G4 Hdd

P

pyrojunky

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I have a 500 Mhz G4 AGP. I installed OSX on an external lacie so that I could get it working. I also bought a new DVD drive and HDD. The drive went in fine. The problem with the HDD is that the pins on the left are reversed from how they should be to fit into the ribbon cable. The original HDD in the machine also doesn't work now. It originally had OS 9.2 when I first got it. I fiddled with it a little and uplugged it and stuff. I didn't think I had done anything. But now it doesn't show up.

thanks for the help!
 
sounds silly, but did you try turning the cable upside down? also, is the cable that you are trying to plug into the drive connected to the motherboard, or a pci card? if its a card, did the card come with the mac new? if it did, then thats scsi, and i'm willing to bet you didn't buy a new scsi drive due to the price. if connected to the motherboard, then any ide or ata drive drive should connect to it just fine. then if you got a sata drive, it will not work at all with that g4 without a sata pci card. but being you only are having problems with the hard drive, i think that you have a scsi card with the old hard drive on it, and that is why the new drive is not connecting.
 
The hard drive says that it is ATA/IDE... it seems that the pins on it would connect to the ribbon cable... but they are the same as the ones on the ribbon cable... they should be opposite of each other but they are the same... is there some sort of converter or something to make them connect?
 
An IDE cable does not have pins (male), but has sockets (female) for the pins on the hard drive. Sounds like you have an IDE extender cable.
If the connections on the hard drive are female sockets, and not pins, then you have a strange one, indeed.
If the IDE cable has pins, and not sockets, then you have the wrong cable, and you should replace that with the correct one.
 
okay... the hard drive that originally was in the computer and was running OS9 and functioning has a female connector and the ribbon cables are male... the problem with the new drive is that it has male pins... is there a converter for this so that i can plug it into the ribbon cable?... the problem is that the original 20 GB hard drive doesn't appear...
 
I was actually joking, asking you to check the connectors, as whoever replaced your old drive must be laughing now...
The original IDE cable would have 3 connectors. One to the logic board, and one each for two hard drives - all female connectors. The cable would be very short, just long enough to connect from the logic board to the hard drives - maybe 3 inches total. Does your IDE cable run from the hard drive to the logic board, or to a PCI drive adapter card?
I've never seen an IDE hard drive with female connector.
If you are adding the new hard drive as a second drive, then the jumper plugs must be set for slave, with the first drive set as master (they may both be set as master, and that can't work)
What is the brand and model number from your old drive? should be on the label on the top of the drive itself. I'm interested to know what makes this drive different.

The hard drive (the older one) is not original, maybe you could ask whoever replaced the hard drive if THEY have an adapter. I think you could find one at any PC repair shop (although it's just not a standard part)
 
okay... the IDE cable has 4 connectors on it... currently is has one going to a card... and at the end of it is the original hard drive... the connectors on the IDE cable are all male... the hard drive has a female pin set... it seems to be original because it has the apple logo along with others on it... it's a quantum ML00700UQH48A... i can't really tell which one is the model number... the card is an expressPCI card...
 
Hate to keep asking the same questions, so I'll be more detailed about the connector. A male connector has metal pins, like wires. The IDE connector will usually have 40 pins. The female connector has sockets that those pins/wires plug into, that is, an open socket, with 40 sockets, matching the layout of the opposite connector.
Which do you have on your old hard drive - rows of pins (male), or rows of sockets (female)?
I've never seen a hard drive with a female connector, and I've got dozens of old, dead hard drives around here. Is it possible that there is already an adapter attached to the hard drive - reversing the actual connection?

added note: 4 connectors on the ribbon cable? Are you sure? One single IDE ribbon cable has either 1 connector on each end (total 2), or one more in the middle somewhere for a total of 3. IDE buses only support 2 drives on one cable, so the max on one cable is 3 connectors, with the third connecting to the IDE bus, either a card, or directly to the mother/logic board.
What do you have again?

You know, a couple of pictures would probably help a lot.
Any chance the drive looks like this?

If so, then you don't have an IDE drive at all, but a SCSI drive. And, you should have the proper IDE cable, just sitting not used. You just have to hunt that one out. Or, you might see an identical connector to your hard drive, but on the back corner of your logic board, perhaps with no cable.
Let us know what you find out.
 

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the original hard drive is an SCSI then... the cable that attaches it to the card has 4 connectors on it... they are all male... the new hard drive is IDE and it looks like the motherboard has a connection on it that is the same as the one on the hard drive... the new IDE hard drive has a male connection and there are no cables that fit the connection... I'm guessing that this is kind of a weird machine... it belonged to the fairfax county school system in virginia before i got it... I don't know what originally came on this machine and what was added... The graphics card has both a VGA and a DVI connection... it has 2 other cards on it also... one is the expreePCI UL2D and the other one i can't really tell what it is... the pins look like they could be for a hard drive but don't match up with an IDE they are wider... so connecting the new hard drive looks to be a matter of getting a cable to connect it to the motherboard...
 
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