ATA PCI Card Question

[Kashchei]

My problem began when my PowerMac G4 dual-500 Mhz with two internal 80 GB hard drives crashed and wouldn't boot from a drive but would from a CD. When I was able boot from DiskWarrior, it recognized one of the internal drives but not the other.

I bought an ATA PCI card and was able to boot my computer, although I don't think it is working quite the way it should. First of all, the jumpers were set so that the drive that wasn't recognized by DiskWarrior was the master and the recognized drive was the servant. I switched the jumper positions and connected the ATA PCI connections accordingly. The computer did not boot but had a kernal panic instead. I then unplugged the servant connection from the unrecognized drive and was able to boot. The problem is that the machine does not boot immediately: before the grey Apple logo appears, a folder icon appears, inside which a question mark alternates with the blue Apple OS icon. After a few seconds, the machine boots. However, when I try to run Disk Utility, I am not given the option of verifying the disk (this option is greyed out) nor can I run fsck in terminal.

This is the first time I have ever worked with the insides of a computer, so I am more than willing to admit that I may have done something wrong (for example, I don't know whether I should have even touched the jumpers). If anyone has any ideas on how to bring my computer back to normal and to recognize the second drive, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Sun Baked]

If you have not reset the startup disk from where you used to have it on the built-in but to the ATA card.

The machine is going to look at the built-in ATA for the drive -- and not find it (flashing ? mark) then it'll take a bit to find it and boot.

Just try reselecting the startup disk to see if it'll get around the flashing ? mark.

--- Edit

Of course the install problems with getting the OS to recognize both drive and have them show up on the desktop are another matter if that is also a problem you are having.

 

[Kashchei]

Of course the install problems with getting the OS to recognize both drive and have them show up on the desktop are another matter if that is also a problem you are having.

Thanks Sun Baked,

You fixed the question mark problem. However, I still can't verify the boot disk in Disk Utility or run fsck in terminal (I get the message "Could not freeze volume (Operation not supported)." Any idea why this is?

Finally, would plugging the cable to the new ATA PCI card into a bad servant disk keep the master disk from booting? I'd like to know if the servant drive is bad and needs replacement or good and needs fixing. I just don't know how to go about doing this!

 

[Sun Baked]

You can always try a new cable to see if the cable is the problem ...

Or try using the drive on two different ATA channels if you can, the card may have another ATA channel -- along with the original and the one below the CD drive.