My second internal hard drive disappeared

My second internal hard drive disappeared a couple of days ago taking many gigs of iTunes with it. It does not appear on the desktop, finder or anywhere else. When I click on a song in iTunes I get "The song “Cowell: Set Of Five - 4” could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" When I try "locate," well it shows me the Main Disk. Not helpful. I've read lots of posts about vanishing drives and crashing drives on Leopard (I run Snow and was about to go to Lion). Did my drive die or did it go into the witness protection program? Irony is that I bought a 2 TB external drive last week to back up the iTunes drive and procrastinated. Suggestions? Experiences?
JCEspinosa

Is it listed in Disk Utility?

Similar Messages

Internal Hard Drives Disappeared, Finder Memory Problem

Hello Helpful Folks,
I recently installed an addional internal Hard Drive, and an additional 1GB SDRAM. This worked great for a day, but the next morning, after powering up, system was extremely sluggish, and after much deadline-induced impatient problem solving, has gone from bad to worse (system refuses to acknowledge existence of internal Hard Drives). I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but as
the devil is in the details, I figure too much info is better than not enough.
Following is a breakdown of my system: AS IT LAST WORKED; RECENT UPGRADES; and MY LAME ATTEMPTS AT PROBLEM SOLVING THAT HAVE MADE THINGS WORSE. Please don't interpret my all caps as shouting, just trying to organize this post for better clarity.
System is dedicated to Video Editing with FCP 3, running under OS 9.2.2. System is "off the Grid", i.e. no network, no internet, no printer, no gaming devices. System was purchased new in July 2001, by a friend. At one point I know this system had an Airport card, which was removed prior to my purchase in 2003. I can't remember what else it may have had installed in its history, but here's what it has now:
SYSTEM AS IT LAST WORKED:
**bold items are upgrades Original Owner or I installed with no apparent problems**
Power Mac G4 "Quicksilver" 2001
867 PowerPC G4, 256 L2, 2MB L3
-1 Stick "ValueRAM - KVR 133 x 64 C3/512" in PC 133 DIMM slot **
- "Virtual Memory" was turned off years ago due to conflict with FCP 3
-2 empty DIMM slots
-1 60 GB internal HD (Maxtor Ultra ATA/100), 1 partition, formatted HFS+, jumpered as "Master" on Internal ATA 2 ID=0 (which as I understand it is ATA/66 speed)
-1 Pioneer "Superdrive" DVD-R/W/CD-R/W on Internal ATA 0 ID=0
-NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB SDRAM in AGP Slot, feeding a 17" Apple Studio Display.
-PCI Display Card "formacGA7" - not attached to any external device, not sure what its intended purpose is.**
-3 Empty PCI Slots
-OEM Keyboard attached to Monitor's rear USB port.
-Microsoft 3 Button Wheel mouse with "IntelliEye" (wheel is 3rd Button) connected to Keyboard USB port (right side).**
-2 OEM FireWire (400) ports
-2 OEM USB (1) ports
Peripherals that have worked in various configurations with this system over the past 3 years:
-3 OWC Mercury Elite ("Oxford Chipset") Externally powered, External FireWire(400) 200GB Hard Drives, 1 partition each, formatted HFS+, daisy-chained to either of the FireWire ports.
-1 Canon GL1 MiniDV camera, attached either to the other FireWire port, or to the last drive in the chain, depending on my urgency/laziness factor. BTW, FCP 3 has worked flawlessly controlling this Cam for logging and Batch Capturing.
Applications on System Hard Drive that I have OEM CDs for:
-OS 9.2 - (I think I remember that OS X was removed from system due to conflicts shortly after original purchase)
-FCP 3
-DiskWarrior (version unknown, purchased from Alsoft in 2003)
-OWC Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools ver 3.5
Other CDs I have:
OEM CDs for Power Mac G4:
-Software Install, OS 9.2, CD vers 1
-Software Install, OS 10.0.4, CD vers 1
-Software Restore, OS 9.2 & 10.0.4 CDs vers 1, Discs 1-4 of 4.
-OEM Apple Hardware Test; Power Mac G4, SW vers 1.2.1
Applications on system Hard Drive that I don't have CDs for, that I rarely use, but I'd like to keep:
-After Effects 5.0
-QuickTime Player 6.0.2
-Toast Audio Extractor 1.1
-Toast Titanium 5.0.2
Applications on system Hard Drive I use if my wife is busy on our Windows XP machine:
-Photshop 6.0
-Microsoft Word & Excel
# of other Applications on System Hard Drive I either don't use or may be integral to the system: 260
# of Control Panels:
-Enabled: 34
-Disabled: 0
# of Extensions:
-Enabled: 174
-Disabled: 0
note: a number of the applications and extensions are for AOL, Quickbooks, Microsoft Money and the like, as well as other things I don't use (Airport, USB printers, Networking, etc.)
Smart things I did:
-Regularly made backup copies of my FCP projects to the external drives.
-Bought a copy of MacDrive so I can see what's on my External Drives on the XP machine.
-Printed out System Profile before I installed upgrades.
-Thoroughly searched this discussion board for and gathered as much info as I could before upgrading.
Dumb things I did:
-Made a copy, but not a clone, of my System Folder to one of the external drives when I first got it.
-Didn't keep any sort of separate log of what's on the External Drives.
-Never ran any sort of Disk Maintenance, even after one of the Externals crashed (DiskWarrior saved my butt on that).
-Ignored some of the advice on this discussion board.
Really dumb thing I did without even realizing it:
Captured all media for a rush job onto my internal system Hard Drive, as well as storing and using massive jpgs for the same job on that same drive...
Which led to painfully slow rendering times, and crashes caused by "Error: Out of Memory", which I interpreted as "Must buy more memory" and not "must make sure I'm not trying to edit media stored on system drive, especially with massive jpgs that I should reduce"
RECENT UPGRADES:
Here's what I did, and how I did it:
Turned off system, disconnected all External FireWire Devices, disconnected Monitor, opened case, touched various metal parts of case and power supply to discharge any Static, unplugged power cable.
-Installed 2 512MB sticks of "Lifetime" PC 133 SDRAM; total System RAM is now 1.5GB, all 3 DIMM slots now occupied.
