Beige PowerPC G3 - IDE HardDrive Replacment?
- Thread starter Peter-Erik
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I replaced mine with a 120Gb drive I got off of EBay, I imagine one of those IDE to SD card solutions could work too. If you want to, you can also use the internal SCSI connection and install a "BlueSCSI" or "SCSI2SD" depending on what you want to try.
You mean like this? https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Adapter-3-5in-SDHC-Memory-40Pin/dp/B0C3ZLNW69
(i don't seem master slave option)
(i don't seem master slave option)
That should work. If there is no Master/Slave jumper, you may have to play around with the assumption that it could be default master, or possibly Cable Select. You may have to change your optical drive jumpters (assuming you have one) to get this to work on the same chain.
Here is a review on it.
Be aware that the Beige G3 can boot only from partitions in the first 8GB of the IDE drive due firmware limitations.
I've had good luck with 64GB 40-pin IDE flash modules in my G3s.
I've had good luck with 64GB 40-pin IDE flash modules in my G3s.
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Does that apply to all 4 revisions of the Beige G3 firmware?
Does that apply to Mac OS 9 as well? I've seen Mac OS 9 is able to see partitions beyond 128 GiB.
I know that early versions of Open Firmware (e.g OF 2.4) have bugs related to detecting LBA28 and don't have code for LBA48. I think it's just a software issue, not a problem with the hardware. LBA28 support can be fixed with a simple nvramrc patch.
Only Mac OS X depends on Open Firmware for booting.
Mac OS 9 depends on the 68K toolbox part of the ROM and Mac OS 9 drivers on the disk. I think Mac OS 9 has LBA28 and LBA48 support.
My IDE notes:
Feb 12, 2026
Sunday at 3:10 PM
For maximum safety, using CHS limits (in case LBA isn't working):
The 8 GiB partition should be < 7.87 GiB (partition start + partition size should be ≤ 16383 cylinders x 16 heads x 63 sectors per track = 16514064 blocks = 0x00FBFC10. This is slightly less than LBA24.
The 128 GiB limit is 65535 x 16 x255 = 267382800 blocks = 0x0FEFF010 (actually 127.5 GiB). This is slightly less than LBA28.
Older IDE notes:
Sep 15, 2009
Sep 11, 2016
Mar 6, 2022
Apr 24, 2022
Jun 7, 2022
Jan 24, 2026
Trying with a startech adapter but strange behavior have 128 ssd after installation on (test) partition on 6Gb (only)
Still booted form CD and want to change startup disk to de new one mac hangs - reboot it starts form disk but still if i select startup disk it hangs
2 partitions from 6 Gb and 1 with the rest gives bus error
Just for sure - old noisy HD installed - boot form CD and startup disk is working normal. The startech gives a problem.
Still booted form CD and want to change startup disk to de new one mac hangs - reboot it starts form disk but still if i select startup disk it hangs
2 partitions from 6 Gb and 1 with the rest gives bus error
Just for sure - old noisy HD installed - boot form CD and startup disk is working normal. The startech gives a problem.
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Re: 8GB boot restriction...
Once booted, classic MacOS (and OSX/Linux/*Unix) can access partitions over 8GB.
I'm not sure about Classic Mac's 128GB limitations on these machines - though I do know that MacOS9 on my B&W G3 gets confused by bigger drives.
Hhmm ..4? Beige G3s have OFW versions 2.0f1 or 2.4 and are not updatable (unlike the B&W G3). The 8GB boot restriction applies to both.
Yes. See https://lowendmac.com/1997/beige-power-mac-g3-1997/ and https://lowendmac.com/1998/beige-power-mac-g3-1998/ .. and I can confirm this on my desktop and tower machines. It equally applies to any booter calling OFW to do the loading.
Once booted, classic MacOS (and OSX/Linux/*Unix) can access partitions over 8GB.
I'm not sure about Classic Mac's 128GB limitations on these machines - though I do know that MacOS9 on my B&W G3 gets confused by bigger drives.
https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Adapter-3-5in-SDHC-Memory-40Pin/dp/B0C3ZLNW69
so order this one and will chech of this works but delivery times is next week.
so order this one and will chech of this works but delivery times is next week.
Yeah my molar despises the startech sata > ide adapter. I tried multiple ROMs, too, an A and a C. It works *okay* with the green no name adapter except once you actually boot it just hangs on the desktop forever. (Using an Intel 60GB SSD) I ended up going with a flashed SATA card courtesy of Xodium.
You may want to do some reading on this awesome thread. https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/megathread-ssds-for-powerpc-g3-g5-macs.4417/
They all have different version numbers and therefore different 3 MiB checksums and different 4 MiB checksums.
They all have different Open Firmware code.
Rev A and Rev B are both 2.0f1 but Rev B has some updates.
Rev C and Rev D are both 2.4 but Rev D has a small change.
Code:
077d.40f2.1 "Boot Gossamer 0." 4096 79d68d63 045abdf2.0485e453.03169c4a.03f40f4c 02cef19d.030f8d1b.020634f0.027fe81c.02a9325e.03759538.0229fa00.02a2f342:32d284c61fd4f342 b8612cc39a56d141feade9dc6361ba20 "./ROM PowerPC Mac/ROM 2.0f1 Beige G3 rev A Desktop/ROMs/1997-11 - 79D68D63 - Power Mac G3 desktop.ROM"
077d.45f1.1 "Boot Gossamer 0." 4096 78fdb784 045a5fc3.0480a1eb.031627a0.03f3bcb4 02cf0ec9.030d1742.020608fb.027f8e25.02a928cd.037343aa.0229ceec.02a31f0b:e8cd35c33d1c0b0b 8fd9c829342fa76213e7efbad2a80823 "./ROM PowerPC Mac/ROM 2.0f1 Beige G3 rev B 233 MHz/ROMs/78FDB784 - PowerMac G3 Minitower (Beige 233,266MHz) rev B.ROM"
077d.45f2.1 "Boot Gossamer 0." 4096 78f57389 045a58cf.0480ab8f.03162631.03f3c6c4 02d4586b.031302cc.020b3006.0284bd5f.02aed4c3.0379386a.02300635.02a95c4d:7b8375af2e19914d 616d792ee6e2877c5c8faf30b6c56fe8 "./ROM PowerPC Mac/ROM 2.4 Beige G3 rev C/ROMs/1997-11 - 78F57389 - Power Mac G3 (v3).ROM"
077d.45f3.1 "Boot Gossamer 0." 4096 78e842a8 045a56e1.0480aee9.03161af2.03f3c810 02d4585f.0313102e.020b2bba.0284c03e.02aed185.03793790.022ff9b1.02a961fe:7ce12c8aef3312fe 17d4f2a6023a19f35579d5a87b119a46 "./ROM PowerPC Mac/ROM 2.4 Beige G3 rev D/ROMs/45f3-croissantking.ROM"Many Old World Power Macs like the Beige G3 have a ROM SIMM slot that can override the built in ROM. We need someone to make programmable ROM SIMMs so we can do ROM modification experiments.
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