06-08-2009, 12:36 PM

Ok I looked through the threads here and now I have a headache and am uncertain more than ever what to do with this drive.

I pulled out the 30gb IDE HD from my old G4 titanium 15" whose motherboard died over a year and a half ago. I put it in Century brand 2.5" Aluminum case that isn't shown on the english website ironically. Dang it.

It doesn't show up on the desktop when I plug it into my 13" blackbook.
It doesn't mount as an external which I am not surprised at because it is supposed to be a booting drive right from the old laptop. It shows up in disk utility and I see what type of drive it is but it's unmounted. I don't want to format it or anything because the defeats trying to salvage the data from it.

I think the OSX version was panther in the end before the motherboard gave out and there was also OS9 classic on the drive as well which is what that mac started out as.

Going to my local Apple store isn't out of the question by the way. They speak a bit of English there and I sorta speak japanese but not really. Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions on a course of action I should take would really be appreciated.

06-08-2009, 03:04 PM

If it will not mount at all, it may need to be attaches to a powered hub, or the case may need its own power supply to give the drive enough juice (power) to mount

06-09-2009, 06:25 AM

Thanks Louis,

It's a powered case actually. This is the one I got ***here***. I bought it at Yodobashi camera in Osaka.

There's 2 options for getting power to the drive inside the case actually. A dual usb 2 cable for getting power and info or connecting an AC power cable to the case for the juice and just use one of the usb plugs. I have only used the AC plug when connecting it but it still never mounted.

I looked at the package and it says that it supports "Mac OS 10.2.6" and up. The drive has panther on it and OS9. I wonder if it is the OS9 making it not work?

I'm on 10.4.11 on my blackbook which I don't think should be a problem. Could it be my USB ports aren't working right?

07-19-2009, 01:50 PM

Still haven't solved this old G4 drive thing.

I have bought another case that is exatally the same except it's for a SATA Drive and tossed a 2.5" WD Scorpio Blue 500GB drive in it and it worked. I had to format the WD because it was a clean unused brand spanking new drive.

Any more thoughts, ideas on getting the info from the old drive would be sweet.

Sooo, bump.

07-19-2009, 05:50 PM

If you connect to the mains power and via USB to the G4 Titanium it should show up on the desktop but be aware being a PPC, a G4 USB2 is too slow to boot from the drive, Firewire is a must.

07-20-2009, 11:55 AM

So if I used a powered hard drive case that has Firewire capability to put the G4's 30gb hard drive in instead of a powered USB2.0 only case it should show up in the finder of my Macbook 13" that is running 10.4.11?

I just need a different case in other words?

07-20-2009, 05:38 PM

Sounds like the drive has died along with the mother board alas. With USB2 and mains power you should get something in Disc Utility if she were a goer.

07-22-2009, 04:31 AM

Booooo that's not what I wanted to hear-errah-read Harry. ;0) Thanks for the insight.

I haven't quite given up just yet though. I have a copy of disk warrior 4 in Japanese which I hesitate to use cus' it's only in Japanese. It worked when my blackbooks Hitachi HD crashed. Got everything from that drive I needed.

I just been lazy about making the appointment to go down to the mac store. If all else fails. I guess I buy the biggest 2.5" IDE drive I can find and chuck the 30gb. Why waste a HD case?

08-05-2009, 06:00 AM

Tried to rescue the data using the Disk Warrior software with the help of my brother-in-law. He's used to trouble shooting macs apparently and I should have asked him a year ago.

The drive is dead and the case goes to him for helping. I hope he uses it well. He has a few ideas of where to get decent IDE drives.

Thanks for the help Harry and Louis.

08-05-2009, 05:57 PM

Sorry about the bad news but facts are facts alas and your very able description could lead to only the one diagnosis.