Is it the main drive or just for capturing? Any idea how full it is? What type of drive is it?

Both drives in the machine are Maxtors. The video drive is just for capturing. It is a 60GB drive and I believe the last I checked it had 35Gigs used up. I am in the middle of a project now. The main drive is 120 gigs. It is not the drive that came with the machine. That drive was IBM and started making very odd noises so I copied all of the data off of it to the Maxtor 120GB.

My luck with Macs has been very good (or else I wouldn't have stayed with them this long). However I got a new g4/1.25 in September. Less than a month out of the box the 80GB system drive, a Hitachi Deskstar (I think they are making the IBM Deskstar drives now, right?) made some "very odd noises" and died without warning losing everything. Fortunately everything was backed up....

Here is some interesting info:

DiskWarrior freezes on step 9 "Comparing new directory to old for changes". I used the DiskWarrior control panel to select my startup drive back to OS X. The control panel said I have Mac OS 9.1.8???? I know I have 9.2.2 on there. Diskwarrior boots with 9.2.2. That is odd. It boots into OS X fine and there are no problems, and the video drive has appeared. I think I will copy everything off of that and either reformat that drive or just get a new drive.

But now I am afraid of 9.2.2, which I may still need to occasionally boot into from time to time. My computer does not seem to like 9 anymore.

They pulled 10.2.8? And you say 10.3 is no better?

I'm starting to think I should have stayed with my G4 and OS 10.2.6.

For now I've pulled my G5 out of commission, it's not reliable enough.

I feel like an unpaid beta tester...and I don't like it.

Mike Avery

Ted doesn't use 10.3 or the current 10.3.1 He is repeating what he may have heard or read on other forums etc. My experience is that the 4 Macs in my house run just fine on 10.3.1 and the twenty plus Macs at the school I teach at run without problem also. Your G5 was made to perform better on Panther and my advice would be to install it ASAP. There is no reason not to be using it.

If you have any external FireWire drives be sure to update their drivers to the latest versions before updating to Panther.

For the record 10.2.8 was never pulled, 10.2.7 was pulled and quickly replaced by 10.2.8

Jeff, I'm upgrading to Panther today....we'll see if that solves my problems.

Do you think a G4 dual 450 can benefit from that as well?

Thanks,
Mike Avery

It will definetly see improvement. One of my Macs is the dual 450 and I've noticed some areas with big improvements. Also read my thread on how to upgrade etc. If you have questions post them here and I'll answer ASAP. I'll be around most of the evening and be able to get back to you quickly.

I want 10.3.1 but I don't want to pay $120 a year just to keep up with Apple's many upgrades. I'll get it when they lower the price. Money is tight now.

Anyway my system seems to have fixed itself. The new WD hard drive is great. I think whatever was causing OS 9 to mess up had something to do with that bad video drive, though I still can't figure it out. When I booted into X, it fixed everything as it booted and 9.2.2 works fine as well. For now. Go figure. :confused:

Ted, I'm glad things are getting back on track and working out for you. Thanks for posting and letting us know the outcome.