-Installed 1 Maxtor "DiamondMax" Ultra ATA/133 100GB Hard Drive (8 MB buffer) as "Slave" (no jumper) in top of U-Carrier above System Hard Drive; attached to middle of original Apple ribbon cable, attached available power plug.
Taped spare jumper to inside of empty drive bay, noting origin and date. Did NOT push PMU button. Carefully closed case. Reconnected Monitor, did NOT reconnect any FireWire devices. Powered System on, but did NOT perform PRAM reset.
I don't remember the exact order of what happened next, but I think: System booted up normally, a window popped up saying a new drive had been found, would I like to intitialize it?, which I did as Mac OS extended, and then named. If I was instructed to restart, I did so, otherwise did not. Clicked on "about this Mac" and saw that it now showed 1.5GB RAM. I then went about moving Media/Render files off the System drive (and one of the Externals) onto the Internal Drive, with a combination of FCP's Media Manager, and dragging from the Finder. After files had copied, dragged Media/Render files from System Drive to Trash. Opened FCP project, had FCP re-link to new locations of missing files. Saved, closed, and re-opened project, set Capture/Scratch disc to new internal Drive. At some point I changed FCP's Memory Allocation from whatever it was to 512000KB Minimum, and 900000KB Prefered (and I hope I got all those zeroes right). Did NOT restart after changing Memory Allocation, unless a window popped up instructing me to do so, in which case I did. Re-opened my project, rendered a few thing at a noticeably increased speed, saved everything, emptied the Trash, shut everything down, and called it a night as it was 4:30 am.
A few hours later, I plugged the MiniDV and an External Drive into the FW ports and powered up the System. It was behaving extremely sluggishly. I would click on something, the pointer would turn into a wristwatch (sometimes with the minute-hand moving, sometimes not) and like an actual minute later, what I'd clicked on would open. All three drives were on the desktop, still had their files, and "About this Mac" still showed 1.5GB total Memory. So I powered down, disconnected the FW devices, waited a bit, and powered back up. Same sluggish response. I tried to open my FCP project file, and instead got a Window that said something to the effect of "The Application associated with this document could not be found". I think I tried to open FCP from the Applications folder on the System Drive and got the same message (I'd only had 3 hours sleep, no coffee, my client had died, and his family was coming for whatever I had in a few hours).
LAME ATTEMPTS AT PROBLEM SOLVING THAT HAVE MADE THINGS WORSE
Panic had set in, which never solves anything, so I don't remember what order I performed which tasks, between searching for clues in this forum, and convincing myself that that would be faster than trying to compose a question, waiting for a response, etc.
The first two things I did, and I can't remember which I did first (both from Keyboard Commands during Restart):
Rebuild Desktop
PRAM Reset
Neither of those solved the problem, so I continued.
I tried restarting without extensions.
I would get errors that said something like "Not Enough Memory to Open Finder".
I tried booting from Disc 1 of the Software Restore Disk, which only wanted to destroy my data.
I tried booting from the OS 10 disk, with the same result.
I was finally able to boot from the OS 9.2 Software Install Disk, and actually saw both internal drives on the desktop, and the 1.5GB RAM in About this Mac. I tried to allocate more memory to Finder, but was informed that "Cannot Perform Requested Operation. This operation requires versions above 8.0".
I think at this point I decided that I must have too many extensions, and started disabling ones I thought irrelevent to my cause (mostly anything that said "AOL", "Airport", "Ethernet", "Printer", "Modem", "Speakable", and a couple things called "Open TPT".
It gets worse. Then I decided to turn off some "unnecessary" things via the control panels, but somehow managed to disable the control panels themselves: AppleTalk, DialAssist, File Sharing, Modem, Mouse (as I saw that Microsoft Mouse was among the others), Remote Access, Speech, USB Printer Sharing, and possibly TCP/IP.
That certainly didn't help anything (though upon restarting from the OS 9.2 Disc I was able to see the extensions and control panels in their respective "Disabled" folders in the System Folder). But I still wasn't able to get more Memory to Finder.
So, I decided a few more PRAM resets might help, which succeeded in making both Internal Hard Drives disappear. I tried booting up from the DiskWarrior disc, but even the Mighty DiskWarrior couldn't find the drives. I performed the longer, in depth version of the Apple Hardware Tools tests, which reported that everything's fine (including the new RAM), but made no mention of the Hard Drives at all. The deadline having long passed, I shut the system down. I read through more posts and tech articles, etc.
I searched my External drives with MacDrive on my XP, and found the drive that has the copy of my System Folder (which shows all extensions and control panels as enabled); not sure if the Quicksilver will boot from that, I don't know what the Keyboard command for booting from a FireWire drive is (if there is one) and the drive itself only has 900MB of free space.
I can't find any reference to Internal ATA drives anywhere in the MacDrive documentation; if it was possible I'd put them into the XP, get the files off the Mac drives, reformat them and install OS9 from the Discs.
This is where I am now:
The Quick Silver is still powered down. I removed the Microsft mouse and replaced it with the OEM Apple mouse. I opened the case, and removed the PRAM/Backup battery (manufacture date: July 2001). Couldn't find my voltmeter, so took the bat to Radio Shack and bought a new one. Had the Radio Shack guy test the old one: it showed 3.69 volts still. Have not installed the new battery yet. The case is still open, waiting for any advice any of you might have to offer.
Thank you all so much for your patience in perusing and pursuing this.
Sincerely,
Patterson
Power Mac G4 Quicksilver 867 Mac OS 9.2.x 17" Studio Display, 512MB RAM

