Author Topic: Back again with my wayward G4 AGP (Read 2732 times)

David · « **on:** October 28, 2009, 07:12:56 PM »

Hi Everyone,

I'm back after an involuntary, but necessary, time away from home and access to my wayward G4 AGP.
However, nice though it is to be home again, I've returned to the same faults with the G4 about which I posted some months ago and, being unable to find that thread, I must now burden you with the symptoms again. However, this time I have some additional goodies lurking in the sidelines which may help.

Quite suddenly, earlier this year, my machine began to refuse to shut-down when I select the "Shut Down" option from the finder's Apple Menu. I am given a two minute option to Shut Down or Cancel but, when I select Shut Down, all that happens is that the finder, all desktop icons and the cursor disappear - leaving me with my desktop pattern. To actually turn the machine OFF, I must depress the Power I/O button for 5 seconds

The "Restart" option doesn't work either but the "Sleep" option does and this is what I am predominantly using - it clears the screens completely and puts the monitors on stand by.

Furthermore, since returning home a few days ago, after the very few occasions that I used the I/O button to shut down, at Power On, I am now being asked for my Password to login. This is a totally new glitch to me - despite the other faults, I've never had to login before.

It's a G4 AGP @ 400MHz with 1 GB RAM running OS 10.4.11. on an 8 GB drive which is almost full - only 300 MB available

I've installed an additional 128 MB Drive partitioned into 2 x 64 MB - both currently empty at 63.83 MB available.

Waiting in the aforementioned sidelines and currently uninstalled are:
1. NewerTech MaxPro 1.6 GHz Processor Upgrade
2. 2 x 512 MB SDRAMs
3. OSX Leopard 10.5.6
4. Seagate 500 GB SATA Drive
5. Sonnet Tempo Serial ATA PCI Adapter Card

Disc Utility, and TechTool Pro both show the 8 GB drive as being OK whilst DW says the drive is too severely damaged to continue.

If I try to re-install 10.4.11 the G4 reports an error on the install disc - hence the purchase of OSX 10.5.6 and the 1.6 GHz processor to support it.

Any suggestions as to what may be wrong and how to correct it?

My thoughts are with vague memories of replies to my previous thread which expressed shock and horror at my current hard drive being over-burdened. So, I apologise if I'm prompting repeated efforts on your part to guide me through this.

BTW - My planned purchase of a new Mac has been shelved pending a move to a New House in the New Year.

Regards to all and it's good to be reading the TS pages again.

David L.

chriskleeman · « **Reply #1 on:** October 28, 2009, 08:22:18 PM »

Nice to see you here David, not so nice to read about your G4... But, I hardly know where to start here, so many are the possibilities!

First, let's start with the error messages, inability to restart, having to log in... This may seem familiar to you, as you have alluded to, but your hard drive is way too full. Generally, I believe the rule of thumb would be to not exceed HD capacity to within 10-15% of any given drive's capacity, and you're drive is well beyond that safety zone. Also, it's probably getting quite tired and may not be viable... If S.M.A.R.T. status is supported, DU will tell you if the drive is failing if S.M.A.R.T status can't be verified. And there's probably not enough room left for the Tiger installer to work with to get a fresh OS installed anyway if the drive is that full.

I'd certainly back up any files you need to one of the partitions you have on the newer drive, and I'd try to install Tiger again on the other partition. Are you trying to install Tiger on the small, possibly damaged HD? That may well be the source of the "error" on the install disc you are seeing, as the Installer may not be able to get past a bad block on the HD. So clean that Install disc carefully and try to install on the other partition after you've backed up any data to the other one. I don't recall if you run any OS 9 programs either in Classic or booted up in 9, but you will not be able to run Classic in Leopard. Also, it would probably be more helpful when you install that MaxPro G4 upgrade processor... You're going to have to do a little bit of re-programming and possibly a firmware update to enable that processor. And Tiger will run faster than Leopard on the ATA 66 Bus that's in your machine until you put the much speedier SATA controller card and HD in.

