Trouble with SSD on G4 Cube.

[siddhartha]

Hi,

I have a couple questions about a problem I am having:

After a long wait, I managed to track down a Cube G4 power supply, so tried to see what I could do with my 2 G4 Cubes. One boots off its IDE drive, and has both Mac OS 9, and Tiger installed. It has a faulty DVD drive, and a crack in the case right at the DVD slot.
The other is in excellent shape. I am not sure of its history, but it came to me without a HD, has the DVD drive, and some memory installed. I tried the power supply on that Cube (Cube sold to me as "unknown" status), and all things looked promising, so I installed memory, the Startech IDE adapter (jumper set to Master), and tried to install an OS. At first, the Tiger DVD loaded, and I was able to install it on the SSD, but then, it's unable to boot from it. I then tried to get OS9 installed-same thing.
Finally, this morning, took out the SSD, and used that same adapter to use a small (60GB) laptop HD. Works. The Mac OS 9 disc loaded as before, I was able to initialize, and start from the HD.
So, my question is why can I not boot from the SSD? It's a 500GB model, and I used the Mac OS9, and also tried the Mac OSX Tiger boot DVDs to get it started. It will allow me to see the SSD, format it, and install an OS to it, but I cannot get it to startup off the SSD. If I hold "option" with the SSD installed (after loading an OS on it) it will only show the CD/DVD. It won't show the SSD if installed.
I am wondering if this is because of the size limitation with OS9/Tiger on this machine, and that because the drive is "too big" I need to format in a special way, or partition it in a special way. I did try a 120GB partition, but that didn't seem to help.
So, for now, I am using it on Mac OS9 with the 60GB desktop (2.5") HD, but would really like to get both of these Cubes up and running with SSDs.

It may be a simple fix for all of you, but for me? Please help!

Thanks
Chris

[FBz]

Still, no Cube here in my collection.

Which make & model of SSD are you attempting to use?
Some simply will not work, regardless of size.

AND you might try the “building block” install approach:

If you don’t have the original OS install discs for the Cube, you might try formatting and partitioning the SSD
with an Apple original OS 9.0.4 or 9.1 disc to see if the SSD would then boot from either of those.
Then… update from there to 9.2.2 and some version of OS X on a second partition...
if the attempted basic install boots).

Other possibilities:
Might also try changing StarTech jumper from Master to Slave?
And check the jumpers on your DVD drive.
AND… any jumpers / pins on the actual SSD itself? Some do.

Good luck.

This guy… says nothing larger than 128 GB SSD?
[30:27] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvWjIk4bkhk

This guy… uses a Toshiba 120 GB SSD.
[14:11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j5sUUstI1o

Surely, actual Cube owners here will comment on HD size limitations.

[siddhartha]

Thank you!

I tried the different jumper settings already, with no luck. I am going to look at the firmware, and see if it needs updating. It is happy right now with the 60GB laptop drive, so I can do that, at least.
I was able to boot up a couple of times with my Tiger DVD (not a retail copy), but lately, it's just spinning the wheel, with the Apple logo.
There are no jumpers on the DVD drive (read somewhere that they were factory set to "Master," but all other sources said "Slave," so I tried both/all jumper settings on the adapter) and no jumpers on the drive, which is a SK hynix Gold S31 500GB 3D NAND 2.5 inch SATA III Internal SSD - up to 560MB/s.
The laptop drive is a 60gb HD, not an SSD.

I thought that if a larger drive was installed, it would work, just that the computer wouldn't "see" any more than the 128GB partition. Then, there are other ways after the fact to allow it to use additional space. But, I didn't think (hope not) that it would be a "deal breaker" for a boot drive. I have seen online people with large SSDs in a Cube, with separate partitions of 128GB. I'd love to do that.

So, my working suspicion thus far is that I cannot use a boot drive larger than 128GB, or that it needs a particular way of partitioning/formatting to get it going. I hope that's the case, as I'd like a faster SSD in the system.

Does anyone know how to check the firmware version of the Cube?

It appears to me that this Cube is nearly new, with little use, and I'm happy that it's working, at least. It does show a thin pink line on the 17" Studio display, which it originally did not, so I am sure it's from when I was manipulating the video card, and maybe didn't seat it 100%, or damaged it. It's OK-I have a spare if needed, and a GeForce 6200 on the way to flash. But, I'd like to get it properly set up with a dual-boot scenario on the SSD.

Thanks for your help, and anyone else who chimes in!

[IIO]

i am just guessing and i am too lazy to look. can it be that there is only one IDE bus in a cube and the optical drive requires to be the master?

[siddhartha]

Thanks for the input-but, I have tried the SSD on both Slave, and Master (as well as the cable select, and other setting) with no success.

I did upgrade the firmware on the Cube today to the latest available. Since then:

Today, I installed OSX Tiger, and partitioned the laptop HD (using IDE/SSD adapter set to Master) to two 30GB partitions, and am ready to install Mac OS 9.2.2 

That said, I'd love to get this one on to the SSD. I also just got some 512MB memory cards to upgrade my Cube(s).
If I can get a 500GB SSD installed, I will, otherwise, may resort to 120GB SSD/adapters. What works.

I may pick up yet another Cube setup this Monday, as I cannot resist. IMHO, the most beautiful Mac ever produced!