Speed Tools ATA Driver?

[Roseyboy]

Hi,

I did give this subject a search so sorry it’s a repeated post.

I've just about finished making a old Powermac G4 into a media server/backup device, and have left the drive till last.

Currently it's running its original ATA 10gb HD and 10.4

Now I want to add a 500GB ATA drive (£60 on ebuyer 🙂 ) but have read that it can't see a drive over 128GB.

I don’t fancy paying out for a PCI ATA-133 card so has anyone tried out this app, http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml

I had a read through the website but it still talks about making sure your HD's are under 128GB which is no good.

If anyone uses the speedtools driver can you let me know how you get on, I think a lot of the warnings relate to using it as your primary boot device which could land you in problems. but as I want to use it as a secondary drive can I just use the driver (kernel extension?!?) and format as 500GB or whatever I choose.

Anyway a answer or any advice would be greatly appreciated, im working on a tight budget so the $25 software solution would work best.

So Just to Clarify I hope to end up having:

1x 10GB ATA drive (the original which Mac boots from and holds OS)
1x 500GB ATA drive (Storage drive) <--- This to be the new drive!

Thanks

James 🙂

 

[huntercr]

I think you misunderstand what that website is warning against when it speaks about 128GB. It says not to make the boot partition over 128GB. That means that if this is the boot drive and you want to use a 500GB drive, you make the first parition 128GB and the a second one with the rest of the disk space. This is because if the special driver ever fails to load, you will not have access to your system if your partition is too big. It's an emergency situation type thing.

The entire point of this is moot since you are booting off of your original 10GB drive.

I would first buy the drive and just see if OS X can use it without the driver. I thought that G4's didn't have this limitation. You can always install the driver later.

Good luck!

 

[Roseyboy]

Thanks for the very quick reply.

I have been told that only late MDD powermacs could read large drives. Mine is a 350mhz AGP.

But thanks for the advice. Will try and borrow a large drive from work to test.