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160 gig only 128gigs when formatted

jaesk8er

jaesk8er

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 30, 2003
52
0
Bay Area
Alright I have an older Dual 533 G4 tower and I just installed a Maxor 160gig H/D and when I formatted it would not get any bigger than around 128gigs. I know that I have a slower ATA i think 66 but is there any way to get that drive up to 160 with out going to a firewire case??? Any one know of an pci card?? or any other idea's?????

Thanx
 
For anything pre 2nd gen MDD I think 135gig is the limit for Apple's onboard IDE controller. If you buy a PCI controller card you'll be in business.


Lethal
 
Just to be clear, the limit on most older machines is 137GB. When formated 137Gb would not suprise me to turn out to be 128Gb. Get a pci ide controller.
 
Originally posted by LimeLite
Actually, the limit on ATA/66 is exactly 128GB, if I recall correctly.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the correction, I must have been thinking of ATA 133 because with ATA 133 i am pretty sure it is 137 but i could be wrong.
 
Originally posted by jonapete2001
Thanks for the correction, I must have been thinking of ATA 133 because with ATA 133 i am pretty sure it is 137 but i could be wrong.
Click to expand...

The limit on ATA133 is in the thousands of gigs. This is why he needs to get one:p . The limit on the ATA100 chipset is 137 and the limit on the ATA66 was much smaller I thought but I guess it's obviously 128.

Cheers

BEN
 
Yeah I think ATA 100 is what I have in my G3 MiniTower because I have a 200gb Drive in there and I think I formated the drive at 137gb or so, as soon as I get that ATA card it looks like I'm ready for another format..:D
 
if your going to end up having to buy a pci card for it, then why go with ata/133? take the hd back and get an sata one, and an sata card.
 
I guess you have the latest firmware?

Isn't this related to LBA 48 bit access, but I'm not sure if Apple changed this in their firmware... so if you have the latest firmware, the only option would be to use a controller that has LBA48.

-Wyrm
 
Same problem

I had the same problem...the question is.... if I instal a new ide controller, will I have to reformat the drives to reclaim the space? I partitioned the 160GB drive into 3 partitions (1-20GB, 1-50GB, 1-58GB). When I place the drive on a new controller, will I have to reformat? I could move all the info to another drive and then back again.

Florio
 
Check the third partition. While the first two will fill up fine, the third one will stop you at the point that makes it 128GB. Partitioning is a proposed workaround that does not work for the ATA/66 128GB limit issue.
 
I think the conclusions here are wrong

I have a Seagate 160GB drive installed in my Bondi Rev. A iMac, and I was able to access the full 160GB when installing Yellow Dog Linux, so that would imply that it is *not* a hardware issue.

I've since installed Mac OS X (because network performance under Yellow Dog Linux is abominable) and ran into this limit (both Mac OS 9's and OS X's disk setup software limit you to 128GB.)

So it's something in the software. Has to be.
 
Re: I think the conclusions here are wrong

Originally posted by corebreech
So it's something in the software. Has to be.
Click to expand...
No, this is a hardware issue. The original poster needs a PCI ATA controller card to access the full 160GB.
 
Don't confuse the bus speed with the addressing ability of the controller. To get past the 137GB limit, you need 48-bit addressing.
 
Guys, you're not making any sense.

Are you implying that the disk controller in my Rev. A Bondi 233MHz iMac is more recent/capable than that in a dual-G4?

Did you read my post??? How can it be hardware if I can access the full disk using Linux?

(and BTW the limit is 128GB, not 137GB. And this is true regardless of whether I try to use Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9.1, Mac OS 9.2.1, OS X Beta, Jaguar or Panther to format.)
 
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