The PowerMac G5 internal hard disk SATA question

[Dennis Clarke]

On 11/15/18 5:40 PM, Mark Millard wrote:
> On 2018-Nov-15, at 13:07, Dennis Clarke <dclarke at blastwave.org> wrote:
> 
>> On 11/15/18 11:43 AM, Justin Hibbits wrote:
>>> 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.
>>
>> OKay this is helpful !  Thank you. I thought I was losing my mind ( what
>> there is to lose ) in that I was getting weird behavior from my disks or
>> ssds in these old boats.  Could just be bizarre Apple hardware.
>>
>> I think what I shall do is boot ye old original Apple label Hitach disk and then do a backup to an external USB attached brick. That way I have
>> all my Debian sid ppc64 work saved away. Maybe I will fire up another G5
>> brick but those damn things really put a drain on the UPS for what they
>> do. Perhaps QEMU will be okay for my Debian sid ppc64 work. Regardless I
>> have greater interest in FreeBSD UNIX and I realyl would like to have at
>> least two or three risc machines running.  Namely RISC-V and PPC64 and a
>> SPARC unit for local flavour. I have a ton of SPARC laying about. Also a
>> metric ton of PA-Risc HP Superdome gear in my life. However that is a
>> whole other story and only Helge Deller could make those work.
>>
>> So anyways ... I will try with the original Apple part disk in the
>> correct slot and then there are no excuses.
> 
> Were I long-ago got the SSDs that I use in the PowerMac G5s
> used to list compatibility extensively, case by case, for
> they're products vs. direct use in various Apple systems.
> But it had an interesting summary after looking through the
> information for G5's (from memory):
> 
> asynchronous NAND: compatibile
> synchronous  NAND: problematical/incompatible
> 
> All the SSDs that I use in the G5's are based on asynchronous
> NAND. At this point, they are all old.
> 
> That company no longer sell SSDs that they classify as
> compatible with PowerMac G5's.

I have abandoned SSD's entirely as problematic and just another variable
that is not worth having in the situation. Also I will thank Justin
Hibbits for some hints here that perhaps the upper SATA connector is
somehow different from the lower connector.

     Seagate ST3000DM001  installer seems happy and machine will
                          not boot.  I get a white screen that
                          seems confused :


ofw_close: devh=0x0

 >> FreeBSD/powerpc Openfirmware boot block
    Boot path:   /ht at 0,f2000000/pci at 9/k2-sata-root at c/@0/@0:
    Boot loader: /boot/loader
    Boot volume:   /ht at 0,f2000000/pci at 9/k2-sata-root at c/@0/@0:3

Then nothing happens and after four or five minutes the fans kick into a
higher gear and I remove the power cord.

So I will move on to Seagate ST2000DM001 and also a small "Enterprise"
Seagate ST2000NX0243 and lastly the original Apple Hitachi HDS725050KLA360.

The small ST2000NX0243 will be a disaster given that it is native 4K
sectors only. Great for an array but not so great for older equipment.

This is all taking a lot of time with zero progress thus far.

Dennis