Is the other half of my new hdd useable?

[dogtag1968]

I've installed a 250gb WD hdd in my G4 AGP/ Graphics as a second drive. I didn't know the hdd limitations would affect a slave . Which is not a problem, what I need to know is if the half of the drive that dosen't mount will just be a waste of space. Or can it be formated and if so, how?

500mhz, 27gb WD master hdd, 1gb pc133 ram, 250gb WD slave hdd.

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment...nt.php?attachmentid=167316&stc=1&d=1239861730

 

[Makosuke]

I assume the issue you're talking about is that those G4s don't support anything above 128GB on the built-in ATA bus. Master or slave isn't a factor, nor is which of the two buses it's on; it's a limitation of the drive controller on the motherboard. This feature didn't show up in the controllers officially until MDD G4s, though all QS I know of have it, and I've read reports of even a few older machines that do.

There is a 3rd party driver from Intech, SpeedTools ATA Hi-Cap Driver, that will allow you to see and use the full capacity of a large drive on a G4:

http://www.speedtools2.com/ATA6.html

...though it will cost you $25. The other alternative is a PCI ATA card, though it would be drastically more efficient in the long run to get a PCI SATA card instead, since SATA drives are much cheaper now.