I'd definitely get the new memory in after all the upgrading, at 1 GB, you've got enough basic RAM to run Leopard and see if you can get a stable install. Video RAM may be an issue trying to run Leopard, as Krissel and I are discussing in another thread. We both have heavily upgraded Digital Audio 533's. She's running Leopard on hers, but seems like you need a video card with 64 MB of VRAM to run Leopard on these older G4's. I have my original video card in mine and am having problems with freezing when the machine tries to wake up from sleep. These problems may be traced to a lack of VRAM, according to Krissel.

David, I hope some of this is helpful, you've got a lot of work to do on that old machine to get it going properly!

Cheers,

Chris K

Xairbusdriver · « **Reply #2 on:** October 28, 2009, 08:25:38 PM »

That 8GB drive is certainly overloaded. I suspect that, on shutdown, the OS is having a very difficult time finding space to save its new info for the session.

Even if the above is incorrect, I don't think any installer would be able to use so little disk space for another attempt at installing or even reinstalling Tiger.

First two things that come to mind are:
1. Open "Force Quit..." before the next shutdown. Hopefully, it may remain open and show an app that is refusing to quit. Maybe just because it can't find space to write new prefs before erasing the old one.
2. Open "Activity Monitor" before the next shutdown and look for any process that is still running.

You can try resetting your password and check the settings in the System Prefs->Accounts Panel. That may be enough to force the prefs to be usable on the next start up. Here is an Apple Support page with instructions.

Assuming that neither of the above remain open and you can't see what is holding up things, I would highly recommend connecting that 500GB drive, ASAP. Move everything except Apple's stuff and the OS to the new drive. Move all your third-party apps, documents, files. Hopefully that will provide at least a gigibyte of space on the 8GB drive. But I still doubt that you can install a new OS on it, that may requite a complete erase and install!!!

Perhaps one of our G4 experts will be along soon and provide some useful guidance.

Questions for you and/or them:

Paddy · « **Reply #3 on:** October 28, 2009, 09:54:22 PM »

Welcome back, David!

As the others have already said - your lack of free space on the drive is a critical issue.

You said you'd installed an additional "128 MB" drive...did you mean MB or GB? 128MB is NOT going to help one whit at this point! Please clarify!

Lack of free space can cause all sorts of weird symptoms.

Here's a good list of stuff you can safely trash/move:

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html

However, at 8GB, just your OS and your applications are going to have gobbled most of that drive so there may be little to trash.

BTW - the percentage of free space isn't what you should be worried about these days. Some drives are huge - 15% of a 1 TB drive would be a whopping 150GB (give or take a few) while 15% of a 100GB drive is less than 15GB. From what I've read, 5 or 6GB of headroom is a minimum and you've got nowhere near that. Can't find where I read that, but it seems reasonable. However, I'd never let it get even that close.

Installing Leopard requires 9 GB of free space - more than you have on that little 8GB drive.

If that second drive you put in is actually only 128 MB, I'd suggest biting the bullet and installing your new SATA controller card and the new drive - and the new RAM. From what I can see, the Sonnet SATA controller should run fine on 10.4.11. Then install 10.4.11 on the new drive - I'd be inclined to do a nice clean install from scratch, and then use Migration Assistant to move anything from the old drive. THEN see if everything is functioning ok. If so, proceed with the processor upgrade and finally, the Leopard install.

If the other drive is 128GB, then install 10.4.11 on that (from the CD) and see if things improve, and then proceed with the upgrades as I outlined above.

DiskWarrior's error reporting is worrisome - I wouldn't ignore it. Whatever you do, backup anything on that 8GB drive that is irreplaceable ASAP - even if it means burning a bunch of CDs!

chriskleeman · « **Reply #4 on:** October 28, 2009, 10:31:34 PM »

Paddy, I just assumed that was a typo re: 128 MB drive, figured he meant GB... Thanks Jim, what am I, chopped G4 meat?

In any case, I don't think that AGP G4 can see anything more than 128 GB on it's internal ATA 66 bus.

