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Maxtor Format Issue

B

bigboy99

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 12, 2005
407
0
Sarasota, FL
I cannot get my 300 gig Maxtor to go past 130 gigs. It should be about 279 gigs when formated. I have tried it USB/Firewire on both my G4 Power Book and USB 2.0 on a Dell 4700. No love at all. It's in a brand new Ultra external case that should have no problem with the big capacity.

Is there a better disk utility than the app that comes with Tiger? It doesn't even have a format option.

Thanks,

Bigboy99
 
bigboy99 said:
I cannot get my 300 gig Maxtor to go past 130 gigs. It should be about 279 gigs when formated. I have tried it USB/Firewire on both my G4 Power Book and USB 2.0 on a Dell 4700. No love at all. It's in a brand new Ultra external case that should have no problem with the big capacity.

Is there a better disk utility than the app that comes with Tiger? It doesn't even have a format option.

Thanks,

Bigboy99
Click to expand...

I have two ideas, the first: What file-system are you using? FAT32 can be formatted to 300 gigs, but NOT USING WINDOWS. I've never tried (or wanted to) use FAT32 on mac.

Second, most drives have size-limiter jumpers. They can force the capacity down for PC's with older BIOSs that can't accept them otherwise. Make sure your drive jumpers are correct.

------ EDIT -------

I thought of one more thing. If your powerbook G4 is like mine, (alum 1.5ghz or so) the USB really SUCKS. I had endless trouble with my external USB drives on my powerbook. I finally bought a huge firewire disk, and trashed the USB disks. So maybe you can't format on your Mac, because the USB sucks, and you can't format on your Dell, because your trying to use FAT32. That would make a lot of sense.
 
I have two ideas, the first: What file-system are you using? FAT32 can be formatted to 300 gigs, but NOT USING WINDOWS. I've never tried (or wanted to) use FAT32 on mac.

Second, most drives have size-limiter jumpers. They can force the capacity down for PC's with older BIOSs that can't accept them otherwise. Make sure your drive jumpers are correct.

------ EDIT -------

I thought of one more thing. If your powerbook G4 is like mine, (alum 1.5ghz or so) the USB really SUCKS. I had endless trouble with my external USB drives on my powerbook. I finally bought a huge firewire disk, and trashed the USB disks. So maybe you can't format on your Mac, because the USB sucks, and you can't format on your Dell, because your trying to use FAT32. That would make a lot of sense.
-------------- ------------ -------- -----------------
I've tried them all. On the Dell I tried NTSF with the USB 2.0. Then I used the DOS command FORMAT and did FAT32. The drive came out about 130GB each way.

Then I tried the Disk Utility that comes with Tiger. Possibly the least useful HD utility I've ever seen. I finally got the drive back to the Apple file system, but still about 129 GB.

I've seen user posts that tell me this drive can go to the 279 GB limit. I had it there once on a PC with NTFS.

I dunno...
 
superbovine said:
Your external case doesn't support lba-48 bit addressing and won't be able to see anything above 128 GiB. You have to buy an external drive with lba 48 bit addressing or one that says one supports 200 gb and above etc.

You find what you need here.

http://www.ppa-usa.com/product_pages/enclosures.htm
Click to expand...

I just ordered this one.

Item #: E261-5105
Hiro 3.5in Aluminum USB 2.0 / Firewire Hard Drive Enclosure with Oxford 911 Chipset.

Thanks,

BB99
 
Please note that formatting the disk as NTFS will make it all but useless for your Mac. Mac OS X can read NTFS, but cannot write to it in any reliable way.
 
bigboy99 said:
I just ordered this one.

Item #: E261-5105
Hiro 3.5in Aluminum USB 2.0 / Firewire Hard Drive Enclosure with Oxford 911 Chipset.

Thanks,

BB99
Click to expand...

Called TigerDirect. This enclosure won't handle 300GB, either. Where can I purchase the enclosures at the PPA link? They have no sales info at the site.

Thanks,

BB99
 
yellow said:
Please note that formatting the disk as NTFS will make it all but useless for your Mac. Mac OS X can read NTFS, but cannot write to it in any reliable way.
Click to expand...

Understood. First I want to get the drive formated out to it's full capacity, then I'll deal with the file system.

Thanks,

BB99
 
bigboy99 said:
Called TigerDirect. This enclosure won't handle 300GB, either. Where can I purchase the enclosures at the PPA link? They have no sales info at the site.

Thanks,

BB99
Click to expand...

hmm, oh... you cannot purchase from there. the link was just an example. sorry about the confusing. http://www.newegg.com
the ppa boxes are branded as "Metal Gear Box".
 
bigboy99 said:
Understood. First I want to get the drive formated out to it's full capacity, then I'll deal with the file system.

Thanks,BB99
Click to expand...

for all practical purposes, catch-22 :D
ie.......AFAIK, you can't format a drive w/o installing a file system, and you can't install a file system w/o formatting the drive :eek:
 
OWC has enclosures with the latest Oxford chipsets, including Firewire 800. Hopefully, the Mercury Elite will solve the issue.

Thanks to all who replied.

BB99
 
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