Copying a Hard Drive in B&W G3

[Default]

Currently installed is a 20gb maxtor 5400rmp disk running OSZ1 9.2.2 and had intentded to replace it with a 40gb Western digital.

Having installed both drives i copied the entire contents of the original drive into the new one. Selected the new start up disk in control panels and restart only to find a folder blinking back and forth between a Question mark and a happy mac but no susseful boot.

At this point i restarted trying a P-ram zap, Extensions off, and rebuilding of the desktop. Managed to get half way before a series of error code one after the other.

I have booted back up on the original drive and have scanned with both nortons and Diskwarrior.

Nortons was able to find several major problems but would Quit due to an unkowen error and the same in diskwarrior.

I have tried this copying procedure before in older macs and has worked fine.


Any suggestions and or ways around this would be apprieciated.

[biggles]

Default,

welcome to the forums.

This sounds like the old flakey IDE chip issue with Rev.1 B&W's. I don't know, and you may not either, whether yours is a Rev.1 machine, but this link may help you indentify it. This is the first thing we need to know. If it is a Rev.1 then it's almost certainly a data corruption issue. I'm led to believe that this can also be an issue with some Rev.2 machines, and the recommended practice is to use a PCI host card for the newer, bigger, faster drives, be they ATA or Serial ATA.

biggles.

[TZ]

If you have a Rev 2, or if you have a PCI card that should avoid data corruption problem that you may be having.

Try with just the new drive.

boot into Open Firmware if that doesn't work and reset-nvram, or do a PRAM reset from cold boot again.

make sure the drives are jumpered properly and master on end, slave in middle, and WD drives are... strange about jumpers. Master with slave, master only.

A PCI card helps a lot.

[Default]

It's definitly a rev 1 it's got a PCI646U2 chip. So most likely data corruption.

I would use a PCI card but these things are expensive. I have an Acard AEC-6880m in my 9500 but i need it there.

I got a hold of tech tool pro 3 so i'll see if i get anywhere with that.

Just one Question how do you reset-nvram?

[biggles]

To reset nvram, restart the computer and at the chime hold down the 4 keys Command-Option-o-f until the Open Firmware command-line screen appears, then at the prompt type the following;

reset-nvram (return)

set-defaults (return)

reset-all (return)

the computer will now restart.

Since you have the ACard host, could you not borrow it from the 9500 and use it in the B&W just to copy your 20GB drive to the 40GB, running both drives off the ACard, and then install the 40GB as the sole drive on the native IDE bus? That at least should get the data moved, and you may find that the 40GB will run OK on it's own. That was the case with my Smurf when I tried it with a single 40GB Barracuda IV. YMMV.

[TZ]

I don't think Drive Setup in OS 9 is going to create a universal driver for use on IDE bus and ACard. Jaguar will. So check that out.

I really recommend some of the links on PRAM/NVRAM in the Troubleshooting Guide.

Adding and removing a controller can corrupt NVRAM, not always but can happen. And you will need to reset the startup disk no matter what you do probably.

I'd get a controller just to use in the B&W. And even 160GB drives are under $100. Always plan on leaving 50% free space, never less than 25% (15% and you can run into trouble).

I was so disappointed with disk drive performance with the B&W I opted for Ultra2 SCSI. A good drive and controller can get ~50MB/sec while native IDE is limited to under 20MB/sec.

Even if your new drive works - there is no guarantee you will avoid data corruption which is why there is a test utility for B&W - check B&W Upgrades as well as the G3-Zone .