Incompetency 101 - How do I add a hard drive?

[kavika411]

Thank you so very much for reading this. I have a G5 2.7 PowerMac which came with 250 gigs of internal memory. Because I rip at Lossless (which uses a ton of hard drive space as you know - yes it was probably a mistake), I just added - novice that I am - an 80 gig Maxtor hard drive into the second bay. So, I'm ready to start using it and, fortunately, "About This Mac" recognizes it; meaning, the computer immediately knew it was there. But when I run disk utility to format it to understand "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)," it gives me the following error message: "Bad file descriptor."
What does that mean and how do I fix it? I simply, humbly want to be able to use this drive to continue to rip at lossless onto it.
A million times thank you for reading this and any of your thoughts.

 

[mkrishnan]

Are you in the erase section of Disk Utility or the Partition segment? You must partition it before you format it. You can just select 1 Partition from the list and then click the partition button.

 

[Eraserhead]

As you only have 2 bays a bigger HD than 80GB would have been better. .

Have you tried formatting as FAT32 or something else?

 

[kavika411]

Wow; thank you mkrishnan and Eraserhead for your quick responses. To answer your question, mkrishnan, I was only in the erase section. Since getting your response, I tried partitioning it to both 1 and to 2 sections/drives/whatever, but I'm still getting the same darn message - "bad file descriptor." I'm sure it is something obvious, but I just don't understand. All I want to be able to do is begin ripping onto this new drive now that the old one is full.

You guys rock. PLEASE give me any more thoughts you have. Thank you.

 

[trainguy77]

Try clicking the lowest level of the drive. So not any partitions it has.

 

[sundancemc]

Same problem

I'm trying to install a new Seagate SATA300 500GB drive in the B slot of a G5 Power Mac 2x2GB. "bad file descriptor" results from any attempt to erase or partition. I even jumped it to force it into 150 mode, but I get the same error. Note that this G5 Power Mac's SATA controller is only a 1.5 GB, but new SATA drives are 3GB. I'm guessing that this early SATA controller simply can't handle SATA300 drives.

 

[bigbird]

If you're using a 300 SATA, you may have to configure it for 150 SATA using a jumper on the rear pins of the HD. Consult the HD user's guide.