Switch Master Drive with Slave Drive

Vlad said:

Well, I was gonna walk away from this one, but I never could leave as sleeping dog alone. hehe This is what I found out. That your computer needs do see a drive of 120 gigs or less as the main drive. If you install the driver card or software you can use the drive you have as main drive and will be able to remove the original on if you wish. So the way I see it is that you have a few choices. You can either (1) buy a new drive 120 gigs or less and use it as your main drive,(2) buy the proper driver card for your computer,(3) partition your drive to 120 max partitions, (4) or which my source didn't mention is use the software to let it see the 250gig drive. It seem that the sawtooth works just like the rest of the macs it is just limited buy the size of the drive, which can be addressed with pci card or software. I know compared to what you had in there in the first place the 135 gigs looked good but it was a shame to waste 165 gigs.

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All sounds like good advice and helps me have more faith in my Mac.
That's why I started this thread, to find out more about the possibilities.
I was going to post this info. anyway to incourage other people to try, even before I saw your last post that there MUST be a way to install only one larger Master HD. Otherwise, it would be too stupid for a Mac. We all know that it is impossible to think of Mac as being stupid.
You clearified the size limitation issue very well. My new Seagate HD came with a Size Limitation Jumper Pin in order to aleviate that problem with limited Macs. But, it did not work by just using the jumper pin provided, before trying the choices you presented.
But, there is another layer to this situation. Since, I started with wanting to keep the old HD, I initialized the new HD as the Slave. My problem arose because 1) I cannot swap HDs in this G4 (it says it in the manual) and, 2) the size limitation of the HD. So, even if I overcome the size limitation issue, and I want to initialize the new HD as the Slave, I will not be able to swap the two HD2. So, I don't wish to spend any money on any Driver Card right now.
I have to start with Clean Install to try all these new options, but I think I am going to stop. I still like to have two HDs for security. Of course, one can always purchase two new HDs.
It Sounds like it is safe to say that anyone with G4 AGP who would like to have a Clean Install, could have a new HD installed as the Master Drive. Maybe it will take more spending than other G4s. In that case, you will not be able to keep your orginal HD as the Slave. Therefore, cloning or back up would be adviseable.
Thanks.

As far as the Apple Mail goes, I have two POP accounts in each drive. And, each one shows the server information the same weird way. Since, the Apple Mail from the Master works fine I have to figure out how to tell my computer to upload the emails to my Slave HD2 and not to Master HD1. I have realized that having two POP accounts is not the problem, since I can still receive email in HD1. And, I can send emails from HD2. But, I am not able to upload them from the server. It would be the case of how I can out smart my good old Mac. One of those situations where you cannot find the solution all in one sentence.
I am still working on it. I will post when I can come up with a solution.

I guess I'm not a good communicator. I was trying to say and I didn't make it clear, I guess. Is that once you use one of the 3 options I mentioned the g4 will see that drive as being proper and will allow you to use it as your master drive if you wish. Then you can leave your old drive in if you wish and use it as a slave drive or you can remove it. Or you can switch back and forth as often as you want. Partitioning was the first choice of the guy I talked to. It is also the cheapest way to go. If you reformat the 250 gig drive and partition it to 120gig max partitions, you can then clone your original to it . Then your g4 will recognize it as a master when you start from it. You will be able to receive your email on the new drive as long as it is the start up drive. My wife always says that I'm the only one that knows what I'm saying. I hope she is wrong. I hope I was clear enough, that the only way you will do what you want is to use one of the drive fixes mentioned in the earlier post.

Vlad said:

I guess I'm not a good communicator. I was trying to say and I didn't make it clear, I guess. Is that once you use one of the 3 options I mentioned the g4 will see that drive as being proper and will allow you to use it as your master drive if you wish. Then you can leave your old drive in if you wish and use it as a slave drive or you can remove it. Or you can switch back and forth as often as you want. Partitioning was the first choice of the guy I talked to. It is also the cheapest way to go. If you reformat the 250 gig drive and partition it to 120gig max partitions, you can then clone your original to it . Then your g4 will recognize it as a master when you start from it. You will be able to receive your email on the new drive as long as it is the start up drive. My wife always says that I'm the only one that knows what I'm saying. I hope she is wrong. I hope I was clear enough, that the only way you will do what you want is to use one of the drive fixes mentioned in the earlier post.

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Things are looking better by the minute. I am understanding that I can leave things as they are and when I try one of those solutions, I will be in business again. I am convinced that the reason I cannot receive my email on HD2, as you mentioned, because it is not my Master Drive. I am very tempted to try one of those, but I think, I will sleep on it for a while.
I will post the good or the bad news when I have one.
Thanks for all the help.

The last word about the Apple Mail is that my DSL service company is in the process of changing server address, so the customer support team had sent me on a Wild Goose Chase. Tonight, I asked for a Second Tear Customer Support person (which means "get me a smarter guy"), and he was able to set me up to receive my emails directly on my Slave HD2. Go figure!
Now, it is just the matter of choice whether I am going to go ahead with the rest of the solutions to make the Slave HD2 into a Master HD1. I will post if I make any changes or if I have any problems.

Note to self:

This is for people who wants to use their old Parallel ATA Hard Drive with a Serial ATA computer:

http://welovemacs.com/tpasa.html


Could someone explain this?

Serial ATA HD in a G4 PowerMac?

http://www.macworld.com/forums/ubbt...er=286147&page=8&view=expanded&sb=4&o=&fpart=

Based on this info., I was able to install a Serial ATA HD in my G4.