Powermac G4 MDD has black screen after apple boot screen?

[drnebulous]

My Powermac G4 MDD has worked fine, but now after the white apple boot screen (the one with the grey apple logo), the screen suddenly goes black. I have tried resetting the PRAM (cmd-alt-p-r), but this doesn't work. I don't understand why this is happening.


The Specs:
Powermac G4 MDD
Dual 867MHz CPU
512MB RAM
2x 1TB Hard Drives


I really need this to work! Please help!

 

[Intell]

What video card does it have in it? Have you tried booting it in Safe Boot?

 

[drnebulous]

What video card does it have in it? Have you tried booting it in Safe Boot?

It has the 32mb one. No, I haven't tried booting in safe mode - how do you do it?

 

[Intell]

Right after hearing the startup chime, press and hole the shift key until you see the blue screen or you see it say Safe Boot.

 

[drnebulous]

It's the second hard drive.

When I unplug it the computer boots in 7 seconds!

When it is plugged in, it either does the black screen thing or has the ? at boot up.

But I really need the second hard drive.

The are both Sata hard drives.

This is what I do:
Sata HD > Sata to sata extension cable > Sata to IDE adapter

Even though it is sata, do you think I need a jumper as it is sort of ide? If so, where do I put it?

The hard drives are both Western Digital SE 1TB

 

[Intell]

The IDE/PATA adapter may need to have a jumper set on it. Are both drives plugged into the same cable?

 

[drnebulous]

The IDE/PATA adapter may need to have a jumper set on it. Are both drives plugged into the same cable?

No, they are different. I'll post some pictures in a min

 

[Intell]

Are they each the only thing on their cable?

 

[drnebulous]

Yes they are.

Here are some photos (sorry about the messy wiring!)

 

[drnebulous]

More photos

 

[Intell]

Try switching the adapters or SATA cables, you may have a faulty adapter or cable.

 

[drnebulous]

I have but it still doesn't work. What jumper settings should I have on the IDE adapter?

 

[Intell]

Try putting both adapters on cable select.

 

[drnebulous]

How do I do that?

 

[Intell]

Not all adapters have settable master/slave settings. Which adapter do you have?

 

[drnebulous]

Not all adapters have settable master/slave settings. Which adapter do you have?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310802821209?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT


You can get a better view on the last picture I posted.

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I've been playing around with the jumper setting and when I find a combo that works it won't boot next time I turn it on. So when I restart the computer it won't boot, I'll just get the ? folder coming up.

 

[Intell]

That adapter doesn't appear to have a master/slave jumper or switch on it. Have you looked into use a PCI SATA card instead?

 

[drnebulous]

That adapter doesn't appear to have a master/slave jumper or switch on it. Have you looked into use a PCI SATA card instead?

After this load of hell, yes, I would love a sata PCI card. Which one would work? I live in the UK by the way. I would like to keep it under £20 but if that isn't possible then whatever the cheapest would do.

 

[Intell]

There's a thread on MacRumors that details which PCI SATA cards work and how to flash them located here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1690231/

 

[drnebulous]

There's a thread on MacRumors that details which PCI SATA cards work and how to flash them located here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1690231/

Thank you Intell. Your help has been invaluable!

All the best

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Forgot one question!

Do these cards from hong kong that say they are compatible with mac for real?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STLab-PCI...sk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item2ed4558ce1

 

[Intell]

That's a PCI-E card and won't work in a G4. You need a PCI card.

 

[drnebulous]

Ok thanks intell I'll get the proper sonnet one as I don't have a windows pc to do any flashing on!

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

Here's what I found - working with a dual 1.25 GHz MDD and a 20" aluminum ACD (with DVI).

The machine boots as normal up through the screen with the gray apple logo and spinner. After that, it cuts to black and stays there.

If I hook the machine up to another monitor via VGA, it all works fine.

Now I have another problem, which is to figure out why this machine can't see the disk I put in there...