"I have been using an Adaptec 29160N in my 2001 Quicksilver 867mhz upgraded to dual 933mhz (Powerlogix) under Mac OSX for two years now. Everything attached to it works perfectly (Orb, UMAX scanners, Syquest removables, Jasmine 50MB from the 80's, etc.). My two boot drives work without fail (Seagate U160 10K RPM and a Maxtor U160 10K) and are very fast with no raid setup.

This info is on the Adaptec website and is what I used to make the card bootable. Don't know if it will apply to the new G5's though.
-Robert B.

(Info on OF mod)

To work around this issue print out the instructions that are below and follow them exactly:

1) Reboot, holding down command-option-O-F all at the same time at startup. This will bring up a white screen starting with "Open Firmware" and ending with a "0 >" prompt.

2) When the Open Firmware prompt appears, type the following: (Note that the spaces between quotes are important and the instructions are case sensitive. (The β character = a space. Wherever the β character appears in the lines listed below, type a space in it's place.) After pressing return , the Mac should display an "OK" response and another "0 >" prompt.)

setenvβfcode-debug?βtrue

3) At the "0 >" prompt type the following and then press the return key

printenv

4) Verify the following line exists in the output, generally 4 to 6 lines down


fcode-debug?      true      false 

5) At the "0 >" prompt type the following and then press the return key

mac-boot

6) Once the system is up, select appropriate drive (using Startup Disk in the Control Panels folder under Mac OS 9 or in Startup Disk in System Preferences under Mac OS X) and reboot.

If any G5 owners try this OF tweak with a 29160/29160N/39160 card, let me know if it works to make the SCSI drive bootable. (So far one G5/1.6GHz owner said it worked for the 29160 card.)

BTW - Although the first G5 owner that reported an ATTO UL4S SCSI card would not boot in a G5 (black screen only) didn't mention any damage done - but another G5/1.6GHz owner wrote he had his system serviced by Applecare after trying an ATTO UL4S card in the system. I'll try to get more details from both G5 owners on this.

In reply to a G5 owner report on not being able to boot from an Adaptec 29160 SCSI card connected drive, a reader (thanks Jester) sent a note that Adaptec lists that as a known issue with "Quicksilver, Mirror Drive Door and newer Macs" due to an openfirmware incompatibility. I searched and found they note the same thing for the 29160N and 39160 cards also. There's other issues noted on those pages as well. As has been mentioned before, it looks like Mac development has ceased on these cards (no firmware updates for some time, no Control Panels for OS X, etc.). Here's the links to the pages at Adaptec.

• Known Issues with PowerDomain 29160
• Known Issues with PowerDomain 29160N
• Known Issues with PowerDomain 39160.

" mike, a friend loaned me his brand new G5 1.8GHz for playing around with it for a day. i tried to install both my SCSI host adapters: "Adaptec PowerDomain 29160" and "ATTO UL4S". Both with the newest available firmware flashed to them.

With the ATTO installed, the G5 refuses to boot at all. I hear only the startup-chime, and that's it. the screen stays black. (I've seen gray screens at boot in some older macs years ago after adding a PCI SCSI card; zapping the PRAM helped, but this may be a more serious problem. ATTO had told me previously that all their Ultra3, Ultra320 and all Fibre Channel adapters should be G5 compatible. There was an ATTO OS X ExpressPCI Plus driver update (2.0) last month (see August 18th news page) that noted G5 Support, but it sounds like it isn't getting far enough to even load a driver. -Mike)

With the Adaptec, the machine boots, and the SCSI-disk attached to it is mounted and fully usable, although, the mac will not boot from the SCSI-disk.
(I asked if he tried cloning the G5s boot disk to the SCSI drive before trying to boot from it. Not sure the system restore discs would install to a SCSI drive and wondering if there's some file/driver that is required for the G5 boot disk that is not present on a standard/previous OS X install.-Mike)
best regards,
Mike B.
(switzerland)"

He later replied he had cloned the stock boot disk to the SCSI drive and it was still not bootable from the SCSI card. He also said he tried zapping the pram with the ATTO card - no help. (Update - according to this Adaptec 29160 known issues page, you can't boot from hard drives connected to a 29160 in a Quicksilver, MDD G4 or newer Mac due to an Open Firmware incompatibility. They note the same thing for the 29160N and 39160 cards. However see the later news item above for Openfirmware tweaks to workaround that issue.) I'll be adding Mike's comments to the G5 tech info/compatibility page PCI card section soon. That section has past comments on PCI Adaptec and ATTO SCSI cards, as well as Audio cards - but again the 3.3v PCI requirement isn't the only potential problem. Actual reports from use are the only way to check for that.
If any other G5 owners have used PCI cards (Audio, SCSI, etc.), let me know your results. I also welcome any other hardware/software compatibilty reports from G5 owners.

