive it it were firewire?
 
I have that same machine and it did not recognize a hd through firewire last week -- but I restarted it and it did recognize the hd in the enclosure. Try restarting. YOu may need to get a Panther or Tiger install disc and go from there. DO you have a dvd/cd rom drive in the machine?
 
If I were to buy an internal HD and put it in an enclosure would I be able to buy a newer SATA drive and use it on both the G3 and intel iMacs as a backup external drive it it were firewire?

SATA or IDE would make no difference for the actual enclosure interface because it's the firewire interface that would effectively be linking the drive to the computers (the SATA or IDE interface links the HDD to the enclosure's firewire circuit board, the firewire circuit board connects to the firewire cable, which in turn connects to the computers).

However, while it might be possible to partition the external disk into two and have it running two backups - one for each iMac - you wouldn't be able to use an Intel back up to boot the G3 or vice-versa. They are two totally different OSs and sets of hardware.
 
I have a question for a purchase I'll be making when I get a new iMac. My current G3 iMac uses IDE ATA100 hard drives. The iMacs use and will probably use the SATA drives. If I were to buy an internal HD and put it in an enclosure would I be able to buy a newer SATA drive and use it on both the G3 and intel iMacs as a backup external drive it it were firewire?

I don't believe you can use the SATA drive inside the iMac G3, but I do believe you can use it externally through firewire. I'd call an Apple store and just ask about using the external with PPC and INtel Macs.
 
SATA or IDE would make no difference for the actual enclosure interface because it's the firewire interface that would effectively be linking the drive to the computers (the SATA or IDE interface links the HDD to the enclosure's firewire circuit board, the firewire circuit board connects to the firewire cable, which in turn connects to the computers).

However, while it might be possible to partition the external disk into two and have it running two backups - one for each iMac - you wouldn't be able to use an Intel back up to boot the G3 or vice-versa. They are two totally different OSs and sets of hardware.

Ok that is what I was wondering about. I may be partitioning it in two so I don't have to worry about compatibility issues. Although I'm not sure what you mean about OSs because they will both have Tiger (at least until Leopard comes out). The hardware I knew would have issues being compatible. I know the SATA won't go into the G3 iMac as an internal drive. That's why I got the one I did for the internal drive.
 
I have 10.3.9, so I don't have Disk Utility. It is like the mac isn't even recognizing that anything is plugged in.

Okay, this is kind of a bummer. So, what could be the problem? Also, is there like two internal ports for harddrives? Or any other way I could copy the drives?

Thanks guys!
 
Every OS X version includes disk utility. If it's not there, then you'll need to find your install disks and boot off of them to format your new drive.
 
:( No luck. The new HDD wasn't in the list in Disk Utility.

Now what?

Thanks again...
 
Double check your jumper settings on the hard drive as well. They should be set to "Master" if I'm not mistaken.
 
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