My G4 won't initialize the new SSD - please help!

[twokayprod]

Hi there Mac-people 

I couldn't find this problem being discussed already, so here goes:
I recently added a Sonnet Tempo card to my G4 Digital Audio (Dual 566 MHz) and connected a new 120GB Samsung Evo 850 SSD to it. The plan is to make this my new system drive. Now, when I start OS 9 and Drive Utility (the programs have German names here, but I hope you get it), I can select the SSD, choose partitions and click "Initialize". Under OS X 10.3.9, the Drive Utility program recognizes the model and size of the SSD and I can select it, choose partitions and click "Initialize" as well. BUT, once clicked, nothing happens - the spinning rainbow circle of doom appears as well as a progress bar filled with diagonal blue and white lines (but no actual progress bar), and it just stays like that. Same with OS 9, the circle being black and white instead of rainbow, of course 
I tried it first with OS X, waited for over an hour, then reboot, tried with OS 9, waited just as long, then again reboot to OS X again and left it running over night (at least 8 hours). But when I checked again this morning, nothing had changed. Still rainbow and blue/white/diagonal.

Now, I have to mention, at the third try it kind of recognized 2 different partitions, but they were greyed out and couldn't be selected from the list on the right side of the drive utility window. And, they didn't show up in the finder/desktop. Also, in the system profiler, the Sonnet card is recognized (but named Seritek something), the SCSI tab is empty, and the ATA tab shows nothing but a search that also doesn't end 

It seems, the Mac ran into an error almost at the beginning of the initializing process and just froze there 

What's wrong? Any ideas? How to fix this?


I'm not a computer pro, so I'm sorry if I made some stupid mistake along the way, but I think I did everything as described to me before by you guys...


Thanks alot 

[devils_advisor]

which sonnet tempo card is it ?

[twokayprod]

Oops, sorry. It's the Sonnet TSATA Tempo Serial ATA - the first one mentioned in this thread: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=306.0

[supernova777]

u have to use a tiger 10.4.11 cd or newer to repartition this as it is pre-partitioned in GUID partition map format
this was something new, and the old systems are unaware of what this is..

solution: get a leopard or tiger install dvd.. boot up with the dvd and use disk utility to reformat the drive

or

insert the drive into a newer intel computer (pc or mac) and repartition it to either MBR or APM partition type..

then you can put it back in the g4 and the g4 will be able to repartition it to APM which is what u need it to be for a ppc computer.

[devils_advisor]

technically you should be able to repartition it under any osx version because you destroy the old layout and replace it with whatever you choose anyway. but there is only 1 card compatible with os9 and im not sure about boot ability.

[twokayprod]

Wow, this was fast - way cool 

So there's 3 options, I do have an aluminium MacBook running 10.8.5, but I'm not too happy with opening it up, since right now I do all my work on it. Or, I could buy myself a Tiger/Leopard DVD, which are pretty pricey - around 50 bucks  . Maybe I know someone who has one, I'll ask around. Or I could ask a civilian (aka PC person) to do this for me...

I'll keep you posted, since this might happen to others as well...


Thanks so far 



p.s. there's a "Tiger Upgrade DVD" on eBay right now, saying it only works if Panther is installed already (which it is), would that work?

[devils_advisor]

upgrade means you need panther on the machine to be able to upgrade. you could download a hackintosh image and do it at home with your own machine.
when it asks you to initialize hit ignore and open disk utils !!!
did you partition the disk in osx first and change to apple partition ? open disk utils and repartition the disk and dont forget to choose os9 drivers.

[twokayprod]

Well, Panther is installed on the G4 - and OS 9 as well - so this Upgrade DVD should work, right? It's at one Euro right now, but there's still 5 days left 
I didn't partition anything so far, because it didn't work. Right at the beginning of the process it froze. So whatever it did, it wasn't much...

[IIO]

Under OS X 10.3.9

not that this would be common knowledge or something, but you should try OS 10.4.x (or at least its disc utility version), because that is normally needed to format drives on that controller.

i dont think this is the case with the evo, but back in the days i have seen harddisks which could not be initialized on a mac (OS 8 ), because they were preformatted for DOS and locked.

we had to put them in a PC and wipe the partitioning there to make it work for HFS.

so theoretically it could also be something like that. because it is most unlikely that the combination of a SATA card and a SATA SSD will not work.

however,many of us here are running HDs with the sonnet card, and using new SSDs on the IDE controller(s) is also proven and works fine.

