160G drive initialization, G4 without ATA 133
Paul Soderman
for offsite storage. In initializing it on my G4 running both 10.3.3 and
9.2.2, I've been unable to get the Mac to recognize more than 128G or so. I
understand that this is likely due to the hardware not being designed for
such large drives and that if I added a 133 card, I'd probably be able to
have the Mac "see" something close to the 160 gigs.
I'll be using this drive with a Firewire external enclosure so getting the
PCI card really wouldn't interest me. My G4 is unable to initialize a drive
via Firewire, so the fact that the enclosure is able to recognize drives up
to 300G isn't of much help. (I originally initialized the drive by
installing it as the slave drive in the G4 itself).
Am I correct that the reason that the Firewire enclosure only "sees" a drive
of 128G or so is because the G4 initialized it to this size? I'd thought
that getting the enclosure that would handle larger drives would result in
the full 160 Gigs (or 157 or whatever is "close" to that amount) being seen
regardless of the G4 internally only being able to see a drive of about
128G.
If my suspicions are correct, I guess there's no way around the PCI card,
short of having someone with a newer Mac or such a card performing the
"initial" initialization?
Thanks for any help!
Paul Soderman
read_the_...@null.com
> I'll be using this drive with a Firewire external enclosure so getting the
> PCI card really wouldn't interest me. My G4 is unable to initialize a drive
> via Firewire, so the fact that the enclosure is able to recognize drives up
> to 300G isn't of much help. (I originally initialized the drive by
> installing it as the slave drive in the G4 itself).
>
> Am I correct that the reason that the Firewire enclosure only "sees" a drive
> of 128G or so is because the G4 initialized it to this size? I'd thought
> that getting the enclosure that would handle larger drives would result in
> the full 160 Gigs (or 157 or whatever is "close" to that amount) being seen
> regardless of the G4 internally only being able to see a drive of about
> 128G.
>
You are correct. I have an 867Mhz G4 QuickSilver and I bought a 200GB disk
for it and I ran into the 128GB limit with the internal ATA interface.
Rather than buy a new ATA PCI card, I bought an external firewire enclosure
manufactured by Oxford Semiconductors with a newer controller and was able
to re-initialize the disk and use the entire 200GB.
Since you already have partitioned it and created a filesystem while it
was connected to the internal ATA card, it will always only show 128G.
With the disk utility you'll have to re-partition the drive now that it
is in the disk enclosure. I don't understand why your G4 cannot initialize
the drive via firewire. I can with my G4 using the disk utility.
--
John J. Rushford
http://www.larush.com
David C.
>
> I've got a 160G Western Digital drive I picked up to use as a safety
> backup for offsite storage. In initializing it on my G4 running both
> 10.3.3 and 9.2.2, I've been unable to get the Mac to recognize more
> than 128G or so. I understand that this is likely due to the
> hardware not being designed for such large drives and that if I
> added a 133 card, I'd probably be able to have the Mac "see"
> something close to the 160 gigs.
Correct.
> I'll be using this drive with a Firewire external enclosure so
> getting the PCI card really wouldn't interest me. My G4 is unable to
> initialize a drive via Firewire, so the fact that the enclosure is
> able to recognize drives up to 300G isn't of much help. (I
> originally initialized the drive by installing it as the slave drive
> in the G4 itself).
This sounds fishy to me. Disk Utility should be able to see,
partition and format FireWire drives of any size.
Also, the case's limit should be much bigger than 300G. LBA-48 has a
maximum size of 128 PtB (about 134 million GB) A chipset supporting
LBA-48 shouldn't have a problem with a future drive that uses the
entire range. If it does have such a problem, then it's not really
supporting LBA-48.
Maybe they're only advertising "up to 300G" because drives bigger
than that aren't yet commonly available in stores.
Now, if you partitioned/formatted the drive when it was installed
internally (with the 128G limit), it might not be usable in LBA-48
mode without repartitioning and reformatting. But this is just a
guess. Since this drive is being used as a backup and not for active
data, can you try this?
