Resolved Using a 4TB Drive in a PowerMac G5 (Logical Volume Group)

[sarthak]

I have a WD 4TB Black hard drive that I pulled from my Mac Pro and am trying to use it in the PowerMac G5.

Unfortunately, the disk won't mount. Here's the message.

I cannot run repair disk as all buttons are greyed out. It was initially formatted in OS X Lion and showed up as a Logical Volume. There is data on the disk so formatting it is not an option (unless, I stick it elsewhere, clone it, format it in the G5 and clone it back).

How can you use 4TB drives in Leopard?

 

[sarthak]

Not to answer my own question but, I cannot find a "driver" similar to Paragon software that allows Logical Volume Groups to be used on Leopard.

If it is indeed the case that I have to format the disk, what is the appropriate partition scheme / map to use that ensures Leopard compatibility?

 

[eyoungren]

If it is indeed the case that I have to format the disk, what is the appropriate partition scheme / map to use that ensures Leopard compatibility?

Intel Mac ==>GUID
Win/DOS ==>MBR
PowerPC Mac ==>APM

 

[reddrag0n]

If you are not using it as a boot drive, try formatting it as GUID, that may be able to see all of it

*edit
Taken from this thread...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1400661/

I hope you realize running RAID 0 is incredibly dangerous. Anyway, Apple Partition Map only supports partitions up to 2.2TB. You can install an IDE drive in the optical drive bay to boot from (which would be formatted APM, needed for boot) and then use the larger drives in GUID for storage.

 

[Cox Orange]

These big drives are always hazzle-some according to reports and my own experience. My 3TB Toshiba (of course only using it as a data drive) had to be repaired under Leopard several times. The most stable I got out of it and then it kept stable under this, was on a