# IDE Drive in Mac Pro



## azilnik (May 21, 2005)

Hey guys!
So I have a 250 gig IDE drive kicking around from my old external drive. I wanted to put it in the lower optical drive slot, and I just wanted to know if it's possible to bootcamp off it? What do the Jumper configurations have to be? it's a Seagate Barracuda. Also are there mounting brackets available to convert 3.25" to 5.whateveritis" available in the GTA?

Cheers!
Ari


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

azilnik said:


> Hey guys!
> So I have a 250 gig IDE drive kicking around from my old external drive. I wanted to put it in the lower optical drive slot, and I just wanted to know if it's possible to bootcamp off it? What do the Jumper configurations have to be? it's a Seagate Barracuda. Also are there mounting brackets available to convert 3.25" to 5.whateveritis" available in the GTA?
> 
> Cheers!
> Ari


No. It is not recommended that you do this because the systems architecture is specifically designed to use SATA for HDD's. The IDE interface is designed only for optical disk drives and the like.


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## azilnik (May 21, 2005)

Apple101 said:


> No. It is not recommended that you do this because the systems architecture is specifically designed to use SATA for HDD's. The IDE interface is designed only for optical disk drives and the like.


Really? Never heard of that. So would it be better to use Firewire / is it fast enough?


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## dusanv (Oct 21, 2005)

Why don't you just try it? I doubt anything bad can happen.


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## atobywv (Nov 8, 2004)

*IDE Hard Drive in 2nd Optical bay*

i have a 120GB IDE HD from my old G4 in the second Optical bay in my Mac Pro i have had no problems with it, so far i have not used it as a boot drive


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## azilnik (May 21, 2005)

atobywv said:


> i have a 120GB IDE HD from my old G4 in the second Optical bay in my Mac Pro i have had no problems with it, so far i have not used it as a boot drive


How did you mount it? is it just like sitting on the bottom of the enclosure? or do you have one of those brackets? Also, what are your jumper settings?


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## Bajan (Apr 11, 2004)

> No. It is not recommended that you do this because the systems architecture is specifically designed to use SATA for HDD's. The IDE interface is designed only for optical disk drives and the like.


This is bull.

The drive will work perfectly. Best option is to get a pair of brackets/rails for the 3.5" drive to make it fit in the 5.25" bay. For the jumper settings you can either leave both the drive and the DVD on cable select or set one to master and the other to slave. You'll do fine.


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## tendim (Apr 6, 2004)

azilnik said:


> Also are there mounting brackets available to convert 3.25" to 5.whateveritis" available in the GTA?


Those brackets should be available at any of the downtown computer shops (around College and Spadina), at Canada Computers or Tiger Direct. I used to buy a lot of them to mount 3.5" SCSI drives in 5" enclosures, they work fine; should run you about $5.00.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

Bajan said:


> This is bull****.
> 
> The drive will work perfectly. Best option is to get a pair of brackets/rails for the 3.5" drive to make it fit in the 5.25" bay. For the jumper settings you can either leave both the drive and the DVD on cable select or set one to master and the other to slave. You'll do fine.



Excuse the hell out of me but until you have a solid understanding of this unit then I would suggest that you keep your mouth shut. The IODC on the I/O device disk controller is designed to work with Integrated Drive Electronics Advanced Technology Attachment 100 optical drives. Not Physical Hard Disk Drives. The IHDC is designed to work with hard disk drives that are equipped with the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment interface. This is made possible by utilizing a 3Gbps Serial Advanced Technology Attachment bus.


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## Bajan (Apr 11, 2004)

Apple101 said:


> Excuse the hell out of me but until you have a solid understanding of this unit then I would suggest that you keep your mouth shut.


You sound like you come off as being part of the Apple design team. You have a lot of growing up to do kid and understand that I am not making a personal attack on you. Once again, grow up.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

Bajan said:


> You sound like you come off as being part of the Apple design team. You have a lot of growing up to do kid and understand that I am not making a personal attack on you. Once again, grow up.