> Am I correct that the reason that the Firewire enclosure only "sees"
> a drive of 128G or so is because the G4 initialized it to this size?
> I'd thought that getting the enclosure that would handle larger
> drives would result in the full 160 Gigs (or 157 or whatever is
> "close" to that amount) being seen regardless of the G4 internally
> only being able to see a drive of about 128G.
If a drive was formatted at 128G, this means it has a 128G partition.
Moving it to an interface that makes the rest of the drive available
won't make the partition bigger, although you may be able to add
another partition to fill use the remaining space.
But this might not be possible if the drive's partition table was
initially created on the assumption of a 128G size. If you have to
blow away and re-create the entire partition table, you will lose
everything on the drive, but that might be the only way to get access
to the drive's whole capacity.
> If my suspicions are correct, I guess there's no way around the PCI
> card, short of having someone with a newer Mac or such a card
> performing the "initial" initialization?
If someone partitions the drive to 160G and you then install it on an
interface without a proper LBA-48 interface, the result will be an
unstable drive that will trash your data. I wouldn't do that.
-- David
Slartibartfast
Paul Soderman <Kidp...@comcast.net> wrote:
I suspect the issue here is not your Mac, but the FW enclosure itself.
My G4/400 Sawtooth has had problems with some enclosures but not with
others. I can also initialize my iPod via FW with no problem. Try a
different enclosure and see what happens.
--
Winner of the Prestijiouse "Fijords" Award
Gregory Weston
> My G4 is unable to initialize a drive via Firewire, so the fact that the
> enclosure is able to recognize drives up to 300G isn't of much help.
Every G4-based Mac - in fact, I believe every Mac that shipped with
FireWire support - is able to initialize a drive via FireWire. If you
can't, some component is damaged or out of spec.
> Am I correct that the reason that the Firewire enclosure only "sees" a drive
> of 128G or so is because the G4 initialized it to this size?
Yep.
> I'd thought that getting the enclosure that would handle larger drives
> would result in the full 160 Gigs (or 157 or whatever is "close" to
> that amount) being seen regardless of the G4 internally only being able
> to see a drive of about 128G.
It'd be about 150GB, and you're not going to see any more than you
initialized until re reinitialize.
G
--
Standard output is like your butt. Everyone has one. When using a bathroom,
they all default to going into a toilet. However, a person can redirect his
"standard output" to somewhere else, if he so chooses. - Jeremy Nixon
moll
> I've got a 160G Western Digital drive I picked up to us....
As a matter of interest I think it's the DRIVE as well as the enclosure
that matters. I had a Lacie 200mb firewire drive that my cats knocked
over and trashed. The Maxtor (as it turns out) 200mb drive inside
reports itself as 2 TERABYTES and is unuseable either in the firewire
enclosure or in a PC.
The firewire enclosure seemed undamaged so I replaced the drive with a
160mb Seagate barricuda. This drive will only format as 128mb via
firewire on PC or MAC although formats as 160 (i.e. 152mb in real life)
when attached internally on a PC.
Obviously the Firewire enclosure should be able to cope with 160mb as it
already has in the past. So I'm guessing the problem is with the new
drive.
I'm a bit peeed off but there it is. Also a reminder that firewire
drives are fairly vulnerable to knocks!
m
Jim Glidewell
> Also, the case's limit should be much bigger than 300G. LBA-48 has a
> maximum size of 128 PtB (about 134 million GB) A chipset supporting
> LBA-48 shouldn't have a problem with a future drive that uses the
> entire range. If it does have such a problem, then it's not really
> supporting LBA-48.
>
> Maybe they're only advertising "up to 300G" because drives bigger
> than that aren't yet commonly available in stores.
I have seen that "300GB" listed in the specs of a number of external
cases. I suspect that all the 300GB numbers might trace back to a
spec sheet of one of the FW->IDE bridge chips or boards, where that
was the biggest drive they had available to test with at the time...
As soon as I get a 500GB drive to put in my "300GB" case, I'll
be sure to let y'all know... :-)
--
Jim Glidewell
My opinions only