I'M DESPERATE!!! Hard drive won't mount

MDLarson

MDLarson

Registered
OK, I was bored and I decided to mess around with an old 1 GB hard drive out of a 6220CD Performa and my G4 Sawtooth.

My 20 GB drive did not read. My Mac OS 9.2.1 Drive Setup saw the drive, but it said it was unsupported!!! I tried plugging in the power cable and the IDE cable in different configurations, because after all the 1 GB drive DID work, etc., but I am at a loss!

I need to get this back up as soon as possible because I have some homework due really soon. I'm a dork for messing around at this time, but I really need your help!

:( :( :(
 
Have you tried changing the jumpers on your HD?

If the 1 gig one is set to master, and the 20 gig one is set to master, then you will have problems.
 
Yes, both hard drives' jumpers were set to "DS". I have no idea what DS means, but I think it's safe to assume they were both set to Master. They were both single drives in each computer. So how do I fix this problem?
 
You need to set your 20 GB to master, and the 1 GB to slave then. Since they were both single drives in separate machines, it's pretty much guaranteed that you are having a jumper setting conflict.

DS might mean Detect Slave, but I'm not 100% sure. Most drives have an option like that where they will check to see if there's a master drive on the chain and if there is, to configure themselves as slave.
 
Thanks for being my tech support, devonferns! I really appreciate it.

I changed the jumper setting on the 1 GB from DS to SP, and my 20 GB remained on DS. I looked at Apple System Profiler (from the 9.2.1 OS on the 1 GB), and the 20 GB showed up. Before it did not.

It reads:
Internal ATA 2 (both drives are under this heading)
Hard drive
Driver version: Not available
Mac OS partition: 0
Removable media: No
Vendor: QUANTUM
Revision number: A1S.3700
Product ID: FIREBALLP KX20.5
Serial number: <a number>
Size: 20.54 GB (1K=1000)
Capacity: 19.14 GB (1K=1000)

I will try to switch jumpers around a little more to get the 20 GB to be the master and post back with what I find.
 
Hey, no problem at all :p

I had the same problem a while ago when I got a new HD.

My old Maxtor drive has no labels, and Maxtor doesn't have any documentation on the old HD, so I had to keep messing around for hours to find a setting that worked.

Good luck!;)
 
New developement:
I can use either DS or CS for my jumper setting on my 20 GB. Right now, it is the only hard drive in my G4. The problem is it won't mount. When I pop in my Mac OS X CD, I switch to the Disk Utility and I see two hard drive icons on the left:

19.15 GB
736.44 MB

Both have drop down arrows and it looks like this:

19.15 GB
Slow Piece of (<- My original 1 GB hd name was "Slow Piece of Crap" :rolleyes: )
736.44 MB
Mac OS X Install

The interesting point is how the "Slow Piece of" hard drive (the 1 GB) is under the 20 GB. That's strange, and even more strange is that I renamed the 1 GB to "Mac OS 9", and it's not even connected anyway. So really I think my problem is an identity crisis of sorts. I will try to peform Disk First Aid on it.
 
My 20 GB definitely has an identity problem. It adopted the hard drive name of "Slow Piece of Crap" from the 1 GB when I first installed both drives. I don't know what to do from here! :(

Running Verify or Disk First Aid show no problems on the 20 GB, but the name is completely wrong, and it does not mount.
 
Woah. If you want the 1 GByte drive as a slave you have to pull both jumpers on DS and SP. If you want it as a master in a two drive system both DS and SP have to be jumpered. Is there a MA on the 20 GByte or just DS and SP? If there is a MA pull the DS (stands for Drive, Single) and put it on MA or if it is SP take the jumper from DS on the 1 GByte drive and put it on SP on the 20 GByte.

HTH
 
Originally posted by drash
Woah. If you want the 1 GByte drive as a slave you have to pull both jumpers on DS and SP. If you want it as a master in a two drive system both DS and SP have to be jumpered. Is there a MA on the 20 GByte or just DS and SP? If there is a MA pull the DS (stands for Drive, Single) and put it on MA or if it is SP take the jumper from DS on the 1 GByte drive and put it on SP on the 20 GByte.
Click to expand...
Here are the jumper settings:

Quantum FireBall 1 GB
SP
DS (Default setting)
CS

Quantum FireBall 20 GB
DS (Default setting)
CS <-"Cable Select" - not exactly sure what this is
PK <- "Parked" setting for a spare jumper
WS <- "Wait spin" if you want the drive to not spin up automatically on startup

I was able to figure out what some of those meanings meant on the internet.