Thank you Rodney and John,
The jumpers are correct for both Maxtor Drives.
Rodney, you are correct in that the initial problem (slow rendering/"out of Memory" crashes) was caused by my not realizing I'd stupidly captured several GBs of media to my system drive, and not checking which drives those files were on (as I'd assumed I'd put them on one of my external media drives) once that problem presented itself.
Before I'd determined what I'd done, I bought the extra RAM. After I'd found the media files on the System Drive, and saw that my dedicated media drives were too full to easily move them, I decided to buy an additional Internal drive so that I could:
-Move the Media onto it relatively quickly and finish my urgent project.
-Juggle all my media into a more organized fashion for archiving (as most of my projects are on-going long-term affairs)
-Wipe it, Partition it, and clone my System Drive onto it, as a spare bootable drive in case my OEM System Drive failed.
Copying the Media files onto the New Drive and moving the System Drive's Media files into the Trash worked great: huge improvement in Rendering, etc.
Before shutting down for the night I Emptied the Trash, and was pleased with the amount of space I'd freed up on the System Drive.
My guess is that the System Drive was terribly fragmented, having been subjected to intense use over the past 5 years without any sort of Drive Maintainence, and deleting that massive amount from it in one shot caused my extreme system sluggishness upon Startup the next day.
My subsequent lame attempts to solve the sluggishnes ultimately resulted in my losing access to both drives.
Today, I replaced the Backup Battery, pushed the PMU, re-attached the AC, and Powered Up with the case open as per your suggestion.
It was trying for a few minutes (the gray screen went black at one point, and then returned to gray) before presenting me with the flashing question mark.
There was, however, a quiet but distinct "buzzing" sound that would alternate: 1 sec "buzz", one second silence, one second "buzz", one second silence, etc. coming from the drives, even after the "?" appeared.
I powered down, removed the Ribbon and Power Cables from the new "Slave" drive, and powered up again, with the exact same results.
I powered down, removed the Ribbon and Power cables from the original "Master" drive, reinstalled the Jumper on the New Drive as "Master", plugged the End of the Ribbon and the Power cables into the New "Master" drive and powered up. The screen went to the "?" within 20 seconds instead of 4+ minutes, and no more "buzzing".
I put the Apple Hardware Tools Disk in, ran the "long" test, and everything came out fine.
I have to abandon this for now, but thanks again for your previous advice, and any more you may have!
Cheers,
Patterson

