SillyDog701

[Antony]

Just to add one more point. If the RAM is of the wrong type or just bad RAM, you won't see anything after the initial booting screen.

If the HDD is not set up correctly (jumper settings, master, slave settings), you won't be able to see anything after the initial booting either.

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[DJGM]

In the week immediately after acquiring the B+W PowerMac G3, I have been trying (somewhat unsuccessfully)
to get it to work the way it should with two HDD's inside. I've just found out why this particular machine
doesn't work particularly well when there's more than one HDD installed.

According to this article on Wikipedia . . .

Early blue and white G3s had IDE controller problems, which make it impossible to connect
two hard drives and prevent the use of most hard disk drives produced after them. (Using
newer drives in those units results in massive data transmission errors.) The "Rev B" units
have a corrected IDE controller which allows two hard disks, and works flawlessly with
any drive, within the 28-bit LBA constraint. The Rev B units ship with a hard disk
bracket designed for two drives and also have an updated graphics card.

I clearly have one of the Rev A units with the aformentioned IDE controller flaw. It also does
not feature a HDD bracket, so no HDD can be properly or securely installed in this machine.

Oh dear . . . Apple really dropped the ball with this particular model didn't they?

Perhaps I was right with my earlier comment. It is a lemon!

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[Andrew T.]

Is it possible to add a replacement drive controller card to a Mac such as yours?

(or am I thinking too much of '80s IBM-compatible PCs?)

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[DJGM]

I doubt the IDE controller can be replaced on any Mac without completely swapping out
the mainboard/logicboard/motherboard (delete as applicable). I don't think it'd be worth
trying that on this paticular Mac. I guess I'd be better off looking on eBay for a Rev B
version of the B+W PowerMac G3, and re-selling the one I've got.

Unless any Apple Mac gurus happen to be around who can suggest something else?

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[DJGM]

In this message, I bring some good news, and some rather bad news.


First the good news . . .

Today, I received another 20GB HDD from a seller on eBay. Straightaway, I set about installing
this new HDD into the B+W PowerMac G3. Lo and behold, it worked! I was able to create two
partitions, and install Mac OS X. The installation went without a hitch. As I had kept a copy of
the Mac OS X 10.3.9 Combo Update on a CD-R disc, I was able to install the last Panther
update, without facing the prospect of waiting for a 113MB file to come down the line!

So, in essence at that point, I had Mac OS 10.3.9 installed, plus 512MB of SDRAM taken from
the beige G3 minitower, plus an additional stick of 256MB SDRAM, bringing it to 768MB SDRAM.

Great, I thought. Now all I need to do would be to transfer all of the necessary files from the
old 10GB HDD upon which Mac OS X had been installed in the other machine, and I'd have a
complete B+W PowerMac G3 system up and running. I decided to do that later, as I needed
to be somewhere else to sort out something not computer related.

I left the Mac switched on, thinking everthing would still be working fine upon my return.


Oh, how wrong could I be? Here comes the bad news . . .

When I returned, everything appeared fine. Until I then heard a rather worrying loud clicking
sound emitting from within the system unit. A sound I recognised as mechanical HDD failure!
On opening the Finder, I was greeted with an empty window, and a spinning beachball icon.
All the while, that clicking sound continued. I tried, but failed (about three times) to restart
the machine in the somewhat rather vain hope that the problem would just go away.
Unfortunately, this was not tobe, and I was forced to reluctantly pull the plug.

The system powered back up, and there was no more clicking. When the monitor came
back on, I was greeted with the sight that most Mac users fear the most on startup!
The blue folder icon that alternates between the Mac OS logo and a question mark.

N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O . . . !

After several utterances of some extremely strong language that I shall not repeat here,
it seemed that I had to face the fact that that newly acquired HDD, was a dead duck!

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[DJGM]

Now this was an unexpected turn up, but it seems that HDD has mysteriously come back to life!

Out of curiosity, I plugged the B+W PowerMac in to the mains, hooked up the keyboard/mouse,
and the monitor, then powered up. There was no startup chime, which I guess would normally
mean there's a problem, as it's (AFAIK) the Apple Mac equivalent of the POST beep on a PC.

I was expected to see the Mac face logo alternating with the question mark again, but to my
surprise, it displayed that familar grey Apple logo startup screen, and booted up Mac OS X!