I'd take this one step at a time David, assuming that the other internal drive you've put in is actually 128 GB. If not, then definitely connect up that SATA drive and controller and install away. I'd vote for having at least 3 partitions on that SATA drive, because if you want to boot into 9, or use Classic, you'll need a 10.4.11 partition with the OS 9 drivers installed, as well as one with Leopard.

And IAW Paddy, back up, back up, back up!!!

CK

krissel · « **Reply #5 on:** October 29, 2009, 01:34:50 AM »

Hi David, good to see you again.

Pretty much agree with what has been suggested so far. Your present drive should be abandoned as soon as possible. Backup or clone to an external or the 128GB or do an fresh install and migrate as has been mentioned. Put in the RAM and check running, sleep and reboot. Then you might consider an archive and install of Tiger onto the partition if you cloned your present drive and Leopard to the other. Put OS 9 in with Tiger and you should be able to boot to it but make sure. If all works well then you can remove the 8G drive.

Next step is either putting in the SATA controller and drive or the processor. I'd be tempted to do the processor first since it will make any further activity that much faster. You may have to do a firmware upgrade so be sure if you need to boot to OS 9 to do it that it is still possible to do so before you go too far. Then proceed with the SATA installs and Leopard.

Note: Chris mentioned the video RAM... yours is only 16MB which is not going to give you very good response with Leopard. (Chris, your card is 32 MB which was better than my original of 16MB [my DA was a 466] so you might be OK without upgrading, do that firmware check first before buying an new card). Also David, the Sonnet SATA card may have to be downgraded as to the firmware if you encounter sleep issues. That info is in this other thread near the end:

http://www.techsurvivors.net/forums/index....showtopic=21955

tacit · « **Reply #6 on:** October 29, 2009, 07:38:18 AM »

The bare minimum of space on an OS X boot drive is 5 GB, which is the amount of space the virtual memory manager requires. If you have less than this much space free on your boot drive, OS X will not operate correctly. Note that this space ust be available on the drive you have booted from--you can add a thousand terabytes of additional hard disks and it will do you no good at all because you do not have enough space free on your boot drive.

The guideline about 10% of the space free used to be true, but that's an OS 9 thing, and it was because of a bug in the OS 9 File Manager. OS X does not need a percentage of the hard drive free; instead, it needs 5 GB free (because that is the maximum size of the VM swap files).

Here is what I suggest you do:

1. Re-format your second hard disk as one single partition, not two 64 GB partitions.

2. Download the free program Carbon Copy Cloner and run it to clone your current system onto your second hard drive.

3. Remove the 8 GB hard drive from your computer and throw it away. Seriously, these days an 8 GB hard drive simply isn't worth keeping, unless you want it as a paperweight or a Christmas ornament or something.

Paddy · « **Reply #7 on:** October 29, 2009, 08:02:31 AM »

I was going to suggest precisely what Tacit suggests (and agree that two 63GB partitions are pretty useless) until I saw "MB" instead of GB - so please sort that out for us.

I am also leery of installing ANYTHING MORE on that 8GB drive. While Carbon Copy Cloner has a very small footprint (2MB) at some point things may fall over completely - and the Disk Warrior reporting is concerning. Depending on what is broken, I wasn't too keen on simply cloning it! Hence my suggestion to actually install 10.4.11 on the other disk (whether the existing 128 something or the new 500GB SATA) and then use Migration Assistant. Then at least you'll have a working system, we hope, and can work from that.

Re: partitioning - I generally don't partition drives these days, even big 750 GB drives. I have multiple drives instead. Drives are cheap and if they die, having more than one partition isn't going to help you out. The exception to this would be if you need a Bootcamp partition. I've just seen too many people fussing about how the links to things on different partitions aren't working or broke after some update (wails of "where did my iTunes library go?" or "where did my iPhoto library go?" sound familiar??) or the inevitable "I made this partition too small, so now what do I do?" to be bothered with that. Of course, some here will beg to differ.

