Hi there,

I’d like to add SATA drives to my beloved Powermac MDD. Since this machine is set for double-booting MOS and OSX, Sil3x12-based cards are my only chance (I couldn’t find any promise drivers for OSX).
I have tried 3 different SATA cards (a generic 3512, a generic 3112 and the Seritek 1S2), all leading to the same result :
The card is detected and listed in openpciinfo but when I attach a drive, MOS just won’t boot, it stops right after the startup screen. OSX on the other side seems happy as long as I flash the card with mac-compatible firmware.
I thought this used to be an issue with MOS 2.7, but 3.0 was supposed to fix it. I have 3.3 installed.
Can anybody give me a hint on how to start troubleshooting this?
TIA

Serge

I tried also. I flashed the generic cards but ambient locked up when copying large files. I ended up buying Sata to IDE converters, which works ok in my MDD.

Well, I thought about this as well but it's supposed to work so there should be a way to troubleshoot this.
Please please pretty pretty please somebody give me a hint?

Hi Sergio!
What kind of SATA hard disk you have? I mounted a SATA 300 on Powermac G5 and it wasn't recognised. So I used jumper settings to reduce data transfer speed to 1.5 gb/sec and the hard disk works ok. Check if this could be the problem, since the 3512 card (the same I have) is a SATA 159 card. When I'll have a moment I will try myself too.

I guess it's a slow SATA disk, because it has no jumper and is quite slow. It's a 250GB 2.5" Hitachi.

This sounds strange. Usually the SATA hard disks have jumpers. For example:
http://www.netforyou.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/connector.jpg
If the label on your SATA hard disk is similar to this
http://www.donordrives.com/media/catalog/product/s/c/scan-130424-0044.jpg
and you read "SATA 3.0Gb/sec." then you have a SATA II hard disk with a max transfer rate of 300gb/s and this could create problems.

My HD has a hole where the jumpers are supposed to be. It has SATA written on it and not SATA 3GB/s.
So I think it's a SATA 1 drive (1.5GB/s already), so no luck with the "downgrade". For the record, it's an hitachi HTS543225L9A00.
Is there a way to get a log in order to analyze where MOS fails when trying to initialize the drive?

I bought a Sonnet PCI SATA 1 Controller for my G4 QuickSilver DP 1.0ghz. I put a SATA 3 Toshiba SSD 120GB. For under $100 for both the SATA card (used) and the SSD (new) I thought it was worth the try. I had to format the drive first on my G5 before the G4 could see the drive. After that I loaded OSX 10.5.8 on the drive and have been running it for a few months. The drive shows as a SCSI drive with the SATA controller. Yes it is throttled down to SATA 1 speeds but being an SSD the machine runs really good. So far it has been very stable under OSX. I have not tried MorphOS yet on this machine so I do not know how it will play with MOS.

@fmh : please let me know when you give MorphOS a try because I have the same card (the Sonnet Tempo SATA PCI actually is a rebadged SeriTek 1S2)

Fresh news, I found out where the problem comes from.
There seems to ba a conflict between my Radeon 9200 PCI (Mac edition) and all the SATA cards I have.
I take out the Radeon and MOS boots, the SATA drives show up.
Now someone told me this could be an IRQ conflict, how do I tweak IRQ allocation?
TIA

Neat news, but what the heck were you doing using a PCI 9200 in an MDD?

Well, I want a dual screen setup that works with MOS and OSX. No real choice here, it has to be Rage 128 Pro AGP + Radeon PCI (Mac edition, so I don’t have to worry about flashing).

A bit off-topic, but the once limited support for onboard audio (has it improved since?) forced me to use a PCI sound card as well (M-Audio, for the record).

Even more OT, the wifi side of things is a bit of a challenge if you don’t want an external adapter. I fitted a USB hub + pegasus USB-ethernet adapter + ethernet-wifi adapter in a free 5.4" slot. Works but it,s one hell of a awful hack.

But let’s go back to SATA. I have a card that works well undes both OSes. Can someone through PCI card initialization and compatibility troubleshooting?

> I want a dual screen setup that works with MOS and OSX. No real choice here,
> it has to be Rage 128 Pro AGP + Radeon PCI

AGP Radeon + PCI Rage wouldn't work?

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

I have found no PCI Rage 128 Pro that worked in both OSes. I bought one (a chinese remake, found nothing from the 199X era), but I don’t remember which OS failed to make use of it (if not both!). I don’t think any mac model came with a PCI Rage 128 Pro as standard, FWIW.

Quote:

What about the Rage 128 GL in the latest Powermac G3 b/w models? Are they compatible to the Rage 128 that came with the G4 models (and are supported by MorphOS)?


http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_400_bl.html

analogkid,
Quote:

IDK, Wikipedia lists them as "non-pro". I've had a non-pro Rage 128 that came from a B&W PM G3 and was not usable under MOS. Don't know if it was a GL or a later B&W G3 though.