new 300gb reads only 128gb, why?
- Thread starter enzo
- Start date
ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
Short answer: your computer does not support 48-bit LBA, so the maximum size hard drive you will be able to see is 137GB (128GB using binary).
No amount of formatting or partitioning will allow you to work around this -- even if you partition, you'll still limited to a maximum of 128GB total, so partitioning into multiple 128GB partitions is not possible.
There are drivers that you can purchase that work around this limitation, but I personally don't like the idea of hacking software to work around a hardware limitation. Link to the drivers upon request, and I don't recommend using them.
The workaround is to puchase an internal PCI ATA card, like the Sonnet Tempo ATA/133. Then you will be able to see all 300GB, as well as experience a much higher throughput on any drive connected to the PCI card.
Apple Tech Doc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86178
Sonnet Tempo ATA/133:
http://sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata133.html
No amount of formatting or partitioning will allow you to work around this -- even if you partition, you'll still limited to a maximum of 128GB total, so partitioning into multiple 128GB partitions is not possible.
There are drivers that you can purchase that work around this limitation, but I personally don't like the idea of hacking software to work around a hardware limitation. Link to the drivers upon request, and I don't recommend using them.
The workaround is to puchase an internal PCI ATA card, like the Sonnet Tempo ATA/133. Then you will be able to see all 300GB, as well as experience a much higher throughput on any drive connected to the PCI card.
Apple Tech Doc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86178
Sonnet Tempo ATA/133:
http://sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata133.html
Go to www.speedtools.com and download their support driver ($24.95) for MacOSX/OS9
"The Intech ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver software was created to allow the use of extended capacity ATA drives (drives greater than 128 Gigabytes in size) on older (Pre-Mirrored Door) G4 and G3 Macintoshes running MacOS X versions 10.2 and later. Without this software installed, any extended capacity drive which is connected to the native ATA bus on older Macintosh models will be limited to only 128 Gigabytes. Later model G4's and all G5's do not suffer from this limitation."
There are limitations so be sure to get the read me file.
John
"The Intech ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver software was created to allow the use of extended capacity ATA drives (drives greater than 128 Gigabytes in size) on older (Pre-Mirrored Door) G4 and G3 Macintoshes running MacOS X versions 10.2 and later. Without this software installed, any extended capacity drive which is connected to the native ATA bus on older Macintosh models will be limited to only 128 Gigabytes. Later model G4's and all G5's do not suffer from this limitation."
There are limitations so be sure to get the read me file.
John