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Sea Side

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 3, 2005
13
0
I am upgrading my internal hard drive to 160 GB on my iMac G4 but when I try to reformat the hard drive using disk utility, my iMac recognizes only 128 GB and not the full potential of 160 GB! What's wrong here??

Is there any way to get around this or will I be stuck losing 32 GB :mad: ???
 

Sea Side

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 3, 2005
13
0
Oh, yeah forgot to mention that i bought 160GB Seagate Barra ATA for $89 with $50 mail in rebate and 200 GB Seagate Barra ATA for $ 109 with $70 mail in rebate at Fry's today.....sweeeeet!!!

That comes to $40 each - tax..... :eek: :)
 

eva01

macrumors 601
Feb 22, 2005
4,720
1
Gah! Plymouth
Maybe it has the same connectors as the G3s was it? that it will only recognize 128GB due to the connectors the computer uses.

I can't remember exactly but i think that may be it.
 

DeSnousa

macrumors 68000
Jan 20, 2005
1,616
0
Brisbane, Australia
Sea Side said:
I am upgrading my internal hard drive to 160 GB on my iMac G4 but when I try to reformat the hard drive using disk utility, my iMac recognizes only 128 GB and not the full potential of 160 GB! What's wrong here??

Is there any way to get around this or will I be stuck losing 32 GB :mad: ???

You do realise you won't get back the full 32GB as thats just advertising, for instance my drive is a 100GB but i only have 93GB
 

eva01

macrumors 601
Feb 22, 2005
4,720
1
Gah! Plymouth
DeSnousa said:
You do realise you won't get back the full 32GB as thats just advertising, for instance my drive is a 100GB but i only have 93GB

Is it that or is it the connector? i remember certain computers can't have more space than i thought it was 128GB or something close to that because of the hardware.

Because 32GB missing from formatting a HD is HUGE.
 

DeSnousa

macrumors 68000
Jan 20, 2005
1,616
0
Brisbane, Australia
eva01 said:
Is it that or is it the connector? i remember certain computers can't have more space than i thought it was 128GB or something close to that because of the hardware.

Because 32GB missing from formatting a HD is HUGE.

32GB sounds pretty huge to me, i thinking it should be around 10-12GB though. I was just letting him know that after he finishes fixing the problem not to expect a full 160GB drive.
 

spinne1

macrumors 6502a
Your mac IDE controller must have a bit addressing depth of 48 bits to access above 128 Gb. Apparently the iMac G4 does not have it. Your options? One, put the original drive back in, put the new drive in an external firewire case and use it as an external. Or two, keep it in there and use only 128 Gb. Or three, return the drive.

Actually, there IS a software solution, though I would recommend the external drive option before this one:

http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml
 

Sea Side

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 3, 2005
13
0
thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated!!!

I'm just going to format it @128GB, nothing much I can do about that. I'm going to use the 200GB as a external hard drive for iMac and my brand NEW iBook.

:)
 
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