Upgrading to SSD in iMac G3 (finally)!

[christiann]

Hi, all.

I decided to grab my old iMac G3. Well, it's been around a year since I last used it. I guess the IDE hard drive finally died because the iMac greeted me with the flashing folder icon. I decided to replace the 3.5" IDE drive with a 2.5" 240GB SATA SSD. I partitioned it into 2x 120GB partitions using an iBook G4. I did some digging, and it turns out that the iMac G3s require a master/slave unit on the converter. Do I just install OS X Tiger onto one of the partitions by plugging in the adapter? Or is there some sort of configuration I have to do so that the iMac does not get the new SSD confused with the optical drive? Also, does anyone know anything about that old ATA SpeedTools Hi-Cap driver? Do you install it to an external drive and then place that drive internally, or do you install it to a partition and reformat it so I can bypass the 128GB limit?

Thanks,

C

 

[eyoungren]

Hi, all.

I decided to grab my old iMac G3. Well, it's been around a year since I last used it. I guess the IDE hard drive finally died because the iMac greeted me with the flashing folder icon. I decided to replace the 3.5" IDE drive with a 2.5" 240GB SATA SSD. I partitioned it into 2x 120GB partitions using an iBook G4. I did some digging, and it turns out that the iMac G3s require a master/slave unit on the converter. Do I just install OS X Tiger onto one of the partitions by plugging in the adapter? Or is there some sort of configuration I have to do so that the iMac does not get the new SSD confused with the optical drive? Also, does anyone know anything about that old ATA SpeedTools Hi-Cap driver? Do you install it to an external drive and then place that drive internally, or do you install it to a partition and reformat it so I can bypass the 128GB limit?

Thanks,

C

It is my understanding that any OS you use for the iMac G3 needs to be on the first 4GB of a disk. I installed Tiger on my old iMac years ago by making a 4GB partition and a second with the rest of the drive capacity. I installed Tiger on that 4GB partition.

Are you using one of those IDE/SATA adapters that plug into the back of the drive or an IDE/SATA enclosure? I believe the enclosures identify as Master on the bus.

As for Speedtools, you need to have an installed OS first. Then you run the app. Once you reboot you can partition/format the rest of the disk. You can get Speedtools on the Garden. Keep in mind, this is kind of like a drive overlay on an old PC. So do not keep anything on the extended partition you really want to keep.

 

[christiann]

It is my understanding that any OS you use for the iMac G3 needs to be on the first 4GB of a disk. I installed Tiger on my old iMac years ago by making a 4GB partition and a second with the rest of the drive capacity. I installed Tiger on that 4GB partition.

Are you using one of those IDE/SATA adapters that plug into the back of the drive or an IDE/SATA enclosure? I believe the enclosures identify as Master on the bus.

As for Speedtools, you need to have an installed OS first. Then you run the app. Once you reboot you can partition/format the rest of the disk. You can get Speedtools on the Garden. Keep in mind, this is kind of like a drive overlay on an old PC. So do not keep anything on the extended partition you really want to keep.

Ah, okay. The converter goes straight into the drive. Because it’s a 2.5” SSD, it’s not screwed in or anything. Now i’m just trying to boot into the old Tiger disc. It seems to be stuck on loading. Could this be because I did not change the Master/Slave pins?

 

[mustagcoupe]

I dont think the slot load imac has the issue with needing the OS in the first 8gb of the disk but it probably does have the 128gb issue where disks over that size dont work right, you might need to use a 120gb ssd, i dont remember if just partitioning it is ok. Im not sure if your issue is related to the master slave jumper or not but the optical drives in those slot load imacs are notorious for failure. If you have an external firewire optical drive that would rule out drive failure. If you have another mac running tiger you could try cloning the disk over to the imac with carbon copy cloner, you could also boot one of them into firewire target disk mode and see if you can see the sdd from disk utility from the other.

