Startup problems on G4/400 (sawtooth)

[strangerdanger]

i recently bought a secondhand mac g4/400 and ive been trying to startup to install tiger (am using a macbook pro for work). i tried both of the ultra ata 'bays' but am wondering whether normal IDE drives will work?

i have:

1X western digital (caviar) enhanced IDE drive and
1X seagate normal IDE drive (ST340015A)

the cd-rom works fine on its own and can boot up with panther install discs but when selecting startup disc there is nothing. I connected the cdrom to the far end of the cable (set jumper to master) and WD E-IDE drive to the second 'block' (set as slave)

i am under the assumption that because the cdrom works there is nothing wrong with the cables.

on boot up I cant select the startup drive (just network) as there is only one device detected (CDROM) if harddrives are disconnected

I get the network folder first on boot up then question mark/folder icon

not quite sure how to proceed from here. is formatting a must for the normal IDE drive? or will the mac pick it up regardless.

I connected both drives to existing cables and the normal IDE drive also to IDE (PC) cable also reset the PMU/SMU as well as took out all daughterboards and tested RAM which appears to be ok. i also took out the battery and put it back.

the PSU seems fine, but is there a way i can check with diagnostics or something..

will appreciate some guidance and assistance thanks

 

[marc.richards7]

Good Ole' Sawtooth...

First off, look at the capacities of these hard drives. The sawtooth cannot utilize no more than 128GB without third-party assistance. Drives that are over 128GB need 48-bit addressing, something not present on Mac's before made before 2002. "Hard Drive: 10/20/27 GB 7200 rpm Ultra ATA/66 on 400/450/500 MHz models. Maximum IDE drive size is 128 GB without third-party support." (Quote from LEM)

Second, Check the drive jumpers. The hard drive should be Master in most cases. The CD Drive should be slave in most cases. I can't quite recall if the Sawtooth has one drive channel or two (aka, places where you can plug an IDE cable on logic board.). If it has two, grab another IDE cable and put the CD Drive on one and the HD on the other. (Both in the "Master" jumper setting)

Third, check and see if there are alternative jumper setting (aka. Compatibility Mode Jumper Settings) Here is a Link to WD's Jumper and Configuration Handbook: http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf

 

[velocityg4]

I did not notice you say you used Disk Utility at all. After booting off the install disk you need to go into Disk Utility and format the drives so that OS X can see them as having a usable partition.