Weird problem
Dave,
I just did an erase and install of OS X on my boot drive. I erased my other internal drive (400 GB), which I intend to use as my base system. The boot drive is a 74GB fast drive that I'll use as the sandbox. I tried to install OS X on the 400 GB drive, but everytime it would restart after installing Disc 1 it would boot to the 74 GB boot drive, and the installation would get messed up. So then I just decided to wipe both drives, install OS X on the boot drive, and then use SuperDuper to move that install over to the 400GB drive. So, I was able to install OS X on the 74 GB boot drive and then update to 10.4.7. Everything was going smoothly. Then, I used SuperDuper to "backup-all files" using the "erase, then install" script to move the OS X installation over to the 400 GB drive. However, upon restarting, it boots to the boot drive and the 400 GB drive had disappeared from the desktop and Disk Utility. Restared from OS X CD, and the drive appeared, ran repair and it had no problems. Then reset-nvram and reset-all, and the drive reappeared. However, when I select it as start-up disk and restart, it again defaults to the boot drive and the 400 GB disappeared again. So, I erased the 400 GB drive using disk utility, and then tried cloning it again using SuperDuper. It seemed to go fine, but upon selecting the 400 GB drive as startup drive and restarting the exact same process described above happened. I'm completely stumped here, and Apple has no idea. Can you help? Thanks, Chris |
What kind and brand of drive is the 400GB unit, Chris?
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Western Digital. Same as the boot drive.
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Is it a SATA drive?
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Yes, it is. Is that significant?
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Also, do you know any tricks for installing OS X on a system with two internal hard drives? The 400 GB drive, which I'd like to be my base system, is in the 2nd slot. When I tried installing OS X onto that drive directly, after install Disc 1 was finished it restarts automatically and boots up to the drive in slot 1 (which when I did it the first time, still had my old sandbox on it). When I tried to restart and boot to the drive I had just installed OS X on, it just booted to the sandbox again (probably because the OS X install wasn't finished yet on the other drive). I'm guessing I'm going to have to do another re-install, so this is why I'm wondering. Thanks again for your prompt responses - much appreciated!
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Yes, it's very significant. The 400GB WD SATA drives are well known for having problems with the G5's controller:
Quote:
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Thanks for the heads up, Dave. The boot drive is also a WD SATA (Raptor), and that's never had any problems. What's more, I've been using the two drives together for three or four months without much problem. Oh well, I guess it caught up to me. I do have a dual-core G5, but the way things are looking it doesn't appear that makes a difference.
So would a Seagate drive be a better bet? Unfortunately I'm sure it's too late for me to return this one, but perhaps I can sell it. Sigh. Thanks, Chris |
I think the problem is specific to certain drives, as you can see in the article linked to in the post. So, if your Raptor isn't one of those, it'll likely works.
Problems with the drive seem to happen during aggressive transfers, which might be why you haven't had issues before. Personally, I'd go with either Seagate "Nearline" or Maxtor MaxLine III drives. Both are server rated with long MTTFs and better guarantees... |
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