"The Sound Guy, Inc., has announced the release of SFX Machine RT 1.02 for Macintosh, a real-time version of the award-winning SFX Machine audio effects plug-in. SFX Machine RT is available in Audio Unit format for Mac OS X, as well as VST format for Mac OS 8/9/X.

The 1.02 update adds a Randomize button, which automatically randomizes the position of each of the non-volume sliders. This makes it easy to get an idea of the range of possibilities contained within each preset. The new version also includes optimized audio processing and other enhancements.
SFX Machine RT comes with hundreds of presets, including conventional effects like choruses and flangers as well as a wide variety of unique effects. Many of the presets include a pitch tracker or envelope follower, allowing the effect to respond intelligently to the input signal. The plug-in also allows automated parameter control via a simple "MIDI Learn" interface.
A demo version can be downloaded from: http://www.sfxmachine.com/rt/downloads.html"

"SoftRAID vs. Apple RAID quick comparison
SoftRAID does not support booting from a RAID volume. This will be addressed as soon as possible in an update.

Advantages of SoftRAID over Apple RAID:
• SoftRAID is "partition-based" RAID, meaning you can create mixed volumes on the same drives.
• SoftRAID can add delete volumes from drives without initialising them.
• SoftRAID tracks I/O's per volumes and disk so you can monitor volume and disk usage.
• SoftRAID tracks I/O Errors and logs them, so you can predict disk failure. Much more acccurate than "SMART" which is a general feature that does not really predict potential drive failures.
• SoftRAID will monitor Volume status, and notify the user when a volume is out of sync, needs to be rebuild, has an error, etc.
• SoftRAID allows Mirror Volumes to be rebuilt in the background.
• SoftRAID can add/delete disks from Mirror volumes.
• SoftRAID allows you to split off a "Mirror volume from a multi-drive Mirror volume. Great for cloning configurations and migrating them to different servers.
• Most importantly for RAID 1 users, we have a new concept called "Read Only Secondary" Volumes, where you can remove a "Read-Only Volume" from a Mirror. This volume will mount read-only, and can be used for back that up on a seperate machine, archives, or the user can rotate disks, with a hassle free off line backup.
• SoftRAID gives a clear, concise user interface to view and manage your drives and Server.
• SoftRAID optimizes volume performance by application, Server/DV/DA/Workstation.
• SoftRAID rebuilds are "intelligent' and will not adversley impact user performance during a rebuild.

On the XServe, imagine a 3 drive mirror, with a spare drive off site. Each Friday, you split off a drive in bay 4, as "Read only secondary", and add back the previous drive. It rebuilds in the background, and you don't have to waste time backing up. (Or can bring the drive over to a backup workstation.) It is a GREAT feature for XServes. ;-)
Mark James
SoftRAID, LLC"

If any readers with high-end RAID arrays test performance of SoftRAID vs. Apple RAID, let me know.

"I received clarification from Apple...this might be of help to those readers waiting on G5s: Orders are filled in the order received. A G5 ordered later should not arrive before a G5 ordered earlier (all things being equal). The ship date you are given is the latest date Apple anticipates shipping the order; it could ship sooner (hence, "on or before"). (we all expected the date listed to be worst-case, to avoid another disappointing delay.)
Interestingly, the customer service reps at Apple can also see an "as early as" date in their system, which they might tell you if you ask. In my case, my 8/26 order has an "on or before" ship date of 10/17, but it also has an "as early as" date of 10/2.

