PowerPC

Lucretius · Post by **Lucretius** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:44 am

At school we have a PowerPC G3 233MHz 512K Cache 32MB/4GB HD/24x CD-ROM...(what a mouthful

) Any way, we replaced its hard drive, rewired it, plugged in the power cable annnd...not to much happened. All we got was a faint purple rectangle, slightly smaller than the sreen size. Frustrated and confused, we went home. The next day, we turned it on again and nothing happened! At all! Does anyone have any info of what went wrong and how to fix it?

GibsonPlayer15 · Post by **GibsonPlayer15** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:47 am

Was the HD new? The only thing I could thing think of is that it has a problem with the HD. Also check to make sure the video card is properly plugged in. Try taking it out and putting it back in. Also try another monitor, there is a slight chance something happened to it suddenly and randomly.

jaytee · Post by **jaytee** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 8:14 am

is there anything on the hard drive?

try booting from a cd

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 3:11 pm

Does the hard drive have jumpers? I dont know what kind of drives macs use, but on regular parrellel ata drives theres a jumper you have to set on the back. (Ex. Master, slave, single drive, etc.)

Post by **Sparkfist** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 3:42 pm

Uh to my knowlege I never hear the ATA IDE became a parallel system. Anyway the setting you have are Master, Slave and cable select, look up the model number and manufacturer to find out how the jumpers should be set to make the drive whatever you want to be.

And as the G3 all use IDE CD-roms it should support booting form a cd, check the BIOS settings to be sure.

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 3:47 pm

The drives that use the kind of cable people use for portables? Like this: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductde ... 151&DEPA=0
Yep, theyre parallel. Theres new serial drive coming out called sata drive... They look like this: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 167&depa=0

Post by **gannon** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 3:54 pm

Except the SATA drives aren't really new and have been around for a few years. New compared to standard ATA I guess though

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 3:56 pm

gannon wrote:Except the SATA drives aren't really new and have been around for a few years. New compared to standard ATA I guess though

Well, sure. Newer, I guess. But still, "normal" drives are generally parallel.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 3:58 pm

Focus, we're talking about a G3 imac at 233mh, that makes its build year about '98. Now do you think that SATA is in a machine that is about 7 years old? I specificly mentioned ATA IDE because the powerPC 4200, 5400, 5500 and others from that little branch of all-in-ones used a scsi interface for the cd-rom making it problematic for booting off cd-rom.

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:10 pm

So do macs use scsi or ata hdds?

Post by **gannon** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:20 pm

My old powermac use an ata hdd

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:24 pm

Well, my only advice would to fiddle with jumpers... Besides that, id lmake sure everything is connected to the psu, the graphics card is inserted properly, that nothings shorted and fried (if you droped a screw, and it shorted something out, you could have damaged the mother board.) Further that this Im not sure... Oh also make sure your BIOS is set right.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:46 pm

gannon wrote:My old powermac use an ata hdd

So does GP15's iMac, which is the same speed, I believe (maybe 333 MHz, but I'm not sure)

Post by **Black Six** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 10:18 pm

@Sparkfist & Sponge, he never said iMac, he said PowerPC G3.
@HK-47, old Macs used SCSI, most now use PATA, except for the PowerMac G5's which have SATA.
@Lucretius is this a beige desktop, minitower, or iMac? If it's one of the first two, then they use SCSI, not IDE, so a IDE/PATA HD isn't gonna work.
If you did install the right type of drive, but didn't put an OS on it, it should start up with a blinking folder with a question mark or Mac Face icon. To install an OS, get an install CD (for any of the above comps, I'd suggest OS9) put it in the CD drive, and then hold down the C key while it starts up. This will make it boot from to CD so you can install the OS. Also, as was mentioned before, check your jumpers. Both SCSI and PATA use jumpers, so make sure they're in the right spots.
Also:

Any way, we replaced its hard drive, rewired it, plugged in the power cable annnd...not to much happened.

What do you mean by rewired it? Did you change anything? This could be the problem, depending on what you did.

If you can give me some more info I can most likely help, I've worked with lots of older Macs in my time.