No no you sir have allot of growing up to do. Before you start going on this forum acting like Mr. I think I know it all, and I am going to call what I see bull**** I would suggest that you first think about what you are saying. And by the way when you call any of my recommendations or advice bull**** thats a personal attack.


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## Bajan (Apr 11, 2004)

Apple101 said:


> No no you sir have allot of growing up to do. Before you start going on this forum acting like Mr. I think I know it all, and I am going to call what I see bull**** I would suggest that you first think about what you are saying. And by the way when you call any of my recommendations or advice bull**** thats a personal attack.


I beg to differ. You seem to be the one to know it all, you just do not see yourself in this situation whereas other people do, of course you may think the same about me and that is your free opionion.

The gentlmen is asking if his IDE drive will work and the answer is a simple yes. He is not trying to run a mission critical corporate system here. Adding an IDE drive will work just fine so let's just drop this now.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

Bajan said:


> Ok you are absolutly correct. Now get lost.


Hey listen, if you have a problem lets take it up somewhere else besides this thread, like mature adults, but I guess you are incapable of doing so nor do you have the mental capacity to understand that you are wrong. This may explain your childish and immature response such as this one in which you displayed. Also don't tell me what to do.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

I've done it on a G5 tower and on my G3 and G4 towers. (put a IDE drive in the optical bay)

You should be fine. Apple101 seems to be trying to be persuasive by using overly technical terms that somehow assert his intelligence when in fact they are just expanded commonly used acronyms. 


"The IODC on the I/O device disk controller is designed to work with Integrated Drive Electronics Advanced Technology Attachment 100 optical drives. Not Physical Hard Disk Drives. The IHDC is designed to work with hard disk drives that are equipped with the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment interface. This is made possible by utilizing a 3Gbps Serial Advanced Technology Attachment bus."

...You could've just said the IDE 100 cable was intended for optical drives and the SATA for hard drives (in your opinion).

The computer could really care less about what kind of drive is on the end of the cable as long as it is compliant with the SATA or parallel ATA interface standard. An example of this are the many external enclosures on the market for either optical or hard drives (in the same case).

You're biggest obstacle will be finding brackets to securely hold the 3.5" drive. I imagine boot camp should work fine. The only way you'll know the drive is on a different kind of bus is going to be if you look in the system profiler.

This is all in my humble opinion, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.


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## Bajan (Apr 11, 2004)

Apple101 said:


> Also don't tell me what to do.


I rest my case.

I will now waste no more time over this.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

It must be that time of the month 

...all these emotions flying out of control.:lmao:


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

jdurston said:


> I've done it on a G5 tower and on my G3 and G4 towers. (put a IDE drive in the optical bay)
> 
> You should be fine. Apple101 seems to be trying to be persuasive by using overly technical terms that somehow assert his intelligence when in fact they are just expanded commonly used acronyms.
> 
> ...


Well for someone of his stature he appeared to be someone who is intelligent, but I guess not, expanding an acronym was not intended to prove ones intelligence but rather to help bajan comprehend some of the terms. Also may I ask what information do you have from Apple that verifies what you are stating? Also my statement of the systems interface is not an opinion it is a fact.


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## azilnik (May 21, 2005)

Anyone ever feel like a douchebag because his innocent question turns into an e-argument? Ya. That's me.


Anyway thank you all for your help... I'll be back in a sec I'll try it out now.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

azilnik said:


> Anyone ever feel like a douchebag because his innocent question turns into an e-argument? Ya. That's me.
> 
> 
> Anyway thank you all for your help... I'll be back in a sec I'll try it out now.


ahh don't feel like that! Its just rather unfortunate that there are [censored] in this forum thats all.

