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[cedsrepairs]

Hello everyone,
New member here but long time vintage collector,

I'm trying to repair a Powerbook G3 300Mhz, I'd like to swap the stock IDE with a CF or SSD

However all my attempts end up in disaster, under Macos 9.2.2

I've tried Sandisk CF, Transcend CF, Transcend Industrial CF
IDE to SATA with SSD disk
IDE to SD with sandisk extreme pro 64GB

In each case, the system boots, but isunreliable when writing a lot of data. reading seems to be ok for moderate everyday use (i've not seen freeze without writing a lot of data)
Writing from the cdrom drive seems to work (probably because the rate of data os low)
Writing from ethernet quickly freezes
copying large files from withing the SD , CF or SSD quickly freezes

Small files (<10MB) can be written, but anything bigger than that freeze the system
Replacing the original HD solves the issue

As I've spent more on adapters than on buying the PDQ, I'd like some help from more experienced people

[FBz]

Don’t know if you’ve seen this related thread but “we” endured similar problems with Lombard(s).
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,6065.msg45246.html#msg45246
Reading through that entire thread might provide you with some possibly very related hints / clues.

But definitely download and run the small “PPC Checker” app from http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,6065.msg45686.html#msg45686
- to see if you possibly have the dreaded PowerPC 750L (LoneStar, Rev2.2) Copper G3 PVR = 0x00088202 CPU.

*And note that the SATA2IDE44VAO (AS331 V1.5) adapters mentioned, are no longer available. (Unless you can find a new source?)

BUT... the CF approach seems to have worked the best, all around.

[cedsrepairs]

Interesting,
At this stage I'm open to all suggestions.

Wehn I try to put one of the CF cards that hang, into an external pcmcia to CF, and plug them into the powerbook, I have no problem copying from, writing to, or even duplicating files on the cf card.
This seems specific to the internal drive.
Or writing fast to it, or something like that.

Your software reports PowerPC 750 or 750p; Arthur or Conan, Aluminium G3. PVR 00080202

At this stage I'm trying to figure out if my PDQ is braindead, or is just allergic to anything else than spinning hard disk.
What is  bizarre is that I see countless reports of wallstreets running with CF, or SSD.

And I tried just about everything with exactly the same problem, whatever the technology...

[FBz]

If the HD connection is anything like the ribbon cable of the Lombard, I’d certainly inspect that all very closely. Especially the connections at the CF / SSD adapter, etc.

It could “simply” be a matter of poor connection(s).

Might also try an original base System 8.1 install first, then update to OS 9.0… then update to 9.2.2 / testing all along the way.
If same results with 8.1 - then no need to proceed without running some hardware diagnostics with original IDE spinner back in place.
And if that then checks out ok, then check with other varieties.

AND if your original IDE drive is less than 8GB in size, you might need to multi-partition and install OS 9 (etc.) on the very first partition, sized 8GB or less on your SSD or CF.

I know - no fun at all, and it’s maddening.
BUT great that it doesn’t have that crap CPU, like my Lombard.

If yours was brain dead, it wouldn’t still work well with the original IDE drive.
And really, all that I'm likely to suggest is in that Lombard thread. (No PDQ here to test.)

Anyone else here???

[cedsrepairs]

It's true that one thing all my attempts have in common, is that I always installed 9.2.2
(Either from a macos cdrom or with the macos9lives universal image)

At this stage, I could as well try a 8 or heck an 10.2 and see if the problem is limited to 9.2.
That would already be something.

What I really don't understand is how it's possible for MacOS9.2.2 to write and copy/to/from a Transcend Industrial CF when it is in the pcmcia slot, and then completely give up if I put it in the internal IDE slot (okay the adapter is not the same but these are 100% passive I doubt this makes any difference)

This of course I could not try with the other technologies that I tried and also failed (IDE to SD card and IDE to nvme SSD)

The IDE connection in the PDQ (or the wallstreet I suppose) is thru kind of an "edge slot" that inserts just next to the slots of the CPU card. There is not flat cable but this system doesn't seem much more reliable to me.

I've seen a single mention on a forum somewhere of something that MIGHT be related, is the fact that only specific Compactflash card brands (sandisk) implement some advanced IDE functions like multi sector read/write. As I suppose Apple was at the cutting edge ; maybe what works in a PC doesn't work well in a Mac. This is a theory that is difficult to verify but it's interesting indeed. It really seems my problem is somewhat related to the speed of writing, or writing much.
At first I thought of a temperature problem too - but the cards are not particularly hot to me.

I'll try other Macoses.

[FBz]

At one point (very long ago - before even ever attempting SSD or CF in the Lombard) it was necessary for me to install OS 9.0 first and then do the subsequent Apple updates to get the Lombard to 9.2. on the original IDE drive. Now, maybe not the case - as most recently installing OS 9.2 on SSD or CF, FIRST in a Quicksilver - before then moving it into the Lombard did work.