Best Choice For Second Internal Hard Drive

Hello, all...
I currently have a second internal hard drive (170 GB) and want to replace it with a larger one. Do you know what the best choice of manufacturer is for internal hard drives. The one I have now is a Maxtor. I'm looking to replace the 170 GB with a 500 GB.
Thank you!
DW
Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.10) Tiger, 2.5 GHz, 2 GB DDR SDRAM, 2nd Internal Drive 170 GB

Hi-
Maxtor are good but so are Western Digital and Seagate. I have one of each.
The folowing has a good performance review of 500gb drives from the three makers:
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200607/500_1.html
Based on that, and others on the forums will agree, Western Digital is currently the better choice.
G4AGP(450)Sawtooth, 2ghz PowerLogix, 2gbRAM, RaptorSATAATA, ATI Radeon 9800 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Pioneer DVR-109, 23" ACD, Ratoc USB 2.0, QCam Ultra, Nikon Coolscan

Restoring second internal hard drive from time machine

I have a second internal hard drive for media files that I have backed up with time machine, in addition to my main first drive. I switched out this drive for a larger one and want to restore the files on the second drive only, without effecting those on my main drive. I tried going into time machine and pulling in the past copy of the smaller drive into the larger drive but this said it would take 54 hours last night, and 50 when I woke up this morning. Is there a way to do this faster or automatically I am unaware of?
Thanks.

MG1234 wrote:
I have a second internal hard drive for media files that I have backed up with time machine, in addition to my main first drive. I switched out this drive for a larger one and want to restore the files on the second drive only, without effecting those on my main drive. I tried going into time machine and pulling in the past copy of the smaller drive into the larger drive but this said it would take 54 hours last night, and 50 when I woke up this morning. Is there a way to do this faster or automatically I am unaware of?
no, there isn't. you are doing it properly if I understood you correctly. you should name the new drive the same as the old one. then start TM and scroll back in time when the old drive was backed up. select that whole drive in the TM window and hot 'restore". I don't know why it's taking so long. try repairing the TM drive. another option would be to forget TM and clone the old drive to the new one. you need and extra internal bay for that or an external enclosure for the old drive.
Thanks.

Cannot access my second internal hard drive after changing permissions

Changed the permissions by mistake on the second internal hard drive and now windows 7 cannot see it. Going to My Computer Icon, ?>>> Manage >> Disk Management and Try to initialize it but i get the incorrect function error.
How can i get back access to my hard drive.?

