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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Installed, Now What?

gazzerdc - Aug 9, 2005 - 8:41 pm

Well, I finally got around to installing the Adaptec 133 ATA adapter and the Hitachi 160gig hard drive. I snapped the controller in a PCI slot, attached the black end of the cable, put the hard drive in the slot, attached the blue end and fired it up. So....I "see" both drives when the exclamation point in red comes up and says "there is a disk in your drive that we don't recognize" so I click on that and Disk utility opens. Now what? The only choice is to Partition the drive. Everything else is greyed. Do I choose 1, 2, 16? Do i need to do this? is there a step missing? The drive isn't on the desktop yet. Says I have 149gig (of the 160gig available. Guess that's okay). What do I do next to "initialize?"
Thanks.

skapp - Aug 9, 2005 - 9:12 pm

Be sure that if the drive connected to the Adaptec card is the only drive connected, it has been properly jumpered as MASTER. If you have two drives connected to the Adaptec card, then be sure the first drive is jumpered as MASTER and the second is jumpered as SLAVE.

To fully prep the new drive do the following:

1a (If this is the startup drive.) Boot from your OS X Installer Disk. After the installer loads select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu if using Tiger.) Be sure to use the installer disk for the version of OS X you intend to install.

1b (If this is a non-startup volume or external drive.) Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.

2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.

3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.

4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.

6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour depending upon the drive size.

gazzerdc - Aug 9, 2005 - 9:30 pm

I followed another tech's advise and didn't change anything regarding the jumpers master or slave. I'm adding the hard drive to the existing system; I don't want it to be a master or slave. I just want it to be. So, I left the jumpers set to their mfg. setup. I plugged in the controller; I plugged in the hard drive; I plugged in the power. It won't be the start up either; it will just be an additional drive.

What I don't understand now, I understand all your steps regarding the partitioning, but I don't understand why am I erasing anything?

By the way, OS Extended, journaled, does show up. I'm running 10.3.9 and I guess that helps.

skapp - Aug 9, 2005 - 11:11 pm

I understand what you want, but no matter what that happens to be you must configure the hardware properly or it won't work correctly. The prep steps I outlined will assure that your drive will be properly formatted and prepared for use with OS X regardless of whether it's used as a startup volume or not. If you want this done properly and thoroughly, please follow the formatting steps I outlined.

As for the MASTER or SLAVE matter this is essential for proper operation of the drive with the controller. On the drive usually near the rear where the ribbon cable connects will be a set of jumpers. On the top or bottom of the drive you should find a diagram of how the jumpers should be configured to set the drive as MASTER or SLAVE. If the drive is the only drive connected to the controller, then it must be jumpered as MASTER. If there are two drives on the ribbon cable then the drive closest to the card is set as MASTER and the drive at the end of the ribbon cable is jumpered as SLAVE.

I hope this clarifies matters for you.

gazzerdc - Aug 10, 2005 - 8:59 am

This will be the only hard drive on that ribbon. The jumper is currently configured as "cable (default). The instruction I got from another tech was don't change anything and just install the drive as it came from the mfg. if it is going to be the only drive on that ribbon. I am keeping the other drive in as well. If I configure the original drive as a master on it's on cable, and I configure this drive as master on its on cable, isn't that the same as leaving the default setting on the new drive? The difference it appears is moving the little plastic thingey from the center to the left hand side of the drive.
Correct?

skapp - Aug 10, 2005 - 1:53 pm

Cable Select is fine. If that's the current configuration, then you should not need to change it.

I didn't mean to alarm you about this, Gary. It's just that if the drive's are not configured properly they won't work properly.

gazzerdc - Aug 10, 2005 - 4:51 pm

The only alarm is that I always like the "line of least resistence," and if I don't have to do anything, I always feel we should "first do no harm." Thanks for all your help, Steven.

skapp - Aug 10, 2005 - 5:15 pm

An excellent approach, especially if you're a doctor. Along the same lines as, "Do it right the first time" and "Measure twice, cut once."

gazzerdc - Aug 10, 2005 - 5:24 pm

Everything seemed to go okay, but Quick question: Once I "erase" the Volume, you're note was to "Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window." The only way to get the options button to become available was to click on the hard drive icon (rather than the hard drive icon of the sub-entry. Hope that was correct as that is what is "Zeroing out" at the moment...and it looks like it will take about 45 minutes.

gazzerdc - Aug 10, 2005 - 6:06 pm

Actually, we're at 45 minutes now and it looks like it's about 1/3 of the way done. Tick tock tick tock. :-)

skapp - Aug 10, 2005 - 6:34 pm

Well, just let it go until it finishes.

gazzerdc - Aug 10, 2005 - 6:44 pm

Will I need to recreate a sub directory volume?
I noticed that is the way the original hard drive is....there is the 80gig, then the sub entry called 100302 (when I had to reformat it). Maybe I should have zeroed that out when it was created?

skapp - Aug 10, 2005 - 6:52 pm

If the drive has only one partition, then it doesn't make any difference whether you erase the volume entry (the sub-entry) or the drive entry (the one with the mfgr.'s ID and size.) You can rename the volume when the formatting is completed.

gazzerdc - Aug 10, 2005 - 7:57 pm

That's what I did. It's done. Thanks.

gazzerdc - Aug 10, 2005 - 7:58 pm

Should I drag the applications over to this drive since it will probably run faster? Or, the data? Anything for speed. The primary reason I got the hard drive is so I have a lot of space to edit dvds and cds....and imovie.
But it's fairly big as well.

Any ideas?

skapp - Aug 10, 2005 - 8:09 pm

Although the drive may be faster than your other, putting applications on it will only help the apps load faster, they won't make them run faster.

How you plan to use the drive should govern what you do with it. If you plan to use it mainly for backup, then you may want to clone your startup volume to the drive, and then maintain incremental backups to the clone so you always have a current backup of your OS X installation.

It's all up to you what to do. You might consider partitioning the drive and allocating a volume for system backup and another for your other work and storage.