published on 05.10.23

I’m currently working to refurbish and update a Power Macintosh G3 Server, and now I need to upgrade the macintosh disk drive - it's running Mac OS 8.6, and it needs to dual-boot Mac OS 9.2.2 (which is the last classic Mac OS version prior to Mac OS X), and Mac OS X 10.2.8 (the last formally supported OS X version). And that means the G3’s old 9GB SCSI drive (and PCI SCSI card) needs to be to a larger, more recent storage device, such as a SATA drive or CF card.

In theory, this should be faster, quieter, draw less power, provide more storage space, and hopefully increase the longevity (plus, it would be lighter: the SCSI drive and cage are quite heavy, and the G3 is already a weighty beast!)

SATA and mSATA SSDs, CF and SD cards

I initially tried to upgrade to an SSD (SATA and mSATA), but nothing I tried would work reliably / consistently: I tried multiple IDE to SATA and IDE to mSATA adapters, with various drive sizes (32 / 120 / 240 GB).

However, an IDE to CF adapter, with either a CF card or a CF to SD adapter, worked flawlessly with 1 / 4 / 16 GB cards.

Finding a reliable partitioning scheme took some googling

There are various maximums and recommend partition numbers for drive / volume / partition size:

The maximum volume size on Mac OS 9 is 190GB, and the IDE chipset on the G3 motherboard is further limited by the ATA/66 bus to 128GB drive size:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/128888

OSX has to be on the first partition, and it has to be less than 8GB in size
OS 9 must be within the first 8GB on the disk:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macmosx-10-2-and-mac-os-9-2.150908/

In the end, the CF cards / SD cards were all partioned as follows

Partition 1: 7000mb (Mac OSX 10.2.8 boot)
Partition 2: 900MB (Mac OS 9.2.2 boot)
Partition 3: remainder as storage

All partitions were formatted to Mac OS Extended (HFS+)

Successful hardware combinations

I could partition the drives and successfully install both OS 9 and OSX 10.2:

Mac OS 9.2.2 (Universal Edition) http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2109.0

Mac OS X 10.2.8: installed 10.2, followed by 10.2.8:

https://www.macintoshrepository.org/20949-mac-os-x-10-2-cd-
https://www.macintoshrepository.org/43399-mac-os-x-update-combo-10-2-8

using the following adapters and storage devices:

IDE-CF adapters: HX-2118P, HX-118

CF cards: Agfa Photo 300x speed 16GB, Sandisk 1GB

CF-SD adapters: Card1 slot of Micro SDXC X2 Type 1 Extreme CF adapter

MicroSD cards (with SD-MicroSD adapter): 4GB Lexar HC, 32GB Sandisk Ultra

 

Unsuccessful hardware combinations

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any of the following to work successfully / reliably / at all.

Either:

• the drive would not be visible in the Mac Disk Utility (on the 9.2.2 or 10.2 installer disks)
• the formatting of the partitions would hang
• the installer would run, but hang at some point
• the installer would complete, but the installed OS would not boot

CF-SD adapter: Card2 slot of Micro SDXC X2 Type 1 Extreme CF adapter

IDE-SATA adapters: StarTech IDE-SATA IDE2SAT2, Homaja AC5587 IDE to SATA adapter, Kebidume Sata to IDE Adapter 2.5 Sata Female to 3.5 IDE Male Converter

IDE-mSATA adapter: FOVORE IDE-mSATA 44-pin (with 40pin - 44pin adapter)

IDE-CF adapter: CF-IDE40 V.EO (Double/DMA/3LED)

 

 

 

All the adapters I used were from AliExpress, eBay or Amazon, and none were Mac (ROM) specific