 

[christiann]

I dont think the slot load imac has the issue with needing the OS in the first 8gb of the disk but it probably does have the 128gb issue where disks over that size dont work right, you might need to use a 120gb ssd, i dont remember if just partitioning it is ok. Im not sure if your issue is related to the master slave jumper or not but the optical drives in those slot load imacs are notorious for failure. If you have an external firewire optical drive that would rule out drive failure. If you have another mac running tiger you could try cloning the disk over to the imac with carbon copy cloner, you could also boot one of them into firewire target disk mode and see if you can see the sdd from disk utility from the other.

Yeah, it’s probably related to the drive. I haven’t installed the driver yet. I wasn’t sure if partitioning worked either. The DVD drive seems to be working fine. I’ll probably ending up connecting it to my iBook. I will have to go hunting for my FireWire cable…

 

[Amethyst1]

It is my understanding that any OS you use for the iMac G3 needs to be on the first 4GB of a disk. I installed Tiger on my old iMac years ago by making a 4GB partition and a second with the rest of the drive capacity. I installed Tiger on that 4GB partition.

All iMacs are New World ROM machines and are not subject to the "OS X needs to be within the first 8 GB of the disk" limitation.

 

[eyoungren]

All iMacs are New World ROM machines and are not subject to the "OS X needs to be within the first 8 GB of the disk" limitation.

OK. Back in 2014 that is what I was reading when trying to get Tiger on a a slot-loader G3. It wouldn't install, so I just took the nuclear option, pulled the drive, attached it to my QS, formatted a 4GB partition and installed Tiger.

 

[mectojic]

You must have an IDE/SATA converter with a master/slave component. Using one without it, I was about to install OS 9 fine, but then OS X froze on that boot up screen.

A tip that has sometimes helped me is to format the SSD either with another old PowerPC mac, or at least within Drive Setup in OS 9.

 

[christiann]

You must have an IDE/SATA converter with a master/slave component. Using one without it, I was about to install OS 9 fine, but then OS X froze on that boot up screen.

A tip that has sometimes helped me is to format the SSD either with another old PowerPC mac, or at least within Drive Setup in OS 9.

I can’t seem to figure out the master/slave. The SSD is inside the iMac, but the iMac doesn’t see it. Also, when I boot from the OS X Install DVD, it spins forever. I think it thinks that the SSD is the master, that could be why it refuses to boot off DVD (I never have issues with the optical drive).

 

[mectojic]

I can’t seem to figure out the master/slave. The SSD is inside the iMac, but the iMac doesn’t see it. Also, when I boot from the OS X Install DVD, it spins forever. I think it thinks that the SSD is the master, that could be why it refuses to boot off DVD (I never have issues with the optical drive).

Describe in more detail. Are you using an IDE - SATA adapter? Have you set the physical jumpers on that adapter to master?

Also, you may want to try formatting the SSD in OS 9. I don’t know, it’s worth a shot- though that shouldn’t really be causing the Install DVD to spin forever - that sounds more like a problem with the disc or the DVD reader.

 

[christiann]

Describe in more detail. Are you using an IDE - SATA adapter? Have you set the physical jumpers on that adapter to master?

Also, you may want to try formatting the SSD in OS 9. I don’t know, it’s worth a shot- though that shouldn’t really be causing the Install DVD to spin forever - that sounds more like a problem with the disc or the DVD reader.

Yeah, it’s an IDE to SATA. I wasn’t sure how to set the jumpers. I’ll try the Tiger disc in my iBook to see if it works.

 

[christiann]

Also, since the HDD needs to be the slave, should I just take the jumper off?

 

[mectojic]

Yeah, it’s an IDE to SATA. I wasn’t sure how to set the jumpers. I’ll try the Tiger disc in my iBook to see if it works.

Hopefully you have an IDE to SATA adapter that has the Master / Slave jumpers on the right there. If your adapter doesn't have those, it probably won't work.

 

[christiann]

View attachment 1976884

Hopefully you have an IDE to SATA adapter that has the Master / Slave jumpers on the right there. If your adapter doesn't have those, it probably won't work.

It’s got the jumper, I moved it so it’s on the slave side and now it’s not working. Did I do it wrong?