EDIT: Please don't circumvent the language filters.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

What I am saying is that a MacPro, G5, G4, and G3 all have several standards based drive interfaces built in. Among these are IDE(parallelATA), and SATA among others (firewire, USB, and PCI express).

As long as a drive's interface (whether it be SATA or older IDE) complies with the standard of the intended interface there really shouldn't be a problem. This is why we have standards in computer hardware. All the computer really sees is data traveling to and from the drive. The actual hardware in the drive is controlled by the drives internal circuitry which acts as a bridge to the IDE or SATA channel.

To say it wouldn't work is like saying, a USB port was designed for mice and printers, and plugging anything else isn't recommended.

Sure they may be concerns about cooling or mounting (I don't know of any), but the drive should technically work fine in on the optical drive channel as long as it is a standard IDE drive, I don't know of any optical drive specific IDE standard that would apply in this case.

Typically the older parallel ATA cable ended on the master device and the middle device should be set to slave mode. I don't know of the two optical drives have the own channel or share a cable.


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## Bajan (Apr 11, 2004)

Apple101 said:


> Its just rather unfortunate that there are [censored] in this forum thats all.


Ah, the old bait and hook trick. I rest my case (again).


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

Bajan said:


> Ah, the old bait and hook trick. I rest my case (again).


ahh the old now would be a good time for you to shut up because you have no case.


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## Bajan (Apr 11, 2004)

I have asked the mods to clean up this post as this is just getting stupid. Sorry folks.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

jdurston said:


> What I am saying is that a MacPro, G5, G4, and G3 all have several standards based drive interfaces built in. Among these are IDE(parallelATA), and SATA among others (firewire, USB, and PCI express).
> 
> As long as a drive's interface (whether it be SATA or older IDE) complies with the standard of the intended interface there really shouldn't be a problem. This is why we have standards in computer hardware. All the computer really sees is data traveling to and from the drive. The actual hardware in the drive is controlled by the drives internal circuitry which acts as a bridge to the IDE or SATA channel.
> 
> ...


I NEVER said that I would not work. I am just saying that it is not recommended because that channel has not been designed for use with a physical disk drive.


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## azilnik (May 21, 2005)

Ah the old...

Nevermind.

So I just tried it, and it SEEMS to be working... but I don't have the brackets


and Weirdly enough, SMARTreporter only detects the ATA drive now, not my two SATAs.

Anyone know why / a remedy?


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

If I had a MacPro, I wouldn't hesitate to try it. It's not like a hard drive is going to damage anything on that channel.

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ here is a commercial example of the optical channel being used on a hard drive successfully. It's for a MacBook Pro, but same difference.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

Bajan said:


> I have asked the mods to clean up this post as this is just getting stupid. Sorry folks.





Bajan said:


> Ah, the old bait and hook trick.


 :yawn:




jdurston said:


> If I had a MacPro, I wouldn't hesitate to try it. It's not like a hard drive is going to damage anything on that channel.
> 
> http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ here is a commercial example of the optical channel being used on a hard drive successfully. It's for a MacBook Pro, but same difference.


The MBP uses a different architecture then the Mac Pro.






azilnik said:


> Ah the old...
> 
> Nevermind.
> 
> ...


If I say that its not recommended its for a reason. I know what I am talking about.


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## azilnik (May 21, 2005)

Well thanks for all your input guys.
I just took out the drive. It works perfectly, but the SMARTreporter thing weirds me out a bit... So we'll see what happens.

I just need to use Premiere for a film project... Erg might have to shell out for another SATA or try to convince a Mac Hater to let me use Final Cut.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

The MBP uses SATA for it's internal hard drive and IDE ATA interface for it's optical drive which is a very similar architecture to the MacPro.

I can see why you would error on the side of cautiousness, I tend to try things based on educated guesses and in similar cases it has worked for me in the past.

Based on our discussion, I would say it'll probably work but don't do it on a mission critical system (unless you're a gambler).


