Is there a 128gb limit on hard drives in iBook G3's?

[California]

A friend of mine has a rare thing... a 14" iBook (mid 2002) 700mhz G3 that had a failed hard drive since he bought it. It was stored away for nearly five years until I came along. Apple apparently did not realize all it was, was a bad 30gb hard drive OEM. So the screen is perfect, and so is the case -- like opening something from a time machine.

Anyway, I replaced it last year with a 80 gig toshiba for him and now he wants to "max it out" with the 250 gb Western Digital ATA IDE laptop drive.

Then I remembered there might be some 128gig limit on the internal hard drive on the mid 2002 iBooks?

Could not find anything anywhere. Anyone know?

 

[alphaod]

Not that I can recall. I replaced the drive on a friend's computer and it was fine.

 

[NewMacbookPlz]

A friend of mine has a rare thing... a 14" iBook (mid 2002) 700mhz G3 that had a failed hard drive since he bought it. It was stored away for nearly five years until I came along. Apple apparently did not realize all it was, was a bad 30gb hard drive OEM. So the screen is perfect, and so is the case -- like opening something from a time machine.

Anyway, I replaced it last year with a 80 gig toshiba for him and now he wants to "max it out" with the 250 gb Western Digital ATA IDE laptop drive.

Then I remembered there might be some 128gig limit on the internal hard drive on the mid 2002 iBooks?

Could not find anything anywhere. Anyone know?

I think what you're thinking of was the theoretical upper limit that PC BIOS systems had with hard drives. That was overcome with a simple software trick, hence our drives being above 128GB now.

 

[TDM21]

Its a valid concern. PowerMacs before the 2002 Quicksilver edition did not support 48-bit LBA in the IDE controller. That limited the system to only being able to detect 138GB. One would hope that Apple also added 48-bit LBA support to the iBook during 2002.

I say go and try installing the 250GB drive. If it doesn't work then send it back and get a 120GB drive instead.

 

[Moriarty]

The G4 Cube had a 128GB limit.

I have no idea whether the G3 iBook has...

 

[sickmacdoc]

Not a definitive answer, but I believe it is subject to the 128Gb limit. While almost impossible to find a clear answer (and I have been trying), I found that the OWC applicable drives for all models of G3 iBooks are either 80Gb or 120Gb, while applicable drives for all iBook models that use G4 processors are shown as up to 250Gb. That is not proof, but pretty convincing evidence as the OWC listings are usually right up to speed.

 

[alphaod]

I misread the first post; I thought it said G4; sorry.

 

[Korovka]

Then I remembered there might be some 128gig limit on the internal hard drive on the mid 2002 iBooks?

Could not find anything anywhere. Anyone know?

I read somewhere that there is a limit, but don't remember exactly, how much. I believe the max HDD size that you can buy is 120 GB (but it is not 100% truth). I bought Seagate 120 GB ATA HDD for my iBook G3 800Mhz 12", and it works fine. It's hard to find ATA drives nowadays.