Only 120gb of the 250gb recognised ?!
- Thread starter rawkas
- Start date
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DeltaMac
Tech
The most reliable way to get your Mac to recognize the full 250GB will be to add a PCI IDE adapter card that supports use of large hard drives. Here's a link to several.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/ATA-SCSI-Firewire-Controllers/
Those in the $70-$80 range are what you need.
After installing the card, you will probably have to reformat that big drive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/ATA-SCSI-Firewire-Controllers/
Those in the $70-$80 range are what you need.
After installing the card, you will probably have to reformat that big drive.
'... when buying my [unspecified] mac [model] ...' - specific Macintosh models do not support accessing greater than (approximately) 128 GB of storage space.
Download Mactracker and view the specifications for your (unspecified) Macintosh model. Click on the respective windows' 'Expansion/Port' tab, and look for the 'Large Drive Support:' line.
If 'No (Maximum of 128 GB per drive)' is listed - you could:
01. Leave the 250 GB as is - formatted at 128 GB.
02. Purchase and install a PCI to ATA card capable of supporting hard disk drives, hdds, greater than 128 GB.
03. Remove the 250 GB hdd and place it into an external FireWire case.
If a PCI to ATA card is installed, and the 250 GB hdd is connected, or the 250 GB hdd is installed into an external FireWire case - reformat the hdd and all 250 GB (actually approximately 230 GB) will then be accessible.
If the 40 GB hdd is your boot drive, consider purchasing a Western Digital or Seagate 120 GB hdd as its replacement. This way you will have a great deal of space for MacOS X to use, in addition to any additional software you will install.
If your unspecified Macintosh model has a Zip drive bay, you can also install a 3.5" hdd into it, as well.
Download Mactracker and view the specifications for your (unspecified) Macintosh model. Click on the respective windows' 'Expansion/Port' tab, and look for the 'Large Drive Support:' line.
If 'No (Maximum of 128 GB per drive)' is listed - you could:
01. Leave the 250 GB as is - formatted at 128 GB.
02. Purchase and install a PCI to ATA card capable of supporting hard disk drives, hdds, greater than 128 GB.
03. Remove the 250 GB hdd and place it into an external FireWire case.
If a PCI to ATA card is installed, and the 250 GB hdd is connected, or the 250 GB hdd is installed into an external FireWire case - reformat the hdd and all 250 GB (actually approximately 230 GB) will then be accessible.
If the 40 GB hdd is your boot drive, consider purchasing a Western Digital or Seagate 120 GB hdd as its replacement. This way you will have a great deal of space for MacOS X to use, in addition to any additional software you will install.
If your unspecified Macintosh model has a Zip drive bay, you can also install a 3.5" hdd into it, as well.
Texas Mac Man
Registered
How Big a Hard Drive Can I Put in My iMac, eMac, or Power Mac?
http://lowendmac.com/macdan/05/1024.html
What Macs natively support large IDE drives? (over 128GB formatted)
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/actio...onse=answer.faq.lasso&-recordID=34188&-search
Cheers, Tom
http://lowendmac.com/macdan/05/1024.html
What Macs natively support large IDE drives? (over 128GB formatted)
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/actio...onse=answer.faq.lasso&-recordID=34188&-search
Cheers, Tom
I've had similar issues with adding more then 128gb of storage to an older G4. The extra storage would be devoted exclusively to iTunes. I'm debating whether to go ahead and get a SATA controller card and internal SATA hard drive or just get a external firewire hard drive. Would the extra speed afforded by a SATA drive really be necessary for iTunes? Any thoughts? Thanks.
PS. This is seems to be a solution for getting more then 128gb out of a ATA drive but the drive needs to be partitioned into less 128gb partitions.
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml
PS. This is seems to be a solution for getting more then 128gb out of a ATA drive but the drive needs to be partitioned into less 128gb partitions.
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml
sinclair_tm
wow, 1.4g is way faster!
dude, thread hijacking, and mulitple posting is major tabo here. please don't!
You don't need it to be a Firewire enclosure. You could use USB 2.0, as long as the enclosure supports LBA48. It'll be awfully slow unless you get a USB 2.0 card for the Mac, but USB 2.0 enclosures are a lot easier to find cheaply than Firewire.
Another unrecommended option is to use Linux. Look up the Macintosh partition table format at Apple's developer docs, edit the correct sector in hexadecimal (because no free tool will automatically set up the partitions correctly), and run MacOS X in a Mac-on-Linux virtual machine. It currently doesn't support audio in or Quartz Extreme, and USB/Firewire are a bit tricky, but it's another option that works. And it's free.
There's also the ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml as mentioned in Dan's article.
Another unrecommended option is to use Linux. Look up the Macintosh partition table format at Apple's developer docs, edit the correct sector in hexadecimal (because no free tool will automatically set up the partitions correctly), and run MacOS X in a Mac-on-Linux virtual machine. It currently doesn't support audio in or Quartz Extreme, and USB/Firewire are a bit tricky, but it's another option that works. And it's free.
There's also the ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml as mentioned in Dan's article.