Hi Alex,
What is your current situation?
You may check if you could manage the disk through diskpart:
A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility
Under diskpart, enter the following line:
List disk
As Frederik suggested, please check the disk health first.
Best regards
Michael Shao
TechNet Community Support

Secondary internal hard drive disappeared from desktop after forced restart

I have three internal hard drives, one for system, the other two for data storage. While permorming a search on one of the data drives i clicked the "X" to the right of the spinning wheel on the bottom right of the search window to stop the search but the computer froze (wheel kept spinning). I then went through the dock and quit all applications, except for InDesign which wasn't responding to force quit.
The only way out was a force restart. Upon restart, one of the internal data hard drives did not show up on the desktop, nor after a couple more restarts, nor after restarting from the installation disk, verifying and repairing disks and permissions on the other hard drives with disk utility.
where did it go?
G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9) Dual 1.25 GHz, 2MB L3 cache each, 2GB DDR SDRAM

no it doesn't show up at all in those either.
Hmm. Then that sounds like the interface to the drive isn't even talking. You could try opening up the computer and making sure the cables are all connected firmly (of course, it should be off).
here's the log:
Nothing here looks too alarming.
Apr 21 09:51:00 Greg-Simpsons-Computer webdavd[220]:
network_mount: WebDAV protocol not supported; file:
mount.tproj/webdav_network.c; line: 2702
Apr 21 09:51:07 Greg-Simpsons-Computer webdavd[245]:
network_mount: WebDAV protocol not supported; file:
mount.tproj/webdav_network.c; line: 2702
Was your iDisk mounted at the time? Or another WebDAV server?
Apr 21 09:51:20 Greg-Simpsons-Computer
diskarbitrationd[39]: mdsyncServer [193]:28715 not
responding.
Apr 21 09:51:20 Greg-Simpsons-Computer
diskarbitrationd[39]: mds [171]:28163 not
responding.
Hmm. These are part of Spotlight, but they don't really give any clues, just that they weren't responding. Which might be because the drive disappered during your search.
Waiting for MirrorAgent to launch and respond to
CFMessagePortCreateRemote(). [186]
Again, part of iDisk.
2007-04-21 09:52:41.360 SyndicationAgent[252]
WARNING: BestCalendarDateFromString - can't
interpret: 'Sat
that last line then repeats a lot of times
Nothing to worry about. It's badly formatted date strings from some iTunes RSS feeds. They're default bookmarks in a couple of places, which is why you see them sometimes.
2007-04-21 11:13:12.192 Pro Tools M-Powered Demo[352]
CFLog (21): GetDiskFragment returns -2804 for
<Product Registration><Product
Registration><AWSCommonSymbols.dll> when trying to
load /Library/Application Support/Product
Registration.app/Contents/MacOS/Product Registration
This is ProTools trying to load a piece of code. If ProTools is working, then I'd say it's nothing to worry about. Error -2804 is "specified fragment not found", but if it handles it okay, then it could just be an informational message.
Adobe LM Service: Started
AdobeLM Service
Just the Adobe license manager telling you it started. Nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately, I don't see anything helpful here. It's just like it disappeared (or never existed) as far as the OS is concerned. If you can find your original disks that came with the computer, you could try running the hardware test and see if it kicks up any errors, either with a drive or a drive controller on the motherboard.
charlie

Can I install Windows on my second internal hard drive?

Seems like most of other posts regarding this issues are outdated, so I thought I'd give it another shot.
I have two internal hard drives in my Mac Mini. One SSD, and one HDD. My OS X is installed on SSD, and I'd like to partition the HDD to use half of it for Windows. Before I buy Windows, I wanted to make sure that this is something I can do through bootcamp. If not, are there other ways to accomplish this?
Many thanks in advance.

If your hard drive was originally partitioned using the MBR scheme, then you did not do the drive properly. You must now repartition the entire hard drive:
Install Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion Using Internet Recovery
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Internet Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION- R keys until a globe appears on the screen. Wait patiently - 15-20 minutes - until the Recovery main menu appears.
Partition and Format the hard drive:
Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
After DU loads select your newly installed 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.
Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion. Mavericks: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks and click on the Install button. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
Once this has been done you can use Boot Camp Assistant to create the Windows partition.