But my problem now is (I think) more severe than just jumper settings, because with only the 20 GB hooked up, it fails to mount! See my last post for details on that. If there is some way I could maybe rename the drive or something, maybe I have a chance. I just want to recover my data at this point. This is the first time I've ever wished I had backed up. :(
 
Originally posted by MDLarson
Here are the jumper settings:

Quantum FireBall 1 GB
SP
DS (Default setting)
CS

Quantum FireBall 20 GB
DS (Default setting)
CS <-"Cable Select" - not exactly sure what this is
PK <- "Parked" setting for a spare jumper
WS <- "Wait spin" if you want the drive to not spin up automatically on startup
Click to expand...

CS means its position on the drive cable, last one on the cable is the slave. With the DS jumper on the 20 GByte can you plug it in place of the CD-ROM (ie. take the drive cable off of the CD-ROM and plug it into the 20 GByte)? Sounds like something is wrong with the cable. Also make sure the cable didn't come loose from the motherboard.
 
I tried swapping the power and the IDE cable of the DVD drive, and that didn't work. Same flashing System Folder / Question Mark at startup.

I'm pretty sure it's not the cable that's the problem, as I was able to see the drive via the Mac OS X CD-ROM Disk Utility. This is a problem with my HD.
 
Originally posted by MDLarson
I tried swapping the power and the IDE cable of the DVD drive, and that didn't work. Same flashing System Folder / Question Mark at startup.

I'm pretty sure it's not the cable that's the problem, as I was able to see the drive via the Mac OS X CD-ROM Disk Utility. This is a problem with my HD.
Click to expand...

I know this is going to sound crazy but plug the drive into the 6220. If the 6220 has an IDE CD-ROM use that cable instead. Also before you try this, did you hold down the apple-option-p-r keys and reset the CUDA switch ?
 
Eh... That 6220 is a beast. I didn't even try starting it up (I think it had a fried display card last time it ran). But anyway, this 20 GB had Mac OS X on it and there's no chance I'd get it going. I think that's what you had in mind...

I tried zapping the PRAM, and it worked, as far as zapping the PRAM goes. I could tell because my monitor resolution switched on me. But it didn't do anything to the hard drive status.

I'm going to let this sit for the night (it's 11:35 PM here now). If anybody has any ideas, please post them! I just really don't want to lose the data on this drive!!

And thanks drash and devonferns! I knew I could count on this board for some help! :)
 
What if you use Disk Utility to update the HD driver? This can be done without reformatting, and it might work. It's worth a try at least.
 
That sounds like a good idea, but I can't figure out where that option is on the Disk Utility. Any ideas?
 
Hmm, I don't see it either in the version for Mac OSX. I thought I remember it in the OS 9 version though, but it's been a while.
 
Might I make a suggestion:

Yank the 1 gig drive. remove it from the problem.

Set the 20 gig to CS (Cable Select).

And restart (might need to zap the P-Ram).

Then the 20 gig is the only drive on the control cable and it should look at that drive for a functioning OS.

Cable select lets the first drive on the cable be the master. So you can set all of your drives to CS and the first drive on the cable with an OS will become the master drive.

I am not convinced that this is a master/slave issue.

But after yanking the 1 gig you should be able to eliminate that as a possible problem. If the 20 gig still won't mount, then it could be a bad drive.

But don't let the 1 gig drive get in your way of finding that out.
 
<sigh>

I've managed to mount both drives, but as I suspected, the 20 GB still thought it was the 1 GB, complete with its own set of "phantom files", identical to the real 1 GB drive. While moving around on this phantom disk, the Finder kept giving me an error message saying something was wrong with the disk. Disk First Aid fixed this problem, restarted, and the same files showed up, but it was "stable".

I used the latest version of Norton Utilities I had, and used Disk Doctor on the drive. A lot of "catalog-B-tree" errors, and after running the utility a number of times, they all went away, but all tests were conducted as if it was the 1 GB drive, and my original files simply did not seem to exist.

Apple System Profiler DID correctly identify the HD as 20 GB, but that was the ONLY place it showed up.

I am bringing in this 20 GB drive to work today and plan on swapping hard drives at work, just to see if I get the same error. Other than that, I am forced to reformat the disk, and in the process, lose all of my valuable files.

If anybody has any more ideas to try, I'm very willing.

<sigh>
 
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