Ubuntu can see my drive, but OS X can't!

[LazLong]

Edit: By drive, I mean physical hard disk, not partition.

I have a iBook G4 14" 1Ghz that I was recently given. I decided to reinstall 10.5 onto the system. No problem. A couple of days later the thing became unresponsive after inserting a USB gigabit nic (AX88178-based, driver comes with Leopard). I held down the power button to force the machine off, and then turned it on. I got the lovely flashing ?, rebooted and held down option and no bootable partition was visible. Booted off the 10.5.6 install disc and both Disk Utils and System Profiler couldn't see the hard drive. I then booted off an Ubuntu v6.06 LTS CD, and it saw the hard drive fine and listed the partition table without difficulty. I rebooted the Mac, held down option and no joy. Same thing when I again tried the install OS X CD. So, grasping at straws I decided to wipe the disk and start again. I dd'd the drive full of /dev/zero and attempted to install, but again the 10.5.6 install disc couldn't see the hard drive. However, the Ubuntu CD sees it consistently, and I was able to install it and boot consistently. Anyone have an idea as to what could be causing this? Please don't tell me the Linux gods are trying to tell me I should install Ubuntu on the iBook for my son! ;-)

 

[MisterMe]

... Booted off the 10.5.6 install disc and aboth Disk Utils and System Profiler couldn't see the drive. ...

Isn't this really a gray System Restore disc? If the answer is "Yes," then the OS there can't be installed on your computer. If you want to install Leopard, then you must use a retail disc.

 

[LazLong]

Isn't this really a gray System Restore disc? If the answer is "Yes," then the OS there can't be installed on your computer. If you want to install Leopard, then you must use a retail disc.

No, it's a full retail install disc. It's the same disc I originally used to install 10.5.6 on this G4 before it blew up. In any case, being able to install isn't the real issue. The real issue is that neither Disk Utils nor System Profiler see
the disk, while my Ubuntu install DVD does, and installs on it.

Something is really weird. It reminds me of back in the day when Apple's Disk Utils wouldn't partition or format 'third-party' disks; meaning disks that didn't have Apple's 'special sauce' firmware on them. To install on these disks you had to boot off a third-part disk util disc and partition and format it before you booted off Apple's install CD (or floppy, if you go back far enough!).

 

[nixgeek]

Have you tried zapping the PRAM on the iBook? Hold down Command-Option-P-R right when you hear the chime. Hold it down for about three chimes or so and then see if it can boot from the Mac OS X partition of your hard drive. You might also want to boot it into Safe Mode so that you can remove the driver for that gigabit USB adapter (which really makes no sense since USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps and could never achieve 1 Gbps, but I digress).

 

[LazLong]

Have you tried zapping the PRAM on the iBook? Hold down Command-Option-P-R right when you hear the chime. Hold it down for about three chimes or so and then see if it can boot from the Mac OS X partition of your hard drive. You might also want to boot it into Safe Mode so that you can remove the driver for that gigabit USB adapter (which really makes no sense since USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps and could never achieve 1 Gbps, but I digress).

I've zapped the PRAM, but only once, not three times. I'll try that.

As for why a gigabit USB adapter makes sense; Assuming maximum theoretical throughput, USB v2.0 is 4.8 times faster than the iBook's built-in 10/100 Mbit Ethernet, and ~8 times faster than the 802.11g. Plus, I'm spoiled, having had gig at work since 1999, and at home since ~2002. Not that the NIC will make anything close to 480 Mbps, it just makes me feel better....

 

[MisterMe]

...

As for why a gigabit USB adapter makes sense; ...

Absolutely not. The absolute cap on USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps. Real world throughput goes down from there--240 Mbps to start. This means that USB 2.0 can't do any better than about a quarter of a gigabit. There is simply no way to increase its throughput beyond its design limits.

 

[LazLong]

Absolutely not. The absolute cap on USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps. Real world throughput goes down from there--240 Mbps to start. This means that USB 2.0 can't do any better than about a quarter of a gigabit. There is simply no way to increase its throughput beyond its design limits.

The iBook G4 has two built-in networking options (I don't think OS X does IP over FW): 10/100 and 802.11g, both of which should theoretically be slower than a gig USB NIC even given the throughput constraints of USB. Tell you what I'll do; once/if I get this POS working again I'll install netperf and we'll see what the gig USB NIC will do, throughput-wise.

 

[MisterMe]

... (I don't think OS X does IP over FW):

Wrong.

10/100 and 802.11g, both of which should theoretically be slower than a gig USB NIC even given the throughput constraints of USB. ...

Of course the throughput of a USB 2.0 NIC will be faster than 10/100Base-T Ethernet. The maximum throughput of 10/100Base-T Ethernet 100 Mbps. The maximum throughput of USB 2.0 is around 240 Mbps.

However, this does not mean that you can make a gigabit USB 2.0 NIC that is truly a gigabit USB 2.0 NIC. Gigabit Ethernet is 10/100/1000Base-T. You can't put two gallons of milk in a one gallon bottle and you can't get gigabit throughput via USB 2.0.

 

[LazLong]

Wrong.

No, not "wrong." The operative verb here is "think," not "do." That OS X doesn't do IP over FW is indeed what I thought at the time. Now that I have taken the time to look into it, I think otherwise. If you are going to get in a trolling pissing match, then at least take the time to correctly parse that which you are attempting to repudiate in order to massage your ego. The correct answer would have been "OS X does do IP over FW."

However, this does not mean that you can make a gigabit USB 2.0 NIC that is truly a gigabit USB 2.0 NIC. Gigabit Ethernet is 10/100/1000Base-T. You can't put two gallons of milk in a one gallon bottle and you can't get gigabit throughput via USB 2.0.

I don't know why you decided to go off on this tangent, especially as your previous paragraph validates the case I was making, that using a gigabit chipset for a USB 2.0 NIC does indeed make sense, and that such a NIC should outperform the given iBook's internal NIC. This doubly makes sense as there is no common Ethernet standard between 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps. Thus, to attain a throughput increase, one must use a gig chipset.

No where in any of my posts do I state that said NIC will achieve 1000 Mbps; the point I repeatedly made was that the USB NIC will outperform the iBook's internal NIC.

You can't put two gallons of milk in a one gallon bottle...

Sure you can. Of course it depends upon the material used to make the bottle, and the pressure the milk is subjected to while compressing it into said bottle.

 

[MisterMe]

... If you are going to get in a trolling pissing match, then at least take the time to correctly parse that which you are attempting to repudiate in order to massage your ego. The correct answer would have been "OS X does do IP over FW."

...

You are not the only poster here. For the sake of those who might read and believe you, your erroneous posts should be corrected. I corrected you.