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The Power Macintosh G4 is series of personal desktop computers released by Apple in 1999, and sold through 2004. This page is for the M5183 designation.

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Best way to test the stock hard drive

I picked this up due to a power issue, essentially taking a chance. I had a window to power test it and after I removed a common failure point the machine powered right on. However it has a Maxtor 20GB hard drive that is original to the machine. It doesn't say what it is being OEM but it looks like a DiamondCrash 10.

Block Image

Given I know Maxtor drives have a reputation what would be the best way to test it against failure on this Mac?

Update (04/14/24)

Block Image

The video card works. YES.

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This is an older IDE drive, there is little you can test here without the needed tools. If you have the original OS9 CD/DVD disks one of them has the diagnostics on it.

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I need to test why it’s giving me a black screen. I suspect it’s not fond of VGA>HDMI so I ordered a VGA cable to see. My last known DVI monitor is scrapped.

I can probably find the discs online as an image so I’m not super concerned I won’t find them once I get the video sorted or if I need another legacy monitor.

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@nick It's a DiamondMax VL 40. For your HDD download Maxtor PowerMax v 4.23 from here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a26J4H_... and here is how to use it Powermax Guide En This Powermac G4 should come in handy when you work on it.

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So slap a copy of OSX on it and run the software? If need be I can get an IDE USB adapter and probably run it on XP if needed.

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@nick run it on XP and see what it tells you.

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@oldturkey03 Probably wouldn't hurt to low level format it given I got the machine used to make sure I have it wiped out.

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@nick with an old drive like that it's definitely the best option.

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@oldturkey03 I threw a copy of 10.3 on it since I need to modify the 10.1 CD I have for it and burn it to a CD-R. I'm still going to check but I want to see if the Mac has any serious issues first.

The DiamondMax 10 and VL40 looked the same to me. It was titled SECURE ERASED but I still want to pull it, put it on the E6400 ASAP and then do a full low level format. Until I can do that and if it has some issue that fails it, I don't trust any old Maxtor.

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