Any hard drive limit on an iMac G3?
- Thread starter Sunnz
- Start date
Sunnz
Who wants a stylus?
Hey DeltaMac may I ask what is your expertise? You seem to know a lot about hardwares, do you know which logic board is used in the G3 that does not support large hard drives?
Do you know why there is a limit? It is kinda funny how a partition over the limit could actually be created, I mean, how could this happen? Usually when the hardware doesn't do something, it just simply can't.
I will probably just pop that disk into an external case... so I am doing this now because I want to see how things worked and where the if the limit is real or what not.
Do you know why there is a limit? It is kinda funny how a partition over the limit could actually be created, I mean, how could this happen? Usually when the hardware doesn't do something, it just simply can't.
I will probably just pop that disk into an external case... so I am doing this now because I want to see how things worked and where the if the limit is real or what not.
DeltaMac
Tech
The limit was there, because large hard drives did not exist at that time. The largest capacity generally available in 1999-2000 was 60GB, maybe 80GB.
The external case will be a good choice - your directory will eventually fail - you can bet on it, you just won't know exactly when the trouble will start.
You can actually format the drive in an external case, and then transplant into your G3, but that simply gets you a large partition. The problem will remain - it will fail sooner or later, as long as the larger partition remains.
Here's a nice article concerning that limit
http://www.48bitlba.com/overview.htm
The external case will be a good choice - your directory will eventually fail - you can bet on it, you just won't know exactly when the trouble will start.
You can actually format the drive in an external case, and then transplant into your G3, but that simply gets you a large partition. The problem will remain - it will fail sooner or later, as long as the larger partition remains.
Here's a nice article concerning that limit
http://www.48bitlba.com/overview.htm
DeltaMac
Tech
Now you've got it! Of course, it's not strictly the G3 processor, but the IDE drive chip on the logic board, and the ATA-4 drive protocols (or older). ATA-5 (mostly), and ATA-6 support the 48-bit LBA. This was not provided until well after the G4 was introduced. The PowerMac G4s can be updated simply by popping in a newer IDE drive controller card. An iMac, unfortunately, cannot have that hardware updated.
Sunnz
Who wants a stylus?
Well I understand it a bit more... but still very puzzled. I got have over 200GiB on data on the disk and I could access all of them (I actually read through text files, open PDF, and playing movies.) - I mean, this is impossible, right?
If, the logic board, reported as "Apple Pangea Macio" in dmesg, cannot get over the 128GiB boundary, it shouldn't be able to write to it...
However, there wer "soft errors" when the data was being copied over:
It is said that it had to make multiple attempts to write the sector to disk, but that eventually it was able to do so. Hence a "soft" failure. Sounds familiar?? Did it actually find a way to get around the boundary or what?
Hmmm I don't know... I googled "Apple Pangea Macio" but can't find anything... anyone know if "Apple Pangea Macio" is the logic board???
If, the logic board, reported as "Apple Pangea Macio" in dmesg, cannot get over the 128GiB boundary, it shouldn't be able to write to it...
However, there wer "soft errors" when the data was being copied over:
Code:
wdc0:0:0: intr with DRQ (st=0x58<DRDY,DSC,DRQ>)
wd0h: device timeout writing fsbn 470922496 of 470922496-470922623 (wd0 bn 539606608; cn 535324 tn 0 sn 16), retrying
wd0: soft error (corrected)
wdc0:0:0: intr with DRQ (st=0x58<DRDY,DSC,DRQ>)
wd0h: device timeout writing fsbn 424058080 of 424058080-424058207 (wd0 bn 492742192; cn 488831 tn 8 sn 40), retrying
wd0: soft error (corrected)Hmmm I don't know... I googled "Apple Pangea Macio" but can't find anything... anyone know if "Apple Pangea Macio" is the logic board???