PowerMac G4 Sawtooth - SATA Drives install

[Smack2k]

Hello all,

Brand new to this forum.  I recently acquired a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth.  To upgrade it, I have flashed an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro to Mac BIOS and installed it in the machine and it works fine.  I also acquired an SIL3112 chip 2 Port SATA Card, flashed it with the right BIOS (using these instructions - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-to-flashing-pc-sil3112-sata-cards-for-mac.1690231/) which said it was successful, and installed it in the system.  I hooked up two SATA Drives to it via SATA Cables and have tried to boot up the system using Option Key and its not seeing any disks.  The macfhine boots but when getting to the Option screen, all its sees is the OS 9.2 Disc I have in the Optical Drive.

I know the slots in the G4 dont look like normal PCI ports but the PCI SATA card does fit in the slot and I read around the web that you can install an SIL3112 chipped SATA card after flahsing it and use SATA Drives for your installs....

The drives are good drives, but I know they need to be formatted, partitioned for a MAC.  They are being powered by Molex to Sata Power connector adapters....but I cant tell if they are actually running or not or if I should plug in the Molex connectors?

Am I doing something wrong or missing some steps?

Your expertise is greatly appreciated!

[reader50]

The firmware boot selector only shows volumes with the OS already installed. Blank HDs will not appear there.

Boot from your install CD, format both drives. Partition if you so desire. Install the OS on one or both drives. Then see if you can option-boot into them.

Assuming you can boot into the new drives, go to Apple Menu (upper left corner) -> Control Panels -> Startup Disk -> select the drive you want as your default startup volume.

If you can't boot into them, then your HDs somehow didn't get reformatted to Apple Partition Map scheme (redo above steps, making sure to partition, even if only with 1 partition). Or your SATA card may not be bootable on Mac systems.

[GaryN]

The firmware boot selector only shows volumes with the OS already installed. Blank HDs will not appear there.

Boot from your install CD, format both drives. Partition if you so desire. Install the OS on one or both drives. Then see if you can option-boot into them.

…and don't forget to install OS9 drivers!!!

[reader50]

As he's installing from within OS 9, that choice doesn't come up. It's only an option in OSX Disk Utility.

I *think* he'll get APM scheme upon formatting unrecognized drives in OS9 also. Hence why I prevaricated on the partitioning step.

[Smack2k]

I can format these from an OS X Machine I have.....

Is there a way to install OS 9 onto one of the drives after its formatted / partitioned in OS X while the drive is still in OS X?  Once I have them formatted / partitioned, you are saying boot from the OS 9 Disk and do the install?

Also, anything special when I format / partition it from OS X to be useable with OS 9?

What drivers do I need for OS 9 and where / how do I put them on the drive?

[reader50]

If starting from OSX, you'll need Leopard (10.5) or earlier. In Disk Utility, go to Partition, check the box to Install OS9 Drivers. This box is missing in 10.6 and later.

Next click the Options button, and be sure to select Apple Partition Map. PPC Macs can only boot from APM-partitioned drives.

Now choose the number of partitions. Probably 1, unless you want to install multiple OS versions. For OS 9 through X 10.2 (Jaguar), format as Mac OS Extended. Not the journaled version Disk Utility will default to. Journaling came in with 10.3 -- OS9 doesn't know about it. Now apply the partition/format.

Once the drive is formatted, you could use the OS9 install disc. You should do it this way if you want a non-standard install, such as a foreign language.

If you have a disk image handy of a working OS9 install (NOT an Install disc image), you can clone it to the formatted hard drive. I often do this with SuperDuper.

You can do a Finder copy of all the files from an image, but afterwards you'll need to 'bless' the new system folder. Three methods come to mind (you only need to use one):

1. In Startup Disk, select the new OS9 system folder. This only works if the machine you're using can boot OS9 itself.
2. In Finder, open the new System Folder. Drag out the files "Finder" and "System". Close the system folder. Drop the two files back on the closed system folder. If it works, the system folder will modify its icon to show a Mac face.
3. Open Terminal. Type "bless -folder9 " <-- note the space at the end. Don't press Return yet. Drag the new system folder into the Terminal window, this will enter the file path. Now press Return.

The new install should come up on Option-boot, and be selectable in Startup Disk (on a machine that can boot OS9).

You shouldn't need special drivers unless you have upgraded components. If your SATA card is indeed bootable, then it probably doesn't need drivers. What other cards are present, especially graphics cards? Depending on your install CD, you may already have the latest nVidia and ATi drivers.

[Smack2k]

I am running from an El Capitan OS X, so is there another way I can get the OS 9 Drivers onto the drive?  I dont have any older versions of OS X available to me.

