Limitations on size of internal hard drive

L
Posted By
Lundberg02
Jan 11, 2009
Views
514
Replies
15
Status
Closed
One of my computers had its motherboard die and after the services I decided to replace the old 20gB HD in my g4 with a 500 gB so I could run a faster backup. My Mac guy ordered one, tested it, brought it over, put it in, I booted up and it came up on the desktop as a 500gB. As soon as I erased it and started to partition it , it suddenly identified itself as a 128 gB drive. The system profiler sees it that way too. He said he had never seen this before. Neither have I , of course.
He said would be back with his test setup today, but was too busy. He did tell me that he did a search in his usual resources but no one else had ever heard of this either.
Is there any reason that a g4 would not recognize an internal drive larger than some magic number? My big externals are fine. Is it a Tiger problem in a g4?
The drive is a run of the mill Western Digital ATA.

Don’t give me a load about my weird problems, please.

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WG
Welles_Goodrich
Jan 11, 2009
Yes there is a reason. Early G4s could only access 128GB even though you could put in a bigger hard drive. That limitation was built into the ATA controller and existed in G3 and G4 towers made prior to the Mirror Door G4 series. The solution was to put in an PCI card which had it’s own controller built to recognize larger hard drives. You can still find one here…

<http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/THDMW/>
-macman
Jan 11, 2009
I ran into this issue a couple years ago when one of the drives failed in my 2001 G4.

You have two options: Partition the drive, or install a PCI card. I opted for the latter and its worked out great to date.

This is a well-known issue with earlier Macs and I’m surprised that the tech didn’t know about it, much less never heard of it.
WG
Welles_Goodrich
Jan 11, 2009
Partitioning the drive on those older Macs does make the rest of the space on the disk available. You can either use a new controller card or I’ve read that there is a software solution. Here is the bit I read…

There is a program called "*ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver" (Intech Software Corporation) that overcomes the 128GB limit. I used it on my Sawtooth with a 160GB drive, up to OS X 10.5 and never had any problems.

<http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.html>
B
Buko
Jan 11, 2009
Yes get a new controler card thats what I did.
WG
Welles_Goodrich
Jan 11, 2009
Oh shoot! I just read my post #3 and made a glaring mistake. Partitioning DOES NOT make the rest of the drive available! I forgot the magic word, not. Not not not.
T
T._Schmidt
Jan 11, 2009
You can go back and edit, Welles, just in case someone reads this and skips the rest. Don’t want to sound demanding, just saying.
WG
Welles_Goodrich
Jan 11, 2009

T. Schmidt,

I saw it after the 30 minute grace period and didn’t have the capacity to edit.
NK
Neil_Keller
Jan 12, 2009
Welles,

I have The Power to change that, and then delete the subsequent comments. Just let me know.

Neil
WG
Welles_Goodrich
Jan 12, 2009
Hi Neil,

If you think it would be valuable to the discussion please do make that change. I just thought it was important to emphasize the mistake I made in post #3 where I meant to say partitioning does not allow access to the rest of the drive in older Mac computers which had the 128GB Limitation. I remember running into that issue in an early Sawtooth G4 and tried partitioning to no avail. It doesn’t hurt anything but you do not gain access to the rest of the drive.

There was a similar limitation with early iMacs where the operating system had to be installed in the first 8GB of a drive or it wouldn’t boot. In those, you could put a larger drive but had to partition it so the first 8Gigs contained the system. Then you could access the remaining hard drive space up to 128GB where you ran into the limitation Lundberg02 ran into and asked about.
L
Lundberg02
Jan 12, 2009
Thanks, everyone.
I have sent the entire discussion to him and will wait for his recommendation.

This is why I ask questions here instead of the Apple Forums. I have never had a satisfactory answer there, usually no response at all.
Thunderbird help is another waste of time. I just google it.
P
PECourtejoie
Jan 12, 2009
A G4? replace it, not just the controller card 🙂

Yes, Welles has hit the nail! There were similar issues on the dark side.
L
Lundberg02
Jan 12, 2009
I d/l that speedtools app and it works just fine. The drawback is that no partition can be larger than 127.99 gB.
WZ
Wade_Zimmerman
Jan 12, 2009
Lundberg02 what PECourtjoie wrote you will thank them for it. I t will save you time and money and make you more profit.
NK
Neil_Keller
Jan 12, 2009
So, Welles, I reread your post 3 referencing an ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver, and your post 9, and the subsequent posts, so….I’m not sure exactly what you want to say there. At this point, maybe it’s best to leave it as is.

Neil
L
Lundberg02
Jan 12, 2009
The way I make money with my g4 has nothing to do with images. Sometime this year it will maybe make me enough to buy a lot of goodies, god willing and the creeks don’t rise.

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