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

azilnik said:


> Well thanks for all your input guys.
> I just took out the drive. It works perfectly, but the SMARTreporter thing weirds me out a bit... So we'll see what happens.
> 
> I just need to use Premiere for a film project... Erg might have to shell out for another SATA or try to convince a Mac Hater to let me use Final Cut.


If I had to guess... SMARTreporter probably only looks at one interface out of SATA or IDE. But that is pure guesswork. I'd email the developer of SMARTreporter for a definite answer.

You should be fine.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

jdurston said:


> The MBP uses SATA for it's internal hard drive and IDE ATA interface for it's optical drive which is a very similar architecture to the MacPro.
> 
> I can see why you would error on the side of cautiousness, I tend to try things based on educated guesses and in similar cases it has worked for me in the past.
> 
> Based on our discussion, I would say it'll probably work but don't do it on a mission critical system (unless you're a gambler).


Yes, however there are notable differences between the two systems architecture.




jdurston said:


> I tend to try things based on educated guesses and in similar cases it has worked for me in the past.


Not a smart thing to do. You should base your decision on strong educated facts not guesses.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Give it a rest, Apple101. You're clearly wrong, and the hard drive works fine in the optical slot. "Optimized" for optical drives or not, it causes no harm to the hard drive itself. I'll leave my 6+ years of hands-on experience and 4 Apple certifications as record of knowledge before you ask.



> If I say that its not recommended its for a reason. I know what I am talking about.


You accuse others of not providing evidence to prove their statements, yet you yourself come off as saying, "I know what I'm talking about." My bad, but I must have missed the supplement URL in that sentence.  Are we done yet? Performing a task or action that isn't "recommended" doesn't necessarily cause problems, either, and as someone who "knows what he's talking about," I half expected you to know this as a fact as well.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

Lars said:


> Give it a rest, Apple101. You're clearly wrong, and the hard drive works fine in the optical slot. "Optimized" for optical drives or not, it causes no harm to the hard drive itself. I'll leave my 6+ years of hands-on experience and 4 Apple certifications as record of knowledge before you ask.
> 
> 
> 
> You accuse others of not providing evidence to prove their statements, yet you yourself come off as saying, "I know what I'm talking about." My bad, but I must have missed the supplement URL in that sentence.  Are we done yet? Performing a task or action that isn't "recommended" doesn't necessarily cause problems, either, and as someone who "knows what he's talking about," I half expected you to know this as a fact as well.


I can see you haven't read what I said either. I NEVER said that it would not work. I just said it is not a suggested thing to do. 

The Ultra ATA/100 interface in the Mac Pro is for optical drives as stated by Apple. If you require further expansion of drive capacity then you are to use a drive with an SATA interface. (You and I are both in the Apple service network so I am pretty sure that you are well aware of this.) I am also pretty dam sure that if you call Apple they will tell you the same thing. There are also several other reasons as to why it is not recommended, one of them being no thermal monitoring for that drive.

I not only carry a discipline from Apple but from Hewlett Packard as well. (HP certified Professional) So I think I have a pretty dam good idea about how things work. I also now have my discipline in Cisco for networking as well.

If you would like to discuss system architectures, designs, software, and many other things I would be more then happy to discuss it outside of this forum if you and I are able to allocate some time within our busy day schedule. You might actually learn something.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

holy idiot thread batman.


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## Chealion (Jan 16, 2001)

This thread has been closed for a couple reason besides the complete derailment of the thread.

Apple101 - Please watch your language, from a third party view it's apparent (at least to me) that his disagreement with your statement was not meant as a personal attack. Also, the post to Bajan where you spelled out the acronyms came across as childish if only because it wasn't apparent who it was addressed to along with what jdurston said.

Whether this isn't what you meant or not, the tone that came across I'm assuming wasn't the tone intended.

azilnik - I hope between Bajan and Apple101 you got your answer in that you can do it but it's not recommended by Apple.


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