formating large drives

couzteau

couzteau

Registered
i just bought a brand new 100 GB western Digital internal IDE Drive. As i stuck it in my computer trying to format it with Drive Setup (v9.2.2 I'm not sure if that name is right in english, in german it i "laufwerke konfigurieren", it's the standard drive formating utility that comes with macos 9.2.2)

It showed that drive is only 32 GB big, which i found very strange, because it should be 100 GB, it also does say this on the drive.

Why is this so? Is it the Apple program that can't format drives bigger than 32 GB? is there another utility that can? Can the OSX Tool do it?

Is it a different problem?

Thanx for your ideas.
 
What machine did you put it in? As I recall there are some models that can not recognize those large drives.
 
That's a Yikes! mobo:
http://lowendmac.com/ppc/g4.shtml
It has an Ultra ATA/33 bus, so you won't be able to address more than 32GB of any sized hard drive. You will have to purchase an ATA/66 PCI card in order to use your new drive (or an ATA100 or 133 card if you want to support drives larger than 137GB).
 
wow,

thanks for your quick and accurate information. This is a great help to me. Fortunately ;) the drive isn't mine because i'm helping somebody to install it into his computer. So at least i know how to solve this problem.

cheerz
 
It's an ATA limitation, not a firmware limitation. Ultra ATA/33 has a physical incapability of addressing drives beyond 32GB, since that is it's engineered limit. Ultra ATA/66 and 100 cannot address more than 137GB (although some 100 interfaces can have their firmware flashed to support drives up to 200GB). Your surest bet to ensure large drive support for years to come is to purchase an ATA/133 interface card.
 
I noticed this posting and it actually solves my problem too! Can anyone suggest a card that would work for an ATA/100 drive?
 
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