David · « **Reply #8 on:** October 29, 2009, 04:55:42 PM »

Very many thanks for all the advice, most of which certainly seems to point to the 8GB drive as the major source of the problems.
Before this response to you I elected to follow Tacit's advice first and foremost; it being a straightforward 3 Stage process which even I could negotiate. So, I downloaded Carbon Copy Cloner and re-formatted the 128 GB drive to a single partition.

QUOTE(tacit @ Oct 29 2009, 01:38 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. Re-format your second hard disk as one single partition, not two 64 GB partitions.

2. Download the free program Carbon Copy Cloner and run it to clone your current system onto your second hard drive.

3. Remove the 8 GB hard drive from your computer and throw it away. Seriously, these days an 8 GB hard drive simply isn't worth keeping, unless you want it as a paperweight or a Christmas ornament or something.

To correct the typo error in my symptoms-thread, the second drive is 128 GB (not MB!).

However, this drive must now be referred to in the past tense as I suspect CCC couldn't make any sense of the corruption/s lurking within the 8 GB drive and displayed a "You must re-start your computer" message after cloning 1.5 GB.

The G4 re-started OK but did not mount the 128 MB drive.

Disk Utility said it couldn't repair the drive, DW ground to a stop "due to disk errors" (sic) and Tech Tool wouldn't even start running "due to lack of useable space on the active hard drive" (sic).

Once I've got another secondary drive I'll create a full schedule based on all contributions and install things bit by bit - probably with a view to laboriously copying individual files to the new system etc.

I'll report back ASAP. But, PLEASE, don't hold your breath !!!!!

MANY THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE

Regards

David L.

Paddy · « **Reply #9 on:** October 29, 2009, 05:16:15 PM »

Interesting (well, not perhaps for you - more like frustrating, no doubt) - and pretty much what I was afraid of. So, I think your best bet is to install that PCI SATA controller and the new 500 GB drive. Then put your 10.4.11 install disk in the drive and install as if you had a brand new system. That should not take too long, nor be terribly difficult.

Then, try using Migration Assistant to move the files you need from the 8GB drive. If that doesn't work, drag and drop will work for most files you've created and any applications that were installed via drag and drop. Applications that installed via an installer will require re-installing.

Let us know if you have any questions about that process. Most of us with desktop Macs have installed various upgrades over the years. Keep track of all the little drive screws!!

krissel · « **Reply #10 on:** October 30, 2009, 12:58:09 AM »

David, please check on that SATA controller and whether it will need to have the firmware changed. If so you need to have OS 9 on a drive to run the firmware file. You may want to boot to your Tiger DVD or OS 9 CD and see if the 128GB drive is visible, erase it and install to that first.

chriskleeman · « **Reply #11 on:** October 30, 2009, 11:23:34 AM »

QUOTE(krissel @ Oct 30 2009, 01:58 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

David, please check on that SATA controller and whether it will need to have the firmware changed. If so you need to have OS 9 on a drive to run the firmware file. You may want to boot to your Tiger DVD or OS 9 CD and see if the 128GB drive is visible, erase it and install to that first.

IAW Krissel, because you can't flash the SATA controller firmware when booted from the SATA drive. The SATA controller has to be installed in the PCI slot, but the drive must be disconnected before you flash the controller. That's one of the reasons I had recommended trying to install the OS on the 128 MB drive first before installing on the SATA. And from what I know of the SATA card I have installed in my G4, it's the same one, and I'm going to have to flash it with the older firmware to resolve a sleep issue. And more than likely, you will have to do that as well.

HTH,

Chris K

David · « **Reply #12 on:** October 30, 2009, 02:28:14 PM »

Many Thanks for the updated recommendations.

My mind/brain/memory is in now seriously confused, having already been seriously corrupted many years ago -
(What were their names? - I forget, but life was FUN!.)

I'm scratching my head to find a suitable USB scalp-port so that I can de-frag/optimise/re-build my Personal OS and find the missing loose screws.

Thankfully, it's been running OK for 65(ish) years and hasn't yet crashe \'*/≈€• ........... Doh!!!!.

Large old star

Errr Who/where am I?

L. divaD

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Author Topic: Back again with my wayward G4 AGP (Read 2732 times)