8TB Drive in MDD G4?

[bocktacular]

Can it be done? I have read some articles stating that you can do this (with a PCI SATA card, which I have installed) depending on the vintage of G4, in which on mine - in theory - can handle any size drive that is not booting an OS.

I am currently running Tiger 10.4.11 on a MDD Dual 1.25 GHz machine. I have an 8 TB Seagate Barracuda drive that I attempted to install in my computer. However, when I start up, I am not able to see a mounted volume. The drive shows up in Disk Utility unformatted, but when I try to format the disk, I get an error "Disk Erase failed with the error: Operation not supported."

The drive is able to be formatted when connected to my 2015 iMac via external enclosure and functions properly.

Would anyone have any insight into why this might be happening? For the record, my SATA card is working - I have been able to mount 1 TB drives, such as the WDC above it in the left menu that I took out of an old Intel Mac (hence the BOOTCAMP partition).

Thank you!

 

[repairedCheese]

Can it be done? I have read some articles stating that you can do this (with a PCI SATA card, which I have installed) depending on the vintage of G4, in which on mine - in theory - can handle any size drive that is not booting an OS.

I am currently running Tiger 10.4.11 on a MDD Dual 1.25 GHz machine. I have an 8 TB Seagate Barracuda drive that I attempted to install in my computer. However, when I start up, I am not able to see a mounted volume. The drive shows up in Disk Utility unformatted, but when I try to format the disk, I get an error "Disk Erase failed with the error: Operation not supported."

The drive is able to be formatted when connected to my 2015 iMac via external enclosure and functions properly.

View attachment 956124

Would anyone have any insight into why this might be happening? For the record, my SATA card is working - I have been able to mount 1 TB drives, such as the WDC above it in the left menu that I took out of an old Intel Mac (hence the BOOTCAMP partition).

Thank you!

Well, have you tried it in Leopard? I believe this is a Tiger specific issue, not a G4 specific one, especially since you're using a SATA card. It could just be something as simple as Tiger is trying to use Apple Partition Map, which would limit the drive to 2tb, but if you're using GUID, it should be fine.

 

[Project Alice]

As repairedCheese said it'll work if you format it with GPT. APM tops out at 2TB. Tiger will default to APM on a PPC. Leopard probably will too actually. Just change the setting manually and it should work.

The only other thing I can think of is if your Sata card doesn't support drives that large, which could be happening. A lot of older controllers don't work with those huge drives. I have an external Sata enclosure that won't even recognize my 4TB drive.

 

[bocktacular]

Well, have you tried it in Leopard? I believe this is a Tiger specific issue, not a G4 specific one, especially since you're using a SATA card. It could just be something as simple as Tiger is trying to use Apple Partition Map, which would limit the drive to 2tb, but if you're using GUID, it should be fine.

So here is the strangest thing. I decided to put my drive back in the external HD enclosure and reformat it using GUID partition table on my 2015 iMac. Formatted no problem; threw it back into my G4. Ta-dah - it shows up and its accessible, but read only, which is odd. I can add files to the drive, but sometimes it will prompt a password.

Also taking a look in Disk Utility - I tried to verify it on the G4 - it says that the Volume Header needs minor repair. Attempting to repair it on the G4 will throw a failure (Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit). I am guessing it is because the drive is GUID and Tiger can't do anything about it.

That being said, I still might move ahead in Leopard, as you suggested. I had read on Macintosh Garden from a user that there was supposedly a firmware issue for larger drives that had not been resolved until 10.5.8 - https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/using-storage-drives-greater-2tb-older-systems-powerpc

The person who wrote the article wasn't 100% clear (or maybe, I am not fully understanding what he is suggesting - more likely) - would anyone have any further insight?

I would also be curious now if anyone has had any issues using a large drive on Mac OS X prior to 10.5.8. I am playing around with my G4 as a potential media file server, but I want to make sure there are no issues before I commit. The Volume Header verification error makes me a bit nervous...

 

[eyoungren]

So here is the strangest thing. I decided to put my drive back in the external HD enclosure and reformat it using GUID partition table on my 2015 iMac. Formatted no problem; threw it back into my G4. Ta-dah - it shows up and its accessible, but read only, which is odd. I can add files to the drive, but sometimes it will prompt a password.

Also taking a look in Disk Utility - I tried to verify it on the G4 - it says that the Volume Header needs minor repair. Attempting to repair it on the G4 will throw a failure (Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit). I am guessing it is because the drive is GUID and Tiger can't do anything about it.

That being said, I still might move ahead in Leopard, as you suggested. I had read on Macintosh Garden from a user that there was supposedly a firmware issue for larger drives that had not been resolved until 10.5.8 - https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/using-storage-drives-greater-2tb-older-systems-powerpc

The person who wrote the article wasn't 100% clear (or maybe, I am not fully understanding what he is suggesting - more likely) - would anyone have any further insight?

I would also be curious now if anyone has had any issues using a large drive on Mac OS X prior to 10.5.8. I am playing around with my G4 as a potential media file server, but I want to make sure there are no issues before I commit. The Volume Header verification error makes me a bit nervous...

Try Get Info on the drive and adding your user account as having Read/Write permissions.

As the others have said, Tiger Disk Utility isn't great for formatting large drives. GUID, as already suggested is the partitioning you should be using.

I have a 2TB RAID on a Tiger Server (B&W G3) and was using a 4TB HD on a Quad for several years. But that was a Leopard system.

 

[repairedCheese]

So here is the strangest thing. I decided to put my drive back in the external HD enclosure and reformat it using GUID partition table on my 2015 iMac. Formatted no problem; threw it back into my G4. Ta-dah - it shows up and its accessible, but read only, which is odd. I can add files to the drive, but sometimes it will prompt a password.

Also taking a look in Disk Utility - I tried to verify it on the G4 - it says that the Volume Header needs minor repair. Attempting to repair it on the G4 will throw a failure (Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit). I am guessing it is because the drive is GUID and Tiger can't do anything about it.

That being said, I still might move ahead in Leopard, as you suggested. I had read on Macintosh Garden from a user that there was supposedly a firmware issue for larger drives that had not been resolved until 10.5.8 - https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/using-storage-drives-greater-2tb-older-systems-powerpc

The person who wrote the article wasn't 100% clear (or maybe, I am not fully understanding what he is suggesting - more likely) - would anyone have any further insight?

I would also be curious now if anyone has had any issues using a large drive on Mac OS X prior to 10.5.8. I am playing around with my G4 as a potential media file server, but I want to make sure there are no issues before I commit. The Volume Header verification error makes me a bit nervous...

I personally set up a 4tb in a G5, and it has worked in both Leopard and Tiger with no problems. I did need to use Leopard to set it up, if memory serves, but once I did, Tiger had no problems accessing it. Sure, I do usually stick to Leopard on that system, but if a 4tb drive can work there, any size should be able to in 10.4, in theory.

My goto on the PPC Macs is to try Leopard's Disk Utility, and see if that fixes it. Other than messing up OS 9 support, it's done everything I've wanted. And when you're using a disk larger than 2tb, OS 9 was never in the cards for it, no matter the Mac. GUID is not supported. It wouldn't stop you from using Classic off that drive in Tiger, however.

 

[timidpimpin]

I've used several drives above 2TB on PowerPC systems over the years, and never had an issue, but only on Leopard. I've never tried it on Tiger. It just needs to be GUID as noted above.

And it worked whether the drive was connected directly, or over a network.