Power Mac G4 - 933 - maxium size of second internal hard drive

I have a Power Mac G4 933 Mhz with an existing 60 Gb internal hard drive. I am trying to determine definitively the largest sized internal hard drive I can add in addition to my existing 60 Gb drive.
There are a variety of articles saying 120 Gb is the max, I called Apple Support and they said 80Gb and some places say it can support well beyond 200 Gb.
Any guidance is appreciated.
Thanks.

Just to verify my previous post, I am running a Seagate 250GB IDE drive on the internal bus in a 1GHz DP QS with the 4.3.3f2 Firmware and have had zero issues with this set-up.
The drive shows the full 250GB capacity (actually 232.89GB after its formatted).
Its possible that only the 2002 QS (800, 933, 1.0DP) have this ability, as I have not read about any of the ealier QS machines (733, 867, and 800DP) capable of doing this. I believe the 933 QS is ok, so if your firmware reads right, your probably be in luck.
freddythefreeloader, please let us know if you have any success with this. Thanks.
G4 MDD 1.25GHz DP FW800-ATI 9800 128MB-2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) G4 Gigabit Ethernet 1.5GHz OWC-ATI 9000 OEM 64MB-1.5GB RAM-Pioneer DVR111D

Setting up a VPN server on second internal hard drive

Forgive me if my jargon is off ... this is my first attempt at setting up a VPN.
GOAL: My company needs various employees to access our server from remote locations.
My personal computer is a Power Mac G5 Quad. Today I purchased a 500gb internal hard drive to serve as the company's "server".
I want to set things up so that employees can access this drive from anywhere on the internet.
I've read numerous documents on how clients connect to the server, but I haven't found anything on actually setting up a server so that others can connect to it.
Just to finally hash out my attempts at solving this ... I installed Chicken of the VNC and set that up on various employees' laptops. However, this VNC just lets them "control" my computer. I want them to be able to access one particular drive and share files there.
Any help, points in the right direction, advice, would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks so much.
~JJL

Try selecting a different ip address range for the VN. 192.168.0.x is a default for a lot of gear and I read that it could cause problems in one of the Leopard setup docs. try something like 192.168.x.y where x is more than 0 or 10.x.y.z again where x is More than 0
It really is worth downloading all the docs from the apple site and burning them to CD
http://www.apple.com/server/documentation/

How do you install windows bootcamp on a second internal hard drive?

I have a SSD as my main hard drive then installed the old hard drive internally in the internal optical bay slot. Whenever I try to install Windows and reboot, I get the No Bootable Disk error. Any ideas?

Disconnect the hard drive (assuming you want to install on SSD) and put the optical drive back.
Even on a multi-drive Mac Pro (tower) or an iMac (with SSD and 2TB hdd) there are extra steps.
You can't install Windows on one and have a drive with OS X or even GPT partition type on second.

Booting From OS X Tiger Hard drive to OS 9 on Second internal Hard drive

I just purchased a used PowerMac G4 with OS tiger installed. I removed the hard drive from my PowerMac G3 and installed it into the G4, using the second connection on the flat cable going to the internal drive in the G4. The just installed hard drive was the G3 only drive and contains OS 9 system. OS X tiger works fine and if I open OS 9 applications the classic OS 9 destop opens and opens the programs and documents located on the former G3 hard drive with out any issues. I have had some small issues with items not supported by classic but now I am not able to print to my Cannon iP5000 with dependable success and no duplexing at all which I had no problems with on the G3. I have downloaded new drivers from the Cannon site but no luck there also. I would like to boot up in OS 9 but when I go to start-up disk in OS X my OS 9 hard drive is not vissible and likewise only the OS X drive is vissible using the hold option key on start-up. The G4 is a 2003 unit but does have one Firewire 800 port. The G4 seller told me that the unit was originally dual bootable but maybe the Tiger made this not possible any more. Any answers?

