G3AIO HD upgrade... part 2... masters and slaves!

Welcome to part two! This section is for those who are brave enough to attempt adding a slave ATA drive into the empty drive bay of a G3AIO. There is really no problem in adding in your old drive as the slave. What I ended up doing though, is selling my original 4 GB drive and putting in a 20 GB drive into the empty zip drive bay. The 20 GB ATA66, 7200 RPM drive is an economical, lightning fast choice!

The first step is to power down, remove cables and slide out the main tray as described in part 1. Now look down into the depths of the main tray and behold! There are four cables (labelled A,B,C,D in the diagram below) that will have to be disconnected in order for you to be able to slide the main tray ALL the way out;

Disconnect them all. A and B attach to the upright video card - A is a 40 pin cable, simply pull it from the video card, and B's connection is just underneath it. I'm not sure what B is... who cares? (I think it carries power to the video card)... it has to be removed! Release the 2 side clips on B's connector to the video card by pulling them out sideways... the connector then comes loose. C and D are power cables - disconnecting them is fairly straightforward - C unplugs where you see the letter "C" in the photo above. D disconnects from the motherboard. I recommend taping these all up out of the way as shown below;

This leaves a wide annoying 50 pin SCSI cable as denoted in the diagram above. When you twist it, you'll notice bits of a disgusting double-sided tape that attach it along it's length to a 40 pin ATA cable - this is the cable that leads to the CD-ROM! Now remove the SCSI cable from it's connection on the motherboard - slide it out and it put it aside (you may have to unlock a white plastic clip that is holding both the ATA and SCSI cables down) - you don't need it!

Special note! There is a very slight chance you have no SCSI cable - it might be an extra ATA cable instead. If so... you're lucky! You don't have to go through all the trouble (below) of replacing the ATA cable that connects to the CD-ROM with a dual cable. Simply plug the drive into the extra ATA cable! How do you tell these cables apart? Remember that ATA cables have 40 pin holes, SCSI cables have 50 pin holes.

You are now ready to slide out the whole main tray completely. Find the two plastic clips on each side of the main tray (see below) and press them as you slide the whole main tray assembly out.

You now have a computer with a huge hole in it. Look up inside... marvel at the huge fan! Don't get your head stuck!

Put the extracted main tray onto a soft, clean surface.

You can remove the drive tray by pulling up slightly on a small tab that is found at the front of the zip hole cover - at the same time pull the drive tray away from the computer assembly - it will slide right off! You'll be left with something like this;

The easy part is removing the zip hole cover and attaching your hard drive. Try to use the two screws you've removed - they might just fit in the hard drive. If not, you'll have to obtain a proper couple of screws - hardware store? - authorized apple dealer? - steal them from the nearest PC? Anyway, attach the drive, circuitry down against the tray, with the power and 40 pin connection facing the computer innards. Do not slide the tray back on yet... we have some more work to do first.

Now the hard part. In Apple's incredible wisdom, they have trapped (see photos above) the ATA cable under the motherboard! This is bad, because we need to replace this cable with a dual cable, which I know you have purchased ahead of time! Make sure that it's a long one - I bought a 30" cable, on the package it's marked 22/8... meaning that there is an extra connector in between the two ends, about 8" from one end and 22" from the other.

If you bought the 20 GB Maxtor like I did, you're smiling, because you know that there is a dual cable included in the box... so you don't have to buy one. Unfortunately, it's a pretty short cable - so you'll have to be patient trying to get make it reach - don't worry, I know it does. Attach it to the closest ATA connector on the motherboard (there are two right next to each other - who cares which drive is plugged into which one? - just switch 'em if you have to).

You must connect this "middle" connection to the CD-ROM. So how do we do it with the old cable trapped? Carefully!

Tip the whole assembly on it's side so that you can disconnect the ATA cable from the CD. While you've got it tipped... look closely at the CD-ROM - you'll see that the "master" and "slave" jumper positions are punched into the metal case. Using tweezers or a fine tipped needle-nose pliers, remove the jumper from the "master" position and put it back in the "slave" position (just one spot over). Don't squeeze hard... it doesn't take much force.

Remove the two motherboard screws at the positions noted in the diagram. Take care! No scratching the board! With the screws out, you'll be able to lift the board just enough (only a tiny lift is needed!) to slip the ATA cable connector out. I suppose you could just cut this cable - but you're going to have to lift the motherboard anyway to push the new dual cable connector into the same spot, down under the motherboard. Make sure you have the shorter 8" section of the cable facing down - this is what you will connect to the hard drive. When you have completed this, it should look like this (the picture below is cheating a bit - it shows a new long cable I bought... if you are using the provided ATA cable from the Maxtor 20 GB drive, you won't have so much "slack" to work with... and you may have to twist the cable once to plug it into the hard drive appropriately - but I doubt it).

Now you can remove the old ATA cable from the motherboard and put the free end of the new cable into that spot. Don't forget to carefully replace the motherboard screws!

In the diagram above, you'll notice that the power connector for the hard drive is ready to plug into the drive. It is likely that you will have to remove a small adapter cable first. This cable is meant to plug into the SCSI (or ATAPI) zip drive that is supposed to go into the empty bay - the adapter is pictured below;

If you are one of those strange people who have decided on moving your original Western Digital or Quantum 4GB drive to the zip drive bay - you weirdo! Actually, I did this myself before deciding to sell the whiney piece of junk. If you are doing this, don't adjust the jumper settings - it is jumpered as a master, so leave it that way.

If you are adding a new drive such as the 20 GB Maxtor into this slot... leave it alone too. It comes jumpered as a master device right out of the box. You can check this on the instruction sheet that come with the drive if you want.

Anyway... you can now slide the drive on it's tray back into position until you hear the "click"! Now plug in the power connector (yes, I know, it's cramped... plug it in as you are sliding the drive back!)

You're almost done! Slide everything back into the computer until you hear the "click" of the holding clips. Then reattach all four cables you have taped up to the back of the computer. Close it up (careful not to pinch cables) and put the screws back in! That's it!

I hope this is of use to someone... it was fun doing it!