Also, in the system profiler, the Sonnet card is recognized (but named Seritek something)

that is correct - it is a seritek.

, the SCSI tab is empty, and the ATA tab shows nothing but a search that also doesn't end 

a SATA-connected drive should show up as "IDE" or "ATA" in OSX, and as "SCSI" in OS9; at least thats what my HDs do.

for my part i am finished here, try 10.4 and report back if the problem doesnt go away.

but mabye others have to say more than me.

p.s. oh yes and booting might not be fully supported with that card.

[/quote]

[MacTron]

I have different SATA controllers and two Samsung EVO SSDs working without any problems,  you should try to format the SSD with Drive Setup 1.9.2 under Mac Os 9, in my opinion.

[twokayprod]

Hmmm, okay... Where do I get Drive Setup 1.9.2? I couldn't find it here. I don't know which version I have and my G4 is about a 40 minute drive away. But with my version it didn't work.
Is Drive Setup 1.9.2 part of this here: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2109.0
I have downloaded and burned it already, since I wanted to put that on the SSD.

[supernova777]

u wont be able to do it with drive setup for os9..
u have to use osx disk utility with tiger or leopard
u can use drive setup once the partition map is changed to apm or mbr

u could also take the drive to any pc repair technician place and have them do it for you.. to simply repartition the drive to apm or mbr is a very simple 2min fix

i beleive u could find a tiger 10.4.11 cd to do this yourself..
(comes in a set of 4 cds. u only need the first cd)

[twokayprod]

Yeah, those CDs are ridiculously expensive - at least over here 
There are cheaper ones, but those are for specific Macs. I do have the Leopard Disks that came with my MacBook (late 2008) - but I think the G4 won't take those...
Our keyboarder is some professional computer wizard guy, he's willing to help. Hopefully it won't take until 2018 

[supernova777]

the file is here on the macintoshgarden

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-osx-mac-os-10-ppc

http://macintoshgarden.org/sites/macintoshgarden.org/files/apps/Tiger_CD1.toast_.zip

burn the cd + reboot holding c

and say thanks to knez;)

[twokayprod]

Thank you knez!! 

Downloading now. Thanks to all so far, I love this place 
I'll get back to you as soon as I have time to check it out...

[MacTron]

u wont be able to do it with drive setup for os9 ...

Of course you can. I have done this hundreds of times. And in fact it is the most reliable way of doing it, if the disc is to be used with Mac Os 9 of course, and you should keep away the disk from Mac Os X if you wish to live troubles free, as DieHard is tired to tell ...
The only important point is the Drive Setup version, it must be the 1.9.2 version, because the next version 2.0 was intentionally limited by Apple to avoid to be used with most Hard drive ( and SSD ) brands. ( well, there is hack to avoid this limitation in the 2.0 version, if my memory serves... )

[twokayprod]

Ok, there can never be enough options. But again, where do I get Drive Setup 1.9.2 ? I couldn't find it anywhere...

[MacTron]

Here you have (attached) 

[supernova777]

mactron...
his drive was shipped with GUID partition map..
i dont think drive setup will work untill after this partition map has been overwritten with an APM or MBR partiton map type.

however checking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table it does say that GUID/GPT dates back to the late 1990s so perhaps you are correct. but as far as i know panther is unable to recognize and overwrite this, and therefore this is also true with all previous versions of mac os.

[MacTron]

mactron...
his drive was shipped with GUID partition map..
i dont think drive setup will work untill after this partition map has been overwritten with an APM or MBR partiton map type.

however checking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table it does say that GUID/GPT dates back to the late 1990s so perhaps you are correct. but as far as i know panther is unable to recognize and overwrite this, and therefore this is also true with all previous versions of mac os.

Drive Setup 1.9.2 will erase and build APM, no matter what kind of partition scheme was the drive previously formatted with.

... if Drive Setup 1.9.2 (nor Os X Disk Utilities) can format the drive, I guess that we have a hardware problem: a bad connection cable, a bad SSD or a bad PCI card.
In some occasion I had a similar weird problem, and the culprit was a cheap and bad SATA cable, and in other occasion every thing work OK after reinstalling all the hardware.