My goal with the G4 is to have one drive running OS X Tiger and one drive running OS 9.  That being said, could I install the Tiger Drive first, get it running and then partition / format the other drive to prepare it for OS 9?

Thanks for the format / partition info, I will use that when I go to get the drive for OS 9 ready.

[reader50]

Yes, you can do it that way. Bear in mine you'll end up wanting an OS9 folder on your Tiger disk too, for Classic. But you can add that later. However, if you do it this way, the OSX disk will not be bootable in 9. I'm not sure your OS9 install will even be able to see that drive. Adding the OS9 drivers to that HD after the fact would require either a reformat, or a 3rd party utility such as iPartition.

Suggestion: partition the Tiger disk into two partitions, the 2nd one being a small one for Leopard. That would allow you to use Time Machine. You could boot into Leopard occasionally, and back up all three volumes. Makes restoring things much easier in the future, should bad luck strike.

For your Tiger install, do you have an actual Tiger install CD, or a working image to restore from? If you have an install CD, you can use Disk Utility to partition / format both drives with OS9 drivers, before installing anything.

[macStuff]

unfortunately ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is not a good choice for working in os9 because of the undesired "roll up" effect that it does when moving windows..

it is the ideal card for an panther tiger or leopard install. but not for os9;
due to lack of proper driver support.

also the sil3112 card that was flashed will not be able to boot the sawtooth into os9;
you need different hardware for an os9 machine, u might aswell skip os9 and just install tiger osx
or find the proper components (AGP video card + Sata150 pci card) that are properly mac os 9 compatible

close but no cigar

[Smack2k]

The card I have is a PB3112SATA150 2 Port PCI SATA card that I flashed with correct firmware....

As for the AGP Card, what do you recommend to use if not the 9800? 

I want to have this setup with one drive as OS 9 and the other as OS X Tiger

Would a GeForce4 Ti 4600 do the trick?

[reader50]

Would a GeForce4 Ti 4600 do the trick?

Yes, but remember your AGP slot is 2x. You need a 2x/4x card such as the real Mac version. If you flash an 8x PC version, you'll have to do hardware mods of the card to make it work in your G4. There are threads on that in the graphics card section.

I have a Sawtooth myself, my main machine from a decade+ ago. I've been restoring it for over a month, in theory to reach my supply of legacy games. Turns out most of them can be run on my G5, so it's proved a hobby-restore project. Still fun.

Below are Mac graphics cards with OS9 compatibility, sorted by speed. Similar-speed cards are grouped:

GeForce 4 Ti 4600 (AGP - OEM). Fastest OS9 card.

Radeon 8500 (AGP - retail), also easy to flash many PC versions.

Radeon 9000 (AGP - OEM) or Radeon 9200 (PCI - retail). They're more-or-less the same.
GeForce 3 (AGP - OEM)
Radeon 9250 (PCI - hack) was never released for Mac. Some have flashed it successfully. It's slightly slower than the 9000/9200.

Radeon 7500 (AGP - OEM) fast in OS9, slow for OSX.
GeForce 4MX (AGP - OEM)

Radeon {original} (AGP or PCI - OEM/retail)
Radeon 7000 (PCI - retail) even slower.
GeForce 2MX (AGP - OEM)

Rage 128 / Rage 128 Pro (AGP or PCI - OEM) original card the Sawtooth came with. Very slow today.

I may have missed a card or two. Someone posted a hard-to-read grid in another thread. I don't completely agree with his/her speed order for some cards. If you want to investigate flashed PC cards, try the Graphics section here.

Note that Radeons sometimes have trouble in OS9 with widescreen monitors connected over DVI. Where you only get standard 4:3 or 5:4 aspect ratios, and forcing widescreen ratios cause a blank screen. I'm not sure if it affects everyone, but it does affect my 1920x1200 monitor. Connecting over VGA avoids the issue - all resolutions work. OSX is unaffected, all DVI & VGA resolutions work. nVidia cards are unaffected in 9 or X.

I bought a new Firmtek SATA card, to guarantee OS9 boot. I had planned to buy one on eBay, but got tired of waiting after some weeks. They only appear now and then. One sold for under $20 about a month after I bought.

[macStuff]

The card I have is a PB3112SATA150 2 Port PCI SATA card that I flashed with correct firmware....

As for the AGP Card, what do you recommend to use if not the 9800? 

I want to have this setup with one drive as OS 9 and the other as OS X Tiger

Would a GeForce4 Ti 4600 do the trick?

to which "correct firmware" are u referring?

[Smack2k]

i went off of this -  https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-to-flashing-pc-sil3112-sata-cards-for-mac.1690231/

But OS 9 doesnt see the drives as available when I boot to it from CD....so you are probably right!!

Also, I loaded OS 9 on a 40 GB PATA Drive, install said it went ok, but when it boots, it freezes once it gets to the OS, the last thing is a prompt about network time being wrong.  you can move the mouse after that, but cant click on anything or do anything as its all frozen.  CD Tray wont open, nothing....

[macStuff]

re: network time error;
i think u will only get that error if u are connected to the network/internet
the fix is to update the time/date i think?

re: crash
did u try doing CMD-option-escape to quit out of the crashed finder?

-if you want to use a modern Sata HD you are going to want a mac os 9 compatible sata card to boot off a sata drive on os9

-another solution is to simply use compact Flash cards as Hard drives and use them with IDE adapters
connected to the native IDE bus; i do this with a number of my systems with 16GB CF cards

[Smack2k]

I have a couple CF Flash Card Adapters for IDE...so I could that route....thanks for the tip.

Will test out the command to stop the crash....still learning the OS!

As for the card, will it not see the drives at all, or just not to boot from?  I installed the BIOS from the link I posted, and it said it was successful, so hoping I can still use the SATA Drives.

[macStuff]

ive never used that particular flashed card so im not 100% familiar with what works + doesnt work
only going off what ive read

i think it will boot in osx using that WIEBEtech firmware..  but not in os9.
you can always just boot off a compact flash and then use the drive connected to the Sata card for running apps once booted up?

[Smack2k]

That is what I meant, have the drives there to use once booted into the OS....will go with the CF Adapter for the Boot.

[reader50]

I skimmed the MacRumors thread. The firmware image comes from a Wiebetech card that apparently doesn't support OS9. People reported the flash worked with 10.4 and 10.5 -- one person says 10.3 was good too.

The network time error means the Sawtooth's clock has gone blank and reset to ~1969 or thereabouts. As macStuff says, just reset the clock. Also the PRAM battery is almost certainly dead. This isn't the reason for the lockup.

The lockup may be caused by the unsupported video card, but is most likely caused by the old PATA drive. I found my Sawtooth fragile during reinstall, most especially the OS9 partition. But it was my (10+ years) old drives causing things to gum up.

Mount your old drive(s) in a good system (a USB dock or enclosure is OK) and copy media folders to it until it's completely full. Then reformat and do it again, with different media folders. Or in a different order. You may need to repeat this a few times. What you're doing is forcing the HD to identify and map out all the bad blocks. Hopefully the marginal blocks too.

This is the reason I got a SATA card. All my old PATA drives were glitching, and I didn't feel like buying new obsolete PATA drives. And I wanted more space for game installs than an inexpensive flash card would give. I presently got my two best PATA drives settled down again, but it took 3-6 overwrite passes each. They're backup boot drives today - I still don't have much confidence in them.

btw, assuming you've changed the PRAM battery (it's a 3.6-volt lithium 1/2AA size), be sure to press the motherboard reset button after you make any hardware change. It's the mini-switch past the battery, in the rear/hinge-side corner of the board. Otherwise the unexpected hardware can crash the PMC (power management controller) or cause boot issues.

[Smack2k]

I have not changed the battery, but I definately can....thanks for the motherboard reset button as well, didnt know that

I am going to install a CF Card with an IDE Adapter to run the OS's off.  I started a different thread about that setup as it didnt apply to the SATA Drives....once I get that info, I will give it a go.  Not sure if I should use 1 16 or 32 GB card or 2 16's and install the OS's one on each as I want to be able to dual boot them when I want (OS 9 and Tiger).

As for the HDD, I have some others I can test out as I want to use them for extra storage on the machine.  The SATA Drives will work in Tiger, but I guess I will need a PATA Drive for OS 9 extras....

[reader50]

If you do the overwrite passes on old PATAs, leave Activity Monitor open to the Disk Activity tab. Set the graph to show data, not IOs. It will draw a graph over time of all the data being written to your PATA drive. Plus any other disk activity if you're using the machine at the time.

While it's writing to a PATA drive, every once in awhile there will be a pause, where the data graph goes to zero. The drive has hit a bad block. Or a bunch of them. It'll retry that block, eventually succeeding or mapping it out. You'd want to keep doing passes until one completes with no pauses.

If a drive won't settle down after several full overwrites, toss the drive. It's not worth your time. If it'll settle down (or you're happy with the CF cards) then you have time to watch eBay for a Firmtek SATA1 card to come up. Or an early Sonnet that supports OS9. I believe there's a couple others that are compatible too.

Newegg does have PATA drives still, with refurbs going as low as $20. New drives $40 to $100+. Or maybe you'll find a larger CF card you don't need. If you're not in a hurry, you can watch for cheap options to come up.