Previous CF testing here in the Lombard was with a SanDisk Extreme 64GB (120 MB/S) UDMA 7 card. (So that did work in the Lombard.)

My only remaining question of you is: Are there jumper settings available on your CF converter and have you tried different settings if so? (i.e. Master, Slave, Cable Select?)

Oh, one more question… format and partition the SSD or CF using Drive Setup 1.9.2 or Drive Setup 2.1 before installing 9.2.2? This could possibly make a difference.

[refinery]

Have you tried formatting and doing a fresh install with it directly in the ide adapter?
Drive setup installs a bunch of extra driver stuff if it recognizes it as an external drive. Might be causing some conflict when it gets moved over to the internal bus.

[teroyk]

I'm trying to repair a Powerbook G3 300Mhz, I'd like to swap the stock IDE with a CF or SSD
...
Small files (<10MB) can be written, but anything bigger than that freeze the system
Replacing the original HD solves the issue

One thing you have to know PDQ it can boot only under 8 GB, but you can install 120 GB disk.
I made four 2 GB partitions to different OS version for multiboot and then fifth 100 GB partition for data.
I used unbranded IDE to M.2 adapter, but  i do not recommend because there reasons:
- that it is slow
- it did not work any OSX version, installation make kernel panic...original HDD works with OSX10.2.
- Mac OS 9.2.2 hang when choose to boot 8.6 or 8.1 to boot (after restart it boots)
But why I use it:
- It works with Mac OS 9.2.2 (only that above thing is problem)
- it work also with MacOS8.1 and 8.6 and when choosing different boot device those OS also works
- I have not tested any another adapter

But I think it is better use high quality IDE SSD than any cheap adapter with Powerbook G3 PDQ.

[dosdude1]

With regard to CF card issues, there's a good chance most cards could be made to work significantly better simply by reprogramming the card, as I explain in my video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oybjii2qnxM

As for using IDE to SATA adapters, I would HIGHLY recommend avoiding these. Most of the widely available ones utilize the horrible JMicron JM20330 SATA-IDE bridge IC, which is known to have compatibility issues with many machines, and perform very poorly when it does work.

Lastly, I have also designed and built my own custom 2.5" IDE SSD, which should work great in machines like these.

[refinery]

Holy smokes that's awesome!!!

[IIO]

it can´t be the case here, but the symptom you describe (small files work, long files break) reminds me on SATA 300 HDs i´ve been using with cheap SATA adapters when i forgot to jumper them to to 150 mode - the issue was somehow releated to the buffer of the medium, who´s size could not be correctly interpreted by OS9 and OSX or the host controller or whatever, so whenever the buffer was full the copying broke.

[teroyk]

Lastly, I have also designed and built my own custom 2.5" IDE SSD, which should work great in machines like these.

Do you build them for sale?

[dosdude1]

Lastly, I have also designed and built my own custom 2.5" IDE SSD, which should work great in machines like these.

Do you build them for sale?

Yes, I have plenty of them available. Just send me a PM if you're interested in buying one.

[ssp3]

As for using IDE to SATA adapters, I would HIGHLY recommend avoiding these. Most of the widely available ones utilize the horrible JMicron JM20330 SATA-IDE bridge IC, which is known to have compatibility issues with many machines, and perform very poorly when it does work.

Thanks for pointing this out! I almost fell for 40 pin variety of such adapter to replace IDE drives in my Socket 7 motherboard based standalone HD recorders.

Lastly, I have also designed and built my own custom 2.5" IDE SSD, which should work great in machines like these.

Cool! Love the matched trace lenght on PCB.    Will there be a 40 pin version?

[dosdude1]

As for using IDE to SATA adapters, I would HIGHLY recommend avoiding these. Most of the widely available ones utilize the horrible JMicron JM20330 SATA-IDE bridge IC, which is known to have compatibility issues with many machines, and perform very poorly when it does work.

Thanks for pointing this out! I almost fell for 40 pin variety of such adapter to replace IDE drives in my Socket 7 motherboard based standalone HD recorders.

Lastly, I have also designed and built my own custom 2.5" IDE SSD, which should work great in machines like these.

Cool! Love the matched trace lenght on PCB.    Will there be a 40 pin version?

I'm not sure if I'm going to make a 3.5" version, as you can simply use a standard cheap 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter. I do have the design open source on my GitHub, so you can always adapt that to your own design to suit your needs: https://github.com/dosdude1/2.5-inch-ide-ssd

[cedsrepairs]

I've made some progress, but as I don't want to spread misinformation I'm really trying to reproduce my findings before posting them.
I do have a working PDQ with solid state disk now, I'm filling it will all the warez I can find to be sure that it is indeed reliable this time.

I have to agree with the above comment that the most unreliable of them all seems to be the IDE to SATA, the chipset marking was erased on mine (which is never a good sign) and it's clearly a heap of crap. I even got difficulties to even boot with this one.

