I have an internal IDE drive that I think is going bad that prevents my Mac from booting when it is connected. I cannot boot from the other internal drive (SCSI) or the CD when the IDE drive is connected- I get the happy mac but then system freezes when attempting to mount the drives. Disconnecting the IDE drive allows the system to boot normally. System specs are as follows: Power Mac 8500 w/ Newer G3/267MHz upgrade 128MB RAM OS 8.6 Boot disc: Internal SCSI 2 GB Offending disc: Quantum Fireball 20 GB ATA 100 connected to a Sonnet Tempo ATA66 controller The unit has been working perfectly for almost 2 years, now all of the sudden the drive has been freaking out. I just want to get the drive mounted so that I can run norton on it. Attempts to boot from several different OS and Utility CDs have been unsuccessful. Any ideas out there?? Thanks

Holding down Command-Option-Shift-Delete while booting up is *supposed* to prevent the system from trying to load a driver for your startup disk. You need to hold the keys down immediately after hitting the power key and continue holding them until the desktop is done loading. If that doesn't work and you *MUST* get to your data, you can purchase a FireWire box to put your drive in. You should then be able to hot plug the drive into a Mac with a FireWire port *while Disk Doctor is running AND THE FINDER IS NOT running* and scan the disk. You can put a FireWire card into your Mac for about $25.

Does the ATA controller have the latest firmware? p