SSD solution for iMac G4 17" (1.25 GHz)

[mac27]

So I am struggling mightily to get an SSD up and running in my 1.25 GHz 17" iMac G4. I had success with using one of the red Startech IDE-to-mSATA adapters in my 15", so I thought that the same thing might work here. But alas...

The 17" model differs significantly in that it has two IDE controllers onboard, unlike the 15" which uses a single cable. There are a bunch of threads online like this one, this one, and this one, but unfortunately they *all* seem to either pertain to the 15" model or don't include any information about what model they're talking about. I also found this thread pertaining to the same model, but it pertains to struggles with the discs themselves rather than the drive(s).

Anyways, in the case of this 17" Disk Utility saw the new drive right away and was able to format and install OS X onto it from the original installer media discs. However, the system gets stuck on the Apple logo / loading screen for OS X, with the buffering icon perpetually spinning, and does not boot.

Things I've tried so far:

- Setting jumpers on both optical drive and SSD to cable select mode (optical drive was originally on Cable Select as it was)
- Setting jumper on optical drive to Slave and SSD to Master (in this configuration, the machine will no longer boot from the optical drive)
- Various combinations of reinstalling OS X before/after formatting drive, using Restore option in Disk Utility, etc etc.

Anybody have any thoughts on why this might be failing to boot? Any advice would be much appreciated...

There is no information on the original HDD about its jumper settings, so I have no idea what it was set to from the factory Guessing this is probably Cable Select also? No idea. Some photos of the original HDD with Mystery Jumper:

 

[phunguss]

You said there are two controllers on board, have you tried both controllers with Cable select as well as Slave/Master?

 

[mac27]

I've tried both of those options using the existing controllers, if that's what you mean. There is no way to swap the IDE cables around in different ways, given the extremely limited space inside the machine.

There's a very short cable for the hard drive that connects to one controller, and a longer one that goes to the optical drive.

 

[mac27]

Following up here to say that after one final re-attempt to install Panther using the drive configured to cable select mode, the iMac has now been working flawlessly. Boots up quickly every time, wakes from sleep with no issues, and is also super speedy (and much quieter) now with the SSD.

Not sure why this didn't work the first several times, but not gonna ask any questions! Links to the products I used to get this working are listed at the bottom of this page, for any future tinkerers.