Chosen Solution
My G4 suddenly decided its hard drive was unrecogizable. I figured it had died the death, went to ifixit for a new one and got busy. Today was replacement day and I thought everything had gone well. But neither the computer nor the Disk Utility on my MacOSX install disk can locate the replacement for formatting, or any other, purposes. One “answer” is that new replacement hard drive from ifixit is also dead, but that is something I admit is a bit hard to get my head around. If I connect my storage hard drive to the computer and select one of my backup hard drives the G4 computer does not seem to know the difference; i.e. if runs well. It just does not seem interested in any of the hard drives INSTALLED in it. Any thoughts?
Simply replace the cable that connect the HD to the logic board. Remove the cable and google the number written on it and you’ll find the right cable online.
Your ata controller or cable could be faulty. There are enclosures to connect internal hard drives externally through usb: one of these may be able to verify whether the drive is dead or your computer’s connection to it is the issue.
Does the optical drive work when you boot from an external drive? If the CD/DVD drive still works, then it could just be a cable issue. If it doesn’t work then it’s definitely the ATA controller. In that case, you’d have to replace the logic board. Logic boards aren’t cheap and would probably cost you as much as the eBay purchase price. I’ve seen some repair centers that can fix component-level issues like that, but that’s beyond my knowledge. Let me know if you have any other questions. :)