Finally, Apple will only revise your "on or before" estimate if it's necessary to delay the order (like they did on Aug 28). They will not change the estimate to show an earlier ship date. Obviously, AppleÃs estimating process is not an exact science, so take the date they give you + or - 2 weeks. (I hope the date listed doesn't turn out to be + 2 weeks - as it should be a worst case estimate, although of course problems could arise to add a delay.)
One final note from comments made by a service rep at Apple: it seems Apple completely missed the target on anticipating the distribution of orders for the three G5 models. They slightly overestimated orders for the lower end models while greatly underestimating orders for the dual 2GHz model. This has led to a plentiful supply of the 1.6 and 1.8GHz models and a 2 month backlog on the big boy. The delays in shipping the top model are less a result of CPU shortages and more the result of dedicating too little of their production output to the high end configuration.
Stephen A."

Although order status dates (viewable via the web) in the past bounced back and forth several times within 24 hours (noted last week) they seemed to have settled down now (dual G5 early orders still showing "on or before 9/22" in most cases).

(Standard Dual G5 config.)

• 512MB RAM (two 256MB dimms)
• Pioneer DVR-106D firmware A606
• OS X 10.2.7 (build 6S80)
• 160GB Hard Drive (Seagate ST3160023AS)
  (Seagate specs show 7200RPM/8MB cache, 8.5MS avg seek)
• ATI 9600 Pro/64MB (ID: RV350, ROM: 113-A13601-120)

I guess 10.2.7 adds native support for the DVR-106 drive (Panther betas were already reported as supporting it.) I've asked the owner if he has a DVD+R or DVD+RW disc to test to see if the Apple ROM drive supports those media types.
Also the 4 spare screws as I suspected are for mounting a 2nd hard drive (the screw heads act as guides in the channel of the bay, which is why they are larger than normal).

" We have dropped the price on our 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Elite Models:
OWC Mercury Elite FireWire 400 + USB 1.1/2 Combo Solution Was $245.99, now $229.99
OWC Mercury Elite FireWire 800/400 + USB 1.1/2 Combo Solution Was $299.99, now $289.99
All FireWire and USB Cables + Intech Speedtools included with both models. 2 Year OWC Warranty also included. Shipping starts from under $4 and is FREE on orders over $300.
Best Regards,
Lawrence R. O'Connor
Other World Computing "

CDRW Drives:
• IDE Cyberdrive 48x16x48x in Dual G4 DDR (OS X)
  (listed under "other" brands, no itunes burn support, not bootable from CD)
• Firewire QUE 4x4x24x (mitsumi mechanism) used w/B&W G3 (OS X)
  (noted firmware update solved problems)
• Firewire Sony CRX 1600L 12x8x32 used w/iMac slot loading (OS 9.1) (problems noted - older FAQ item from years ago notes Charismac had a hotfix for an issue with some Sony FW CDRW case bridges and certain Macs like the iMac slotted models.)
  
  Combo DVD+CDR Drives:
• Expansion bay Teac DW-224E-A (didn't note drive speed) in PowerBook G3 2000 (OS 9.2) (using modified burn support file. See Systems page, PB section for past articles on swapping in Combo drives in exp. bays.)
  
  DVD-R Drives:
• IDE Pioneer DVR-105 in (yikes) G4 no AGP (OS X)
  (noted some KP's and what sounds like a drive sleep issue)
  
  DVD-R + DVD-RAM Drives:
• Firewire (IDE drive in FW case) Matshita SW-9581 used w/iBook 2000 (OS X) (no iTunes burn support)
  
  DVD+R/RW + DVD-R/RW Drives:
• IDE Pioneer DVR-106 in G4/AGP (OS X)
  (using modified burn support file from FAQ, includes comments on DVD SP2/Toast6.)
• IDE Sony DW-U10A in G4/AGP (OS X)
  (Illustrated CD drive install guide here covers G4 towers up to the Digital Audio Model, Beige G3 MT, and B&W G3 Macs)

You can find full owner reports (latest shown first) by searching the database by drive/brand/interface/mac models (the latest reports are shown first in searches). For guides to installing CD/CDRW/DVD drives or Hard drives in many mac models, see the IDE Articles page. The Firewire articles page also has guides on case kits, installing drives, etc.
If you've added a IDE, SCSI, Firewire or USB hard drive, CDRW, tape drive, etc. make sure you add a report to the database. (If you post an updated entry - make sure you use the same name, etc. as you did before so I can find your past entry. Thanks.)
(Incomplete entries are deleted. Do not post questions in the database, it's for drive reports not questions on what drive to buy - for that try searching the database for reports from owners of your mac model on the drive type/brand/interface, etc. you're interested in.)

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