B&W hard drive installation

[Himrich]

I want to install an IBM Deskstar 180GXP in a B&W G3 that already has a Zip Drive in one of the upper slots. I read someplace on the web that there is limited space below for hard drive installations (supposedly a 1 inch limit). Also some concern about putting an ATA drive there as opposed to SCSI.

The drive I wish to install can be found at this link:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_MailList.cf...Item=IBM07N9212

The problem is it doesn't say what it's dimensions are.

Is there anything else I need to know?

P.S. Love the new, faster site. Great job folks.

[Scott]

The hard drives are installed at the bottom of the case.. not up inthe top bays (where the Zip drive is).

Unless you specifically purchased a B&W G3 with SCSI drives, then you already have ATA drives in yoru B&W G3. Swappign one ATA drive fo ranother is not big deal nad installign a secondary ATA drive is no big deal (provided jumpers are set properly).

If it's a 3.5" drive it'l fit inthe lower bays which are designed to hold a minimum of 3 separate hard drives.

All that being posted. BEWARE! Rev 1 B&W G3 have serious corruption issues if you swap hard drives and they are IDE drives.

You might want to read up at www.xlr8yourmac.com.

[Himrich]

How do I determine what Revision number this computer is?

[Al]

An easy way to identify if your B&W is a 1st or 2nd gen. is to see if you have the U bracket right above the rear hard drive mounting area.  U bracket there, rev 2.

The best way is to take a look at the IDE controller chip itself.  It is marked with 402 on the chip.

At the link below you can find all the new goodies that were added to the rev 2 B&W's including description of the revised IDE controller with pictures to help identify it.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/yosemit...ewfeatures.html

The hard drives can be lined up on the bottom of the case.  Three in a row and a forth if you have the U brackets.  Rev 2's can accept two hard drives with the controller, if you want more drives, you will need an IDE PCI controller card.

In my rev. 1 B&W, I run two drives (80GB & 20GB) off a PCI controller card and one drive off the motherboard controller (MP3 drive, 15GB).

This picture is before the 15GB Maxtor drive went in for my MP3s, but it still shows the locations of where the hard drives go.  Now the 15GB is where the 80GB is and the 80GB and 20GB are moved down towards the front.

   
 
 [ 03-17-2003, 04:36 AM: Message edited by: Al ]

[Himrich]

Nice picture. Does it matter in what order RAM is used in the slots if they are of different sizes and one blank slot is remaining?

[kelly]

It shouldn't make a difference.  

Unless there's something peculiar to a B&W I'm not aware of.

[Al]

No peculiarities that I know of regarding RAM location on B&Ws.  But as a standard of practice you should try to keep the largest modules in the first slots and progressively go back as the size gets smaller.  Also, the faster RAM should also be taken in consideration and also be put in front.

If you do use different speed memory your computer will revert to the slower speed.