Formatting problem with new drive

B

bernie123

Registered
Hi there,
recently experienced major data loss, brought in internal 80GB Seagate HD from my G4 2x800 Quicksilver to a data recovery outfit, which managed to recover most of my data and copy it to a new Seagate 250GB IDE "ST3250823A". Recovery was done via a PC system, which easily showed data totaling approx. 48GB.
Try as I may, can't mount, verify or repair new HD with OSX 10.3 Disk Utility. Resigned to have data copied to new drive, meanwhile trying to reformat (zero-out) this 250GB drive, I get a one partition MAC OS Extended (Journaled) drive of 125.6GB!! Yet, I saw with own eyes this drive mounted on PC system as a 232GB drive...
What might affect this 1/2 size formatting job I'm getting from Disk Utility? Can anyone shed light on this problem?
Regards,
Bernie123
 
Your computer does not natively support drives larger than 137GB (128GB), due to the fact that the ATA controller on the motherboard does not support 48-bit LBA. You must use an add-on PCI ATA controller, or pay for drivers that will allow you to work around this limitation.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_mac.html

No amount of partitioning or reformatting will help -- you'll always get a drive that appears to the system as 137GB.
 
Diablo,
you 'da man! Thanks. This saves me lots of second guessing. I'll follow up on Apple.com and see if I can download the appropriate Boot ROM rev and get things going without having to buy yet another controller card.

Thank You!
 
Apple isn't going to be able to help you here. It's a physical limitation of the computer itself, and they will not provide you any boot ROM or drivers to work around this situation, especially since your computer is long out of warranty. A Boot ROM won't fix this either, since it's not the Boot ROM holding you back -- it's the actual ATA controller chip on the motherboard, which you don't have any kind of access to -- no firmware access to it, no software access to it, just the chip on the motherboard.

Your best bet is to purchase an ATA PCI card (I recommend the Sonnet Tempo ATA/133 card -- they also have a hardware RAID version of it).

Your second best bet is to use some special drivers to work around this. I can't find the link, but there are others here who know what I'm talking about -- hopefully they'll chime in with a link!

A third option is to slap that drive in a FireWire or USB 2.0 enclosure and use it as an external drive. Any modern external enclosure should support drives up to (and possibly beyond) 300GB.
 
Hey, thanks again for the follow-up. I came to the same conclusion regarding Apple not offering anything more when I followed your links from Seagate, and I am taking note of the Sonnet card you are suggesting.

Sorry for seeming so lame, now I have a new problem with reformatting that 250GB drive to something closer to 250GB. Now that it formatted to 128GB maximum using Jaguar's Disk Utility on the G4 once, I can't manage to Zero the thing out while trying to reformat it from within a FW enclosure on my new G5 Quad 2.5, running Tiger's Disk Utility.

Everything I tried so far ends up giving me the same 128GB and I KNOW it's a 250GB drive as I saw it with my own eyes while it was mounted to a PC earlier.

Is there a better formatting tool available that would bypass the formatting already done with the MAC OS Disk Utility and ensure I end up with a REAL 250GB drive?

Thanks in advance.
 
You need to create a new partition on the drive -- instead of just formatting the partition already there, use Disk Utility to create a new, 250GB partition on the drive and format it then.
 
The one 250GB partition sounds good man, but Disk Utility does not seem to view the drive as that, all I get is the 128GB that has already been formatted into (or out of?) it when I did it from within the G4. I gave TechTool Pro a go at it last night, same deal as Disk Utility.
There must be a pane/window/option that I just don't see that will give me the opportunity to tell the formatting utility to reformat THE WHOLE DRIVE...
Any other suggestions?
 
It should be under "Erase" or "Partition" in Disk Utility -- there should be a pull-down menu that will allow you to create one, big, 250GB partition on the drive. I believe it's under "Erase," but really don't know right now...

Unfortunately, I'm not at my Mac right now, so I can't say for absolute sure -- when I get home I'll post the exact steps to take, unless, of course, someone beats me to it here.
 
Thanks again.
In Disk Utility:
– no such menu/option under the ERASE menu. Only choices are under the SECURITY OPTIONS tab where you can erase/or not existing data, zero out, 7-pass, 35-pass
– under PARTITION, if I select the "1 partition" option, I can type in 250GB in the SIZE field, however the very next "anything" I touch, that field auto reverts to 127.87GB.

It's like the darn thing has that partition size welded into it somehow...
 
Hmmm... what kind of enclosure did you put the drive in? It's very possible that it's an older controller that has the same limitations of your machine (the 48-bit LBA limitation).
 
oops, now there's a possibility. Darn, how many factors are there that can affect this thing from formatting properly for me?? The FW enclosure is somewhat older, a no-name of some sort, FW400 with two 6-pin connectors.

I'm contemplating another FW external case, but was hoping to make that one a SATA to be more in sync with the new speeds and protocols that my new G5 Quad supports. Do inexpensive ATA to SATA connectors exist that would permit me to run a FW case with an IDE/ATA drive for a spell and then back to SATA?

I know, I'm reaching here, but hopeful.
 
I do believe that SATA-to-FireWire external cases exist, and I know for a fact that IDE-to-SATA adaptors exist. Whether all three (case, hard drive, adaptor) would all work in complete harmony is unknown -- it all depends on how badly you need 250GB of space!

Here's a case that connects via USB 2.0, FireWire, and eSATA, and purports to take either an IDE or SATA hard drive:

http://www.directron.com/cd311sata.html

I don't have any experience with SATA devices (yet), and that case is ugly as sin, but it may just be what you're looking for -- it certainly seems versatile!
 
Just to confirm the formatting/partitioning process so there's no confusion:

1) Launch Disk Utility.
2) Highlight the device (not the volume!) in the sidebar -- it should be grey and look like a disk, or some FireWire disk icon, and should say something cryptic like "246.4 GB WDC WD2500JB" or some cryptic FireWire enclosure identification string.
3) Click the "Partition" pane.
4) Select "1 Partition" from under "Volume Scheme:"
5) "Size:" should fill in to 250GB, minus some for the base-2 to base-10 conversion (something like 239.46GB or whatever).

If the size doesn't go over 128GB, then the enclosure most definitely doesn't support 48-bit LBA, limiting you to 128GB.
 
Diablo, thanks man. Sorry for having you spell everything out to reformat that 250GB drive. It was not the Disk Utility routine that was faulty, or the way I was going about it, all along, you were correct in assuming the limitations of my old Firewire enclosure. I've since purchased a new FW box and Disk Utility now sees 250GB on my drive like a charm.
Next I'll consider that Sonnet card you suggested so I can put larger drives INSIDE the G4.
Hey, and finally, thanks for the link on that SATA/FW/USB enclosure. You're right, it is ugly as sin, but it might be the cheapest/most efficient way to go. The dual ata/sata connectors bypass the need for one more adapter, good price too.
Consider this thread resolved, now I'll be all over finding maximum drive handling capacities before bothering you guys again.
Thanks again, Bernie
 
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