Author Topic: Hard Crash!  (Read 3130 times)

Offline sokukodo

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Hard Crash!
« on: October 30, 2006, 08:56:22 AM »
Well, it finally happened: weird things started happening, such as beach balls spinning forever and "force quit" not working; dock freezing; inability to shut down without unplugging the whole system. Ran "Applejack" and saw that the hard drive was failing: it attempted 10 times to repair, gave up and suggested Disk Warrior, then promptly shut down. Rebooted, heard the hard drive clicking and grinding, all fans screaming ... never made it to the log in screen (actually, couldn't get past the grey apple that precedes booting into OS X); rebooted into Safe mode (command-s) and saw a message that Journaling wasn't working, and something like, "sbin/start-up/failed, error 85". I could not boot into the Disk Warrior CD, wouldn't boot into anything. Looks like I'm going to have to reinstall OS X after I find another hard drive ...

So. looks like it's time for a new Hard Drive. The original hard drive is a 250 Gb Maxtor (SATA? ATA? can't remember ... whatever came in an original G5 2 Ghz Dualie (Rev A). My question is, where would be a good place to start shopping (on-line)?

Just checked Apple's web site and didn't see anything (I'm at work now and browsing around).
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Offline bil207

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« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2006, 09:30:04 AM »
The G5 uses SATA hard drives.

I get my drives from Newegg.

Low prices on both drives and shipping. smile.gif
Bill

Offline sokukodo

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« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2006, 09:47:18 AM »
QUOTE(bil207 @ Oct 30 2006, 10:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
The G5 uses SATA hard drives.

I get my drives from Newegg.

Low prices on both drives and shipping. smile.gif


Thanks, Bill. Is the G5 Rev A limited to 250 Gb HDs? There's two slots available and I'm thinking that maybe I will add a second one while I'm at it (or would an external second drive be wiser?) ...  yahoo.gif
Richard
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Offline Paddy

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« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2006, 09:55:07 AM »
My vote also goes to NewEgg; bought many drives there! However, I opt for the Seagates with their 5 year warranties. And can 547 happy customers be wrong?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148140

320GB for $95. Can't go wrong with that. smile.gif

From what I can tell, there are no drive size limits on the newer Macs - the only reference online is an old one quoted from Apple as a "suggested" limit of 500GB total, but that was back when all THEY offered was 2X250GB drives, and the person responding to the question on a message board had a total of 850GB in a MDD. As another wag said, "your PowerMac can accept more storage than you can afford." wink.gif

I have two drives in my G5 - one is an exact mirror of the other, backed up every night. I also have a 250GB external, which is also an exact mirror, backed up every night and very useful for traveling - I don't have to worry if my Powerbook is up to date or not, as long as I have the external with me. I can't put everything on my G5 drive on the Powerbook anyway; the PB drive is only 100 GB and I've got about 150GB used on my G5. Drives are too cheap these days to chintz out on backup. Redundancy is good.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2006, 10:03:17 AM by Paddy »
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Offline bil207

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« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2006, 10:07:52 AM »
There is no size limitation for drives in the G5 PM.

Unless you need the portability of an external I would go for  a second internal hd.

I agree with Paddy on Seagate hard drives quiet, cool and reliable w/ a 5yr. warranty. smile.gif
Bill

Offline sokukodo

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« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2006, 11:22:37 AM »
Thanks a million, Paddy & Bill ... I think I'll grab two 320 Gb Seagates ... I'm asuming G5 (rev A) compatibility ... I downloaded a pdf on installing hard drives from the Apple website, and it doesn't look that difficult. The idea of using the 2nd drive to mirror the first is a good idea. Incidentally, never having had two hard drives, are there separate log-ins, or does the machine "see" the two drives as one big one?  dntknw.gif
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Offline krissel

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« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2006, 11:01:37 PM »
Two hard drives will show up on the desktop as just that, two icons, each separate.

If you have a system on each you can choose either to be the boot drive. Of course that's extremely convenient for troubleshooting.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2006, 11:02:01 PM by krissel »


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Offline sokukodo

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« Reply #7 on: October 31, 2006, 09:40:17 AM »
I'm hearing conflicting things as to whether I can install these hard drives without a second machine, firewire connection (from another drive).

How can I install OS X? Since Disk Utility is part of the operating system I'm installing, how do I install? Booting from the boot-disk: hold the "c" key and do a "cold start" (rebooting from scratch)

Then I'm also hearing that there are two types of SATA hard drives: the SATA150 at 1.5 Gb/sec and the newer SATA 3.0 Gb type with twice the data transfer rate.  Do they share a common interface with a motherboard?
Beats me ... I thought that as long as they were SATA that it wd be ok. Maybe not. I just bought (arriving today) two Seagates of the newer variety. Guess I  may have to send it back.
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Offline krissel

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« Reply #8 on: October 31, 2006, 11:15:56 PM »
QUOTE(sokukodo @ Oct 31 2006, 10:40 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
How can I install OS X? Since Disk Utility is part of the operating system I'm installing, how do I install? Booting from the boot-disk: hold the "c" key and do a "cold start" (rebooting from scratch)


Yup, boot to the CD/DVD and install.


According to info on this page the 'faster' SATA drives are backwards compatible with the earlier speed.

http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp

At least one drive comes preset to the slower speed:

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-283-1.htm


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MamaMoose

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Hard Crash!
« Reply #9 on: October 31, 2006, 11:58:32 PM »
Sokukodo,

Be very careful in installing hard drives in the dual 2 GHz G5. On mine (rev A), when  the top drive failed, I could not remove it. It was stuck. Natural;ly, I was afraid to pull too hard for fear of ruining something. So, I took the G5 to my local Portland Mac Store (not an Apple store) and the tech could not remove it. She made a call to PowerMax (A large Apple reseller and repair center who owns the Portland Mac Stores) and they told her to grab the drive with a pair of locking pliers and PUUUUUL! Out it came! I think Apple pushed the tolerances a little too tight on the hard drive mount. Perhaps just carrying it caused the problem.

MamaMoose

Offline sokukodo

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« Reply #10 on: November 04, 2006, 10:58:10 AM »
Installed the two 320 GB hard drives last night with no problem; have them mirrored, using the second drive as a back-up. One question: the lower drive didn't come with drive screws so I slid it in anyway. Works fine, at least for now. Is there a downside to this? Are these screws necessary?
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Offline Paddy

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« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2006, 11:25:13 AM »
Were there no "guide" screws on the side of the hard drive bay in the G5? Mine had them - so you might want to take a look inside again. I just substituted those for the HD screws that came with the drive.

Otherwise, probably no harm without them, if you're not moving your machine around. The drive bays aren't big enough to allow the drives much room to slip around!
"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into committees. That'll do them in." ~Author unknown •iMac 5K, 27" 3.6Ghz i9 (2019) • 16" M1 MBP(2021) • 9.7" iPad Pro • iPhone 13

Offline sokukodo

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« Reply #12 on: November 04, 2006, 11:42:28 AM »
Now that you mention it, there ARE screws located just adjacent to the drive bay (DOH!) ... oh well, I'll put them in later. Incidentally, these hard drives are cool to the touch! I had read some reports of high temps, but after running these things all night and this morning, they are actually room temperature (cool, compared to the heat of the graphics card!).
Richard
2.5 Ghz GHz Intel Core i5 iMac, 21.5" display w/4 GB RAM;
Grado headphones (RS 1); AKG K701 headphones;
HeadRoom Ultra Micro amp + Astrodyne power supply; HeadRoom Ultra Micro DAC + Astrodyne power supply;
Running 10.7.2
Retired, US Army Corps of Engineers