{"id":582,"date":"2023-10-05T07:40:42","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T07:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/?p=582"},"modified":"2023-10-05T09:18:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T09:18:26","slug":"upgrading-a-macintosh-g3-disk-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/?p=582","title":{"rendered":"Macintosh G3 disk drive upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"
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published on 05.10.23<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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!)<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

SATA and mSATA SSDs, CF and SD cards<\/h4>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

Finding a reliable partitioning scheme took some googling<\/h4>\n

There are various maximums and recommend partition numbers for drive \/ volume \/ partition size:<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/discussions.apple.com\/thread\/128888<\/a><\/p>\n

OSX has to be on the first partition, and it has to be less than 8GB in size
\nOS 9 must be within the first 8GB on the disk:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/forums.macrumors.com\/threads\/macmosx-10-2-and-mac-os-9-2.150908\/<\/a><\/p>\n

In the end, the CF cards \/ SD cards were all partioned as follows<\/p>\n

Partition 1: 7000mb (Mac OSX 10.2.8 boot)
\nPartition 2: 900MB (Mac OS 9.2.2 boot)
\nPartition 3: remainder as storage<\/p>\n

All partitions were formatted to Mac OS Extended (HFS+)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Successful hardware combinations<\/h4>\n

I could partition the drives and successfully install both OS 9 and OSX 10.2:<\/p>\n

Mac OS 9.2.2 (Universal Edition) http:\/\/macos9lives.com\/smforum\/index.php?topic=2109.0<\/a><\/p>\n

Mac OS X 10.2.8: installed 10.2, followed by 10.2.8:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.macintoshrepository.org\/20949-mac-os-x-10-2-cd-<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.macintoshrepository.org\/43399-mac-os-x-update-combo-10-2-8<\/a><\/p>\n

using the following adapters and storage devices:<\/p>\n

IDE-CF adapters: HX-2118P, HX-118<\/p>\n

CF cards: Agfa Photo 300x speed 16GB, Sandisk 1GB<\/p>\n

CF-SD adapters: Card1 slot of Micro SDXC X2 Type 1 Extreme CF adapter<\/p>\n

MicroSD cards (with SD-MicroSD adapter): 4GB Lexar HC, 32GB Sandisk Ultra<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unsuccessful hardware combinations<\/h4>\n

Unfortunately, I couldn\u2019t get any of the following to work successfully \/ reliably \/ at all.<\/p>\n

Either:<\/p>\n

\u2022 the drive would not be visible in the Mac Disk Utility (on the 9.2.2 or 10.2 installer disks)
\n\u2022 the formatting of the partitions would hang
\n\u2022 the installer would run, but hang at some point
\n\u2022 the installer would complete, but the installed OS would not boot<\/p>\n

CF-SD adapter: Card2 slot of Micro SDXC X2 Type 1 Extreme CF adapter<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

IDE-mSATA adapter: FOVORE IDE-mSATA 44-pin (with 40pin - 44pin adapter)<\/p>\n

IDE-CF adapter: CF-IDE40 V.EO (Double\/DMA\/3LED)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All the adapters I used were from AliExpress, eBay or Amazon, and none were Mac (ROM) specific<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

published on 05.10.23 I\u2019m currently working to refurbish and update a Power Macintosh G3 Server, and now I need to upgrade the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogpost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vintagepc.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}