IMac G3 Hard drive upgrade problem - it doesn't see my new 120GB drive - any idea why

[lapfix]

Hi,

Firstly I am a laptop repair engineer with many years of PC/Windows experience, but sadly none using Macs - until now!

My problem is this:

A friend of mine has an Imac G3 blue 350mhz machine and the original hard drive is now full up. He has asked me to put a new hard drive in (the largest it will support), and then transfer the Mac OS and data from the original drive to the new one.

After much searching, I found on a different forum that this machine should be able to recognise and support an IDE hard drive of 120GB (127GB max), so this is what I bought. Before fitting the new drive in the IMac I thought I should use Transmac on my PC to format the new drive and I then copied all the files from the old drive to it. Why did I do this? - because unfortunately the IMac only has one IDE cable connector, so I couldn't put both the hard drives in it at the same time - which would have been SO much easier!
OK, so I've now formatted the new drive (I think) using Transmac, and copied the files etc (including the hidden files), and I've then put the new 120GB drive back in the IMac, but when we power up it up it doesn't see it - aargh! It doesn't see the OS that is supposed to be on the drive, in fact it doesn't appear to know there is a hard drive in there at all.

We even then tried to see if doing a fresh install of the Mac OS would do something, but no, the OS 9 setup CD didn't do anything either.

Not wanting to be beaten I've then tried all the possible jumper settings on the hard drive in case I had set them incorrectly, but still no luck and now I'm all out of ideas.

I'm now well and truly stumped. Anyone know where I'm going wrong? Is the drive too big, and that's why the poor Mac can't see it? Have I incorrectly prepared / formatted the drive using Transmac? It's probably really obvious if you're a regular Mac user, but sadly I'm not (sorry!). ANY help would be VERY much appreciated.....


Many thanks in advance!!!

Phil

P.S. If necessary I can put the new drive in a USB caddy and connect it to the Mac that way, if it turns out to be the simplest way to get the job done, but I would appreciate any advice regardless.

[Satcomer]

You might want to list the Operating System that the computer is running. I say this because in the old OS 9 days just copying system files to a new disk would be enough. However O S X is based on BSD Unix so just copying files will not due. In your situation the best bet would have been a external Firewire hard drive enclosure and connected that to the Mac with the files on it. Then put the blank hard disk in the enclosure. Next would be to use Disk Utility in /Applications/Utilties/ and formated the disk Mac OS Extended(Journaled) . Now to move the files you cant just copy the system over hoping for the best because it needs to be "blessed". a cool free product to "clone" the drive (and make it boot able) is called Carbon Copy Cloner to move the system and files to the new drive. Then look at this howto tutorial on the insulation to put the new drive into the iMac.

[lapfix]

Hi Satcomer,

Many thanks for your reply. To give you a bit more info the OS on the Mac is OS 9, and like you said, I was expecting that by using Transmac I could just copy the system and files across to the new drive and it would all work OK. By the way when I formatted the drive I used the default setting which was Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and I made sure that I copied all the files on the old disk including the hidden ones.

I was wondering if maybe one of the following things I had/hadn't done had been wrong:

1. Should I have used Disk Utility before I formatted the drive using Transmac as I'm guessing the Disk Utility program is the equivalent of FDisk on a PC?

2. By transfering files from the original IMac hard drive to my PC and then onto the new 120GB IMac hard drive, did the files get corrupted and that's why the IMac can't read the new drive when I put it in?

3. The IMac "BIOS" can't recognise a hard disk of 120GB and I need to use a smaller one - say 80GB?

I will definitely try using the Carbon Copy Cloner (I'm guessing it is like Norton Ghost) to try and transfer the files over again, but it's looking more and more likely that the easiest (and slowest!) way to solve this issue is to stick the drive in a caddy and do the job that way....


Many thanks again,

Phil

[Satcomer]

Oh, it is OS9. That is a simpler copying process. All you need to do is use the original software disk and format the hard drive (HFS+) to two 80 gig partitions and just copy the files over to the first partition.

[lapfix]

Excellent, I'll partition the drive then into 80GB and 40GB partitions. Odd though as I was sure this IMac was supposed to recognise 120GB in one partition - oh well....

I'll re-post once I've done what you suggested, just to let you know it has all worked.

Many thanks!

Phil

[bobw]

That iMac can use a 120GB drive with no partitioning.
You first need to make sure the Firmware is up to date. You have to do this in OS 9.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

After that, I would put the new drive in and format it with ASpple's Disk Utility while booted off the OS disc, rather than Transmac.

[lapfix]

Many thanks Bob,

I've downloaded the firmware update as you suggested for this model and I'll see if that makes a difference.

Many thanks,

Phil

[davidb54321]

This thread discusses what I am about to do to my iMac. I have a ruby G3, with a full 10gig hard drive. I am using OS 10.3.9. I am copying my photos and documents to my external drive in preparation for the swap to a 80gig internal drive. What should I watch out for? Anything in particular that I should do/not do?

Thanks for any help. Don't mean to hijack the thread.