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Is there any patch thatll get the imac g3 to use drives above 128 gb?

longboarder

longboarder

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 15, 2016
56
11
So the premise is I put a maxtor 256gb hard drive in my imac g3. It works since i partitioned it with two partitions below 128gb in size. The only thing is now is I kind of want to utilize all of the space so I can use the imac as a sort of media hub for my room. It looks really cool with the sharp crt and all and itd be awesome to possibly one day add a 1tb drive. If anyone knows a way to patch the computer to utilize more space please let me know. Thatd be awesome! Thanks and regards,
Thomas
 
I don't know of any software solution - alternatively, you can use an extrernal drive via USB or Firewire.
Have you already explored what your G3 is capable of mediawise? Video for example will be pretty limited unless you're transcoding to period correct formats.
 
longboarder said:
So the premise is I put a maxtor 256gb hard drive in my imac g3. It works since i partitioned it with two partitions below 128gb in size. The only thing is now is I kind of want to utilize all of the space so I can use the imac as a sort of media hub for my room. It looks really cool with the sharp crt and all and itd be awesome to possibly one day add a 1tb drive. If anyone knows a way to patch the computer to utilize more space please let me know. Thatd be awesome! Thanks and regards,
Thomas
Click to expand...
Yes.

There are some limitations, but it should all be in the documentation.
 
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Dronecatcher said:
Intech was my first port of call but how I read it here is that you still have to use a 128Gb partition?
Click to expand...
It's possible to work it so that the entire drive is partitioned for the full amount. I did that with my old TiBook (which is how I came to purchase it when it was being sold).

The catch is that any files written above the 128GB space are not available if the driver does not load (on systems with this limitation).

So, say you want to boot into safe mode on a system using this driver. You cannot access any files that are written to the drive beyond the barrier until you reboot normally.
 
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eyoungren said:
It's possible to work it so that the entire drive is partitioned for the full amount. I did that with my old TiBook (which is how I came to purchase it when it was being sold).

The catch is that any files written above the 128GB space are not available if the driver does not load (on systems with this limitation).

So, say you want to boot into safe mode on a system using this driver. You cannot access any files that are written to the drive beyond the barrier until you reboot normally.
Click to expand...
So you can have e.g. a 1 TB drive using just a single 1 TB partition using this driver? If so, not knowing which files go above the barrier (i.e. which are inaccessible in safe mode) sounds rather risky.
 
Amethyst1 said:
So you can have e.g. a 1 TB drive using just a single 1 TB partition using this driver? If so, not knowing which files go above the barrier (i.e. which are inaccessible in safe mode) sounds rather risky.
Click to expand...
Yes. The driver makes it possible.

The not knowing what files are written where is the risk. And Intech very strongly advised against a single partition for this reason.

I'm still using the driver with my G3 server. But I've got it partitioned into a single 128GB and the remainder (it's a 150GB HD). Anything I have stored on the second partition I can afford to lose.
 
Dronecatcher said:
I don't know of any software solution - alternatively, you can use an extrernal drive via USB or Firewire.
Have you already explored what your G3 is capable of mediawise? Video for example will be pretty limited unless you're transcoding to period correct formats.
Click to expand...
Yeah im aware of the limitations but after researching and browsing old macupdate web archives I found a video player able to play almost all the video formats i need at close to full speed (its a 400mhz fyi). It may be hard to find without consulting the wayback machine but it is known as Cellulo. For the music i simply convert all my flac files to alac which is essentially the same thing as flac and to keep the videos speed well without too many background processes running i'm using os x 10.2.8
 
After playing around with Cellulo for a while on my G3/500, it appears that the playback is on a par with QT, VLC version 0.8.6i and RealPlayer. mView and mViewX in particular are far superior in performance, particularly when the H264 codec is involved. So if you already have the aforementioned programs then this is pretty redundant but at the same time, you can never have too many options, especially in PPC land. :)

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Dronecatcher said:
If you can find a version for 10.2.8, mplayer can be utilised by Cellulo - it will yield much better results than it's default player (QuickTime.)
Click to expand...
I found a copy of mplayer. Think i'll set that up on there again. I had mplayer before but the interface wasnt as helpful. Personally I liked cellulo cause I could watch shows/movies at 640x480 without too many noticable frame skips with the ability to go fullscreen, but if mplayer helps I think I'll add that to it.
 
Dronecatcher said:
That works with 10.2.8? For optimal playback you need to ditch the GUI and use the executable via a script - it's the most powerful player available on a G3 - however, that's on 10.4.11
Click to expand...
yeahhh the older 10.2.8 releases were hella slow and buggy
 
Also side note i installed speed tools and this is frickin awesome! If i have time imma install 1tb into this baby.
 
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