How long it's going to last before the HDD decides to choke again, goodness knows!

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[Antony]

How long it's going to last before the HDD decides to choke again, goodness knows!

Don't turn it off!

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[Pu7o]

My Mac lost its startup chime a long time ago. Don't really know why... It gives me an empty feeling when I boot it though...

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[DJGM]

It's gone again!

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[DJGM]

Good news and Bad news . . .

The good news is that finally got the B+W Power Mac G3 up and running with Mac OS X 10.3.9
the other day. (Hurrah!) Basically, I swiped the 20GB HDD out of my iMac, and popped it in to
this one, alongside an additional 6GB HDD that I'd been using in my "testbed" PC.

Everything was chugging along nicely. I'd installed a handful of apps. The usual suspects such
as Firefox, iTunes, Konfabulator and a couple of others. Then I decided to reinstall my copy
of Virtual PC 7 for Mac, that I hadn't used in a while. I'd copied the VHD and VMC files
of Windows 2000, from the copy of VPC on my (real) PC, to see how well it'd work.

Anyway, the VPC7 for Mac install went smoothly, and then prompted a reboot to finish.


Now the bad news . . . suddenly the computer has decided it doesn't want to boot Mac OS X
anymore. Barely seconds after the HDD spins up, the grey Apple boot screen appears, then
disappears about a second later, to be replaced by a grey "No Entry" symbol.

I won't repeat what I said at that point. I prefer not to use very strong language in public!

Anyway, I thought perhaps the Disk Permissions have probably gone a bit skee-whiff, so I
rebooted the machine from the Mac OS X Installer CD, and ran Disk Utility. It did find a
few of the Disk Permissions weren't the way they should, so I clicked "Repair" and
waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited . . . etc!

After it finished repairing permissions, I then clicked "Verify Disk" to see if there's anything
wrong with the HDD itself. ("There'd better bloody not be!", I thought!). Thankfully, it
detected no problems. So, what gives? I restarted the machine, and guess what?

No smegging entry again!

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[DJGM]

That was then, this is now . . . The latest update to this particular saga . . .

It's working again. Hopefully it's going to stay working. I've basically re-installed Mac OS X 10.3.9
by booting from the Mac OS X CD using the "Archive and Install" option on the installer program.

I have been advised though that considering the machine in question has known problems that I
already mentioned earlier, I have been advised to obtain a single, higher capacity HDD of 40GB
or more and to "clone" the existing system using a program called "Carbon Copy Cloner".

So, I intend to get 40GB HDD for it soon, and try that cloner program. Since I've got Mac OS X
setup and configured with quite a few programs installed, I don't want to go through all that
rigmarole of reformatting and completely re-installing everything again from scratch.

As always . . . I'll keep you updated on my progress . . .

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[Antony]

I have been advised though that considering the machine in question has known problems that I already mentioned earlier, I have been advised to obtain a single, higher capacity HDD of 40GB or more and to "clone" the existing system using a program called "Carbon Copy Cloner".

You might want to check out NetRestore (from the same company as Carbon Copy Cloner).

Carbon Copy Cloner is not capable of copying (or cloning) to a network drive. Unless you want to copy to another harddisk (or partition) that's connected to the same system. To copy to a network drive, you will need NetRestore.

[sdp=60750]More information on my usage of NetRestore.[/sdp]

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[DJGM]

I have a USB2.0 HDD enclosure I can use for that procedure.

Meanwhile, since the power supply unit has just failed on my PC, I'm going to be on this Mac
until I can get it replaced. That PC is over six years old, so I'm going to have to look on eBay!

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[Antony]

I have a USB2.0 HDD enclosure I can use for that procedure.

If I remember correctly, the Power Mac G3 does not have USB 2.0 support (built-in). However, it's better than none.

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[DJGM]

None of the Power Mac G3's have USB2.0 support built in. The B+W machine I'm using now, has a
couple of USB1.1 ports on the back panel, while the two beige G3 systems, had no USB ports at all.

Although, with the addition of the USB2.0 PCI card I previously used in the beige G3 desktop unit,
then in the beige G3 minitower, this B+W Power Mac G3 now has 4 fully functional USB2.0 ports.

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