Thank you. I guess I should have asked the question about G4s dual bootability here before I bought the computer as that was the reason I went with a G4. It still runs the OS 9 applications I need in the Classic mode and my Cannon iP5000 works like it did in OS 9 while in classic, allowing me to set up through Chooser. I bought on Ebay and I did read both ways, from another sellers, about the firewire 800 machines not being dual bootable. That is why I asked the seller I bought from and was told this machine was definately dual bootable when he purchased it. Thanks again, the apple article is pretty conclusive.

How large a second internal hard drive?

Keep running out of hd space - have been removing cache, etc. to try to keep my available space at least 10%, but decided to purchase a second hd. Was asked how big a one I wanted. Is there an optimum or max size I can use on my G4 (400 mhz, AGP, Model 3,3). Current hd is 20 GB divided between OS 9 (2.83) and OS X (16.25).IT IS AN SDram 100 I think.
Also - I never use the OS 9 side anymore - Can I Unpartition the current hd so that the OS 10 gets all of it and if so, how?
What is the max RAM memory I can add to this? Currently have 384 MB

The PowerMac3,3 version does not natively support drives larger than 128G from the logic board's drive controller. To benefit from a larger drive, you will need to install an PCI ATA controller card that supports larger drives and is (hopefully) bootable.
You can also try the high capacity software driver from Intech. Note the caveats, especially if this is your main boot drive. There also used to be a freeware solution called Overdrive. I provide the link but the site has been down for a long time. I have a copy but I have never tried it.
[Overdrive|http://mac.profusehost.net/overdrive/index.html] - free utility to use >128GB drives in old computers. Read warnings about beta releases in general.
[Texas Mac Man's post on large hard drives|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8646489#8646489]
[Dave Hamilton on BootROM versions and HD support|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1751707&tstart=90]
You can buy a larger drive as long as you partition it so the first partition is under 128G (like 125G) and leave the remainder unformatted.
Just so it's clear, partitioning will not give you access to the whole drive. In other words, a 250 GB drive split into two partitions will still only let you see the first 128 GB unless you use the PCI card or software solution.

2nd Internal Hard Drive Disappearing

I have a Powermac G5 with one 400gb harddrive that came with the computer and a 750gb Western Digital hard drive that I installed about 6 months ago. I never installed an operating system on it the Western Digital drive, it was just for storage of music/photos/video. About a month into owning the harddrive the icon disappeared from my desktop and a warning came up saying "device improperly disconnected." I opened up the computer and made sure the connection was snug, which it was, booted back up and everything worked fine. That has happened 3 times since I've owned the WD drive. Now it has disappeared again, except this time I can't seem to get it back. The connection is very snug. I have unplugged the harddrive and plugged it back in, rebooted a few times and nothing has worked. It would be pretty bad if I lost this drive. Any advice?

Either RMA or put it on a PC and run WD Diagnostics, or do a full low level erase, 7-way write erase the whole thing.
I had one I bought about the same time from OWC and I think I read a bunch of reviews on Newegg about problems with a different batch.
I found a couple areas on the drive that had bad blocks. TechTool Pro media scan can find them but why it doesn't then map them out??? Intech Speedtools is suppose to auto mapout, and maybe it does (all software does is tell the drive to write a pattern 10x and read it back and mark a weak sector as unavailable.... but WDs tool was the only one that really fixed it, not Apple DU 7-way erase, and not even zero all with SoftRAID.
I have about 20 WD drives, this is the only problem I've had, from 10K Raptors to 1TB Black and Green Power and in between.
I'd pick up the 1TB Black, or a couple 640GB Caviar ($69 each! OWC). Or spurge $300 on 10K 300GB boot drive AND 1TB data drive.

