Internal hard drives (I feel silly)

[yellow bear]

Hi!
I desperately need some more space (internally) on my powermac dual thingy computer, Am I right in thinking that I need to buy an internal hard drive? do these all cater for mac and PC or do I need to buy one specially for a mac? I'm in the uk and I think I want to buy online (not many pute shops around here) any tips or suggestions on buying? any reccomendations?
Also how do I make the drive that I buy the one that everything boots from? is that easy?
Ive put internal drives in before under the guidance of my ex so I know I can do it, it's just the finer details that bother me.
Thanks so much!
Claire x

 

[aquajet]

Firstly, what speed is your PowerMac G4?

Any PATA hard drive should work (current PATA hard drives include the ATA-100 and ATA-133 varieties). I'd stick with Seagate hard drives since they have a 5-year warranty. If you don't care about the warranty, then I would look for the best price. But really...any brand should work fine.

However, certain G4 models do not support hard drives over 137 gb in size without a bit of trickery. Only the "mirror drive door" model supports larger hard drives.

 

[yellow bear]

CPU Speed: 867 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB

Is that the speed my g4 is?

I have a mirror on the front, will i be ok with a big drive?

Thankyou by the way!

Claire x

 

[neocell]

If you're using Tiger, under system preferences there's a Startup disc icon, click on that and you can choose whatever drive attached to your computer that you want it to boot from. I think this startup disc icon is somewhere else in Panther (still in system preferences but buried in another folder). It should be very easy

 

[yellow bear]

Thankyou,

Im on 10.3.9 I think thats panther i will have a look for that option!

so finally: if I bought this one:

Seagate Barracuda PATA 7200.7 300GB 8Mb Cache Hard Drive 7,200rpm 8.5ms

http://www.novatech.co.uk:80/novatech/specpage.html?SG-B78300

I would be fine?

Claire x

 

[MacsRgr8]

CPU Speed: 867 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB

Is that the speed my g4 is?

I have a mirror on the front, will i be ok with a big drive?

Thankyou by the way!

Claire x

As you already perfectly described it:

It is a "Mirror Drive Door" Power Mac G4 Dual 867 MHz.
This Mac has ATA/100 bus, so big PC/Mac ATA drives will work in it.

No hassle with Master / Slave, just keep the HD on CS (Cable Select), and then format it using Disk Utility.

EDIT: Here's nice info on your Mac:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_867_dp_mdd.html

 

[MacsRgr8]

Thankyou,

Im on 10.3.9 I think thats panther i will have a look for that option!

so finally: if I bought this one:

Seagate Barracuda PATA 7200.7 300GB 8Mb Cache Hard Drive 7,200rpm 8.5ms

http://www.novatech.co.uk:80/novatech/specpage.html?SG-B78300

I would be fine?

Claire x

Yep.

 

[aquajet]

I have a mirror on the front, will i be ok with a big drive?

Cool. You've got it -- buy as big as you need.

 

[reberto]

However, certain G4 models do not support hard drives over 137 gb in size without a bit of trickery. Only the "mirror drive door" model supports larger hard drives.

If it is a Quicksilver G4 (2002 model) it can accept a 137 GB or larger drive.

 

[yellow bear]

Thanks guys!


reberto: does having this mirror thingy mean i have a model newer than 2002? I dont really know whether i have the quicksilver model.

Just want to make really really sure b4 I buy!

Claire x