All the technologies I tried "pretend" to work, and seem to work until you put actual workload on it, like parallel access (typically I play an MP3 while copying files over ethernet). Then problems arise.

Also, I also finally got the CF cards to crash the system even when used for reading inside the pcmcia slot. So this is not purely a write problem, but it's more difficult to reproduce in reading.

I believe it all ends up being related to the MultiWord DMA and UDMA protocols being fully implemented or not. Clearly the end of nineties Mac seem to use ALL the features of the UDMA protocol which is not the case in the PC world of the same era. Systems that have caused me zero trouble in resurrecting countless toshibas or compaq are a disaster in the powerbook world. 

I'm curious if Dosdude1 could confirm, as he had to chose a DMA chipset which can answer a powerbook.

I'll keep updating you of my findings when i'm sure of the root cause

[dosdude1]

I've made some progress, but as I don't want to spread misinformation I'm really trying to reproduce my findings before posting them.
I do have a working PDQ with solid state disk now, I'm filling it will all the warez I can find to be sure that it is indeed reliable this time.

I have to agree with the above comment that the most unreliable of them all seems to be the IDE to SATA, the chipset marking was erased on mine (which is never a good sign) and it's clearly a heap of crap. I even got difficulties to even boot with this one.

All the technologies I tried "pretend" to work, and seem to work until you put actual workload on it, like parallel access (typically I play an MP3 while copying files over ethernet). Then problems arise.

Also, I also finally got the CF cards to crash the system even when used for reading inside the pcmcia slot. So this is not purely a write problem, but it's more difficult to reproduce in reading.

I believe it all ends up being related to the MultiWord DMA and UDMA protocols being fully implemented or not. Clearly the end of nineties Mac seem to use ALL the features of the UDMA protocol which is not the case in the PC world of the same era. Systems that have caused me zero trouble in resurrecting countless toshibas or compaq are a disaster in the powerbook world. 

I'm curious if Dosdude1 could confirm, as he had to chose a DMA chipset which can answer a powerbook.

I'll keep updating you of my findings when i'm sure of the root cause

Did you try reprogramming the CF card as I posted above (if it's SM2236-based, of course, which is highly likely)?  I'm very curious if that would solve the issue, as it did with my 2008 MacBook Air. Also, with that SM2236 MPTool, you can manually set the max UDMA mode and such of the controller, so that's another thing to try that would probably further help.

[dosdude1]

I just finished performing a G4 CPU upgrade on a PB G3 Lombard processor card for someone, so I figured I'd test my SSD on my Lombard while testing the card (as its original hard disk was dead). It works absolutely perfectly, without a hitch, but it seems these older systems can only detect a drive up to 128GB.

[DieHard]

I'll select a quote and then go a little off-topic...

but it seems these older systems can only detect a drive up to 128GB

The original IDE LBA specifications used 28 bits, and that's enough addressing space (with normal HDD organization) to handle up to 127 GB.  The newer 48-bit standard was introduced circa 2000 and will break that limit...

For 48-bit LBA to work, you need three things:
(a) the HDD must support 48-bit LBA;
(b) the HDD controller must support it; and,
(c) the Operating system (OS9 is good to go)

As far as G4 laptops that boot natively to OS9, Titanium 867 and 1 Ghz. will address hard drives larger than 128GB

One interesting note is that all documentation for the G4 DA (Digital Audio) Dekstop, claims that the Motherboard is NOT 48-bit LBA compliant, yet we have successfully installed 500GB drives (under OS 9.2.2) and had full access to the entire drive...
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,6233.0.html

In this topic, there is a strange result for the G4 DA, amazingly in OS X 10.4 and 10.5, the Digital audio cannot access the full 128GB, so there is obviously an issue (whether intentional or by mistake) in Apple's OS coding:

OK, I know this is crazy, but I confirmed today that FBz results are 100% accurate.

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 will only partition/initialize a 500GB Western digital (WD5000AAKB) as 128GB !

So the Digital Audio 533 large drive access is crippled under every version of OS X we tested, yet Mac OS 9.2.2 (Drive setup 2.1) will Partition/initialized large drives and all partitions are fully working without issues.  I filled the entire 500GB drive under OS 9.2.2 and all volumes still test perfectly with First Aid.

So, to clarify the DA 533 can support large drives, but in an OS9 only environment. Mac OS X or Dual boot systems will NOT support large drives and will most likely lead to corrupting the volumes (past 128GB) when accessing them in OS X.

[FBz]

I just finished performing a G4 CPU upgrade on a PB G3 Lombard processor card for someone, so I figured I'd test my SSD on my Lombard while testing the card (as its original hard disk was dead). It works absolutely perfectly, without a hitch.

Any chance you might run QuickBench and post those results (from OS 9)
and if you also install Panther - posting XBench results too would also be greatly appreciated.