Installing Mavericks on second internal Hard Drive (SSD)

I've recently installed a second hard drive in my 15" 2011 MacBook Pro using the Optibay drive replacement. I've put a 120 GB solid state drive in place of the CD drive. I have been attempting to install OSX Mavericks on it, but have been unsuccessful. The drive currently has no data on it, and has been reformatted several times to re-attempt the installation. Each time I have tried to install mavericks on the extra SSD in the optibay drive, I have received this error:
"Install Failed: OS X could not be installed on your computer. OS X can't be installed on the disk because a recovery system can't be created. Visit www.apple.com/support/no-recovery to learn more" and it only gives me the option to restart the computer.
After I visited the site I tried the suggested steps in both of the articles linked to on the page, but still no success. I am not running RAID on the drive. It is brand new and has been in the laptop for about a month. It hasn't been used at all. I've also tried creating a bootable flash drive, but startup disk will not recognize the flash drive or the other drive in the computer to start up from.
I was thinking of possibly taking the SATA drive out (where my OS Mavericks currently resides) and replacing it with the SSD to force it to start up there or the flash drive. Would that be the logical next step here?
This is what I am trying to do: I want to have all of my OS and software on the solid state so it will be quicker, but I will store most of my data on the SATA drive that came with the computer.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Winston

I am also facing similar issue with 2011 late july 13 mac book pro with 256gb intel 520 ssd (runs the OSX)<pertioned 119 for mac, 119 for boot camp running oem win8.1) at main bay, 750 gb WD hdd on optical bay (where Home folder is moved). Basicall SSF mainly for apps and os. Where as home folder remain in WD HDD.
With snow leopard it's absolutely a performer. boot up less than 15 second, sleep to wake instant. WIN 8.1 superb too..no fass at all.
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
disk0s1:
Capacity:          209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
BSD Name:          disk0s1
Content:          EFI
MacPro:
Capacity:          119.2 GB (119,197,646,848 bytes)
Available:          75.01 GB (75,012,960,256 bytes)
Writable:          Yes
File System:          Journaled HFS+
BSD Name:          disk0s2
Mount Point:          /
Content:          Apple_HFS
Volume UUID:
Recovery HD:
Capacity:          650 MB (650,002,432 bytes)
BSD Name:          disk0s3
Content:          Apple_Boot
Volume UUID:
BOOTCAMP:
Capacity:          120 GB (119,999,037,440 bytes)
Available:          84.87 GB (84,866,392,064 bytes)
Writable:          No
File System:          NTFS
BSD Name:          disk0s4
Mount Point:          /Volumes/BOOTCAMP
Content:          Microsoft Basic Data
Volume UUID:
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
Vendor:          Intel
Product:          6 Series Chipset
Link Speed:          6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed:          3 Gigabit
Physical Interconnect:          SATA
Description:          AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
WDC WD7500BPKT-00PK4T0:
Capacity:          750.16 GB (750,156,374,016 bytes)
Model:          WDC WD7500BPKT-00PK4T0
Revision:          01.01A01
Serial Number:
Native Command Queuing:          Yes
Queue Depth:          32
Removable Media:          No
Detachable Drive:          No
BSD Name:          disk1
Rotational Rate:          7200
Medium Type:          Rotational
Partition Map Type:          GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status:          Verified
Volumes:
disk1s1:
Capacity:          209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
BSD Name:          disk1s1
Content:          EFI
Data:
Capacity:          749.81 GB (749,812,400,128 bytes)
Available:          329.73 GB (329,727,766,528 bytes)
Writable:          Yes
File System:          Journaled HFS+
BSD Name:          disk1s2
Mount Point:          /Volumes/Data
Content:          Apple_HFS
Volume UUID:
Now while upgrading to Marverick, its says my SSD is locked even though its writable, and only availble drive for installation is WD HDD! Which i don't want at all, then no point of having SSD on board!!
I did tried to install Marverick as packageinstaller, but its still find my SSD is locked.
Any flocks facing the same senario? any though will be welcome.
Thanks

Is it possible to add a second internal hard drive to my 27" iMac?

Just wondering if the above is possible.
If so could anyone recommend which hard drives to use (which are available in the UK)
Thanks in advance.

The Apple store might install what you buy from them, but not something you bought elsewhere. I am not sure if they offer one of the larger capacity drives so you would have to contact the store and ask them about it. They will charge you a premium price for the hardware.
If you are concerned about doing the drive installation, check for an Apple authorized service center close to you as they can do an installation without you having to worry about warranty.
User installation of memory and drives is allowed under the warranty, unless you break something

My second internal hard drive disappeared

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