Can't boot OS 9 with SATA-IDE adapter on iMac G3

[Wingen]

Hi,
I recently bought an iMac G3 DV 500 MHz (Summer 2000) that came with a 30 GB IDE drive and 128 MB RAM.

After changing the IDE drive to a SATA SSD (with an adapter), I can't boot OS 9 or install it from scratch. The drive is just not detected by OS 9 at all. It's detected by OS X and I can use that as normal.

The SSD is an Intel X25-M G2 80 GB and the adapter is a Digitus DS-33151-1 SATA-IDE adapter (JM30220 chipset).

OS 9.0.4, 9.2.2 as well as 10.2.8 are installed on the IDE drive. The iMac runs 4.1.9 firmware. I've also upgraded the RAM to 1 GB, but putting the original 128 MB back didn't help.

So with the SATA-IDE adapter, I'm having problems with both booting OS 9 as well as installing OS 9 from the CD.

Some things that I have tried:

• When attempting to install OS 9 from CD (9.2.2 Universal from MacintoshGarden as well as 9.2.2 from MacOS9Lives) - the OS 9 installer, Apple System Profiler as well as Drive Setup do not detect the SSD at all.
• Cloning the old 30 GB drive to the new SSD will let me boot its OS X installation, but attempting to boot the installed 9.0.4 or 9.2.2 (either by holding Option at boot or selecting them in Startup Disk) either results in getting the "flashing question mark on a floppy disk" icon or booting back into OS X as a fallback.
• I have tried booting into a OS X 10.4 CD and formatting the SSD, making sure that OS 9 Drivers were installed as well. I then tried the Drag install method and restoring OS9General.dmg to the SSD. After that I tried to boot as normal, with the Option key as well as Startup Disk from the OS X CD. All of them result in getting the "flashing question mark on a floppy disk" icon.
• I have also tried swapping the SSD for another SATA drive (an Apple one, from a Macbook) to rule out the SSD. This drive is not detected by the OS 9 installer or Drive Setup either.
• I can successfully install OS X from CD to the SSD and run it. The drive is detected by the installer and Disk Utility without problems.
• I have also partitioned the SSD into three partitions - one 10 GB for OS 9, one 20 GB for OS X and the rest for storage. After installing Tiger on the OS X partition, I tried performing the OS9General.dmg restore to the OS 9 partition. I can select the OS 9 installation in Startup Disk, but when restarting I get the "flashing question mark on a floppy disk" icon again.
• Open Firmware seems to list two devices on the ATA bus when running "devalias", so it looks like the hard drive is detected at that point.
• Resetting PRAM, clearing NVRAM and performing reset-all didn't help.
• The first thing I did when I got the computer was to swap the PRAM battery for a new one. No change.
• Putting the 30 GB IDE drive back into the computer lets me boot OS 9 from it without any problems. The IDE hard drive is also detected by the OS 9 installer and Drive Setup.
• The SATA-IDE adapter is set as Master. When I first installed it, it was configured as Slave with a jumper. When it was set to Slave, I could not boot from neither the hard drive nor the DVD player. Once I removed the jumper, it was configured as Master and I could boot up once again.

So I'm suspecting that the fault may lie in the SATA-IDE adapter that I'm using. Does anyone have some advice on what I could try more before I order another adapter? I've seen a Startech adapter being mentioned on the board, is it this one (Startech IDE2SAT2)? https://www.amazon.de/StarTech-IDE2SAT2-40-Pin-Adapter-Converter/dp/B00EOJNGC2

Sorry that the post is quite long, I just want to write about the things I've tried so far. I'm really looking forward to getting OS 9 up and running so I can relive the old times. 

Thanks in advance!

UPDATE: I just tried something new. I disconnected the DVD reader just to see if there may be some conflict between the SATA-IDE adapter and the DVD reader. Now I can actually boot OS 9! How on earth can they be in conflict? And is there anything I can try to resolve it, so that I can have both connected at the same time?

UPDATE2: I'm starting to suspect that my SATA-IDE adapter's "Master" setting may not actually be Master enough. I have now ordered the Startech IDE2SAT2 adapter, which has jumpers for setting Master/Slave/Cable select. Let's see if it helps.

[Wingen]

So here’s an update. The new SATA-IDE adapter (Startech IDE2SAT2) works perfectly without any configuration. The jumper was set to Master and OS9 booted effortlessly the very first time I started the computer. So that’s a happy ending. 

[Hopfenholz]

Great that you got a happy ending. I have had a similar experience with a cheap MSATA > IDE adapter - OS9 does’t recognise at all. I will try removing the DVD drive and see if that makes a difference, or indeed playing around with jumpers.

[IIO]

is that bc of the machine having only only one bus for HD and CD? (question goes to you know who you are)