Difficulties with Beige Power Mac G3 DT not recognizing SSD

[jboshears]

I'm trying to install this OWC SSD with Addonics SATA to IDE adapter:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDMXLE060/

In my Beige Power Mac G3 DT, Revision 3.

I disconnected the one and only primary IDE drive, a 60 gb 7200 IDE spinning disk connected to IDE channel 1, jumpered as the master device.

I then set the IDE to SATA adapter to master mode, and connected it up the IDE cable that was previously connected to the old hard drive. On pressing the power button, the Mac chimes as if everything is ok, but there is never any video output. I've waited for up to 10 minutes and it never comes to life. I also tried the adapter in cable select mode, but again, no video output here either.

Is this device just not compatible with my Power Mac? Or am I missing something in the setup? Or is it likely there is something wrong with the adapter and I should try and return it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[FdB]

Might need to contact OWC about this first, as the OWC link you provided does not note Beige G3 compatibility for that SSD.

[jboshears]

Thanks. I had sent a message to OWC last week, but still haven't received a response. Was curious if anyone was running a similar setup, or if I had missed anything during the installation.

The one thing I was able to do was verify the SSD using an USB enclosure, and the drive seems ok.

[devils_advisor]

maybe the drive isnt powered on at the time the mac is expecting it. that results in a loop? did you try to keep your original drive on that bus and the ssd on the cd-rom port to test it and maybe initialize it?

[FdB]

devils_advisor might be onto something there.

Recently dealt with unanswered emails to OWC in another matter about a now "considered ancient" processor upgrade. As your SSD is "current" maybe a quick call to their Customer Support number would yield you an insightful, helpful answer. And if not, as you've attempted... someone here may know (or be able to provide a workaround).

[jboshears]

maybe the drive isnt powered on at the time the mac is expecting it. that results in a loop? did you try to keep your original drive on that bus and the ssd on the cd-rom port to test it and maybe initialize it?

Well, that helped a bit. I moved the SSD to the slave position behind the CD-ROM drive and was able to get the machine to boot. However it locks up right after the desktop is loaded; right around the time the SSD is trying to mount. I tried booting from an OS 9 install CD, and a TechTool Pro CD. Both locked up trying to mount the drive.

The drive mounts fine when inside the USB enclosure, so I'm gonna guess either the SATA-IDE bridge isn't compatible with this system, or something is wrong with it. Either way I'm just gonna send it back to OWC. Guess I'm sticking with this noisy 7200 rpm drive for now.

[IIO]

the general rule for the original EIDE disk on the beige was that the boot partition should be less than 8 GB of size. (this rule includess a possible OSX or linux boot partition.)