The PowerMac G5 internal hard disk SATA question

[Justin Hibbits]

On Thu, 15 Nov 2018 11:18:43 -0500
Dennis Clarke <dclarke at blastwave.org> wrote:

> Someone (offlist) asked if my shiney new Seagate hard disk was
> compatible with SATA-I and I wouldn't know. I have had various types
> of hard disks in this thing and also some SSD types. Nothing is very
> fast and all of them worked.
> 
> Not sure if anyone else has tried to attach a new Samsung EVO SSD
> onto an old PowerMac G5 but I would be interested to hear the
> results. In the mean while I will figure out how to fully backup the
> contents of my old Apple branded Hitachi Deskstar HDS725050KLA360
> 500GB disk which has a very stable Debian sid PPC64 image on it. I
> figure dd will do the trick.
> 
> If there is a way to install FreeBSD from a USB stick onto a PowerMac
> G5 well I'd love to hear from someone about the OpenFirmware magic
> needed. Thus far using a PC keyboard and a Vulkan nerve pinch
> CTRL+O+F does not get me to the openfirmware prompt. It has been a
> while since I tried and it may need a six fingered vulkan hand to do
> CTRL+SHIFT+O+F to work.
> 
> Then boot ud:,\\:tbxi ???
> 
> Dennis

Hi Dennis,

My experience with the Samsung EVO drives on PowerMac G5 is they only
seem to work on the second (bottom) SATA interface.  I have yet to
figure out why, but both my 840EVO and 850EVO behaved that way.  It
works more or less fine there.  Sometimes my G5 would forget about it
at boot, and I'd have to power cycle in order for it to recognize the
drive again.  It never once worked in the 'primary' slot.

- Justin