G3 iMac hard drive problem

dolph

dolph

Registered
First post to the forum... I bought a 160 GB Seagate Baracuda drive (ATA/100, model #ST3160023A) for my trusty iMac DV Special Edition (500 MHz) to replace the tiny 30 GB drive. Stuck the new drive into my external firewire enclosure, formatted it and installed Panther (on the main partition, OS 9.2 on a 10 GB partition). The computer starts up fine from the disc while in the enclosure. However, when I stick it in the iMac and power up, I can hear stuff happening inside for a second but then a rather loud beep goes off and that's it. The monitor flickers a bit but stays dark.

I'm a noob when it comes to jumper settings... I've tried setting the drive to both master and cable select, neither work. The settings on the old drive looked odd. First, it seems to have an extra set up pins, with one of the pins missing. And it had two jumpers instead of one, with one of the jumpers vertical and the other horizontal. What's up with that?

Can anyone help me and ol' snowy? Many thanks in advance.

-Matt :D
 
The main obstacle here: Your 160GB drive is too large to work in your 'Snow' iMac. No, not physical size, but the largest capacity that will work is 128GB, which relates to 137GB 'advertised' size. Even creating partitions smaller than that will not help. There is no work-around for this (except some commercial drivers that someone else can mention here). Best limit yourself to 120GB, or leave the old drive installed and use the FireWire case to boot your system from the large HD. This certainly works as there is no such limitation with a supported FireWire case. As your boot speed will be a little slower compared to an internal drive, there is some compromise, but that allows you to use a large HD.
 
I was afraid of that. The research I did before I bought the drive (obviously not enough research though) led me to believe that I could stick a 160 GB drive in there and be fine. Oh well, at least I got a deal on it... here comes another Ebay sale.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
If you'd like a suggestion for a good, large, fast, reliable hard drive for your machine that is under the 128GB limit, I would suggest this one:
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3272571?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

I've installed one of these in my machine and another identical drive in a B&W G3 for a friend. They're quiet, fast, and have plenty of space. Plus they're cheap! I would highly recommend it.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for the tip! I think I'll also stay tuned to dealmac.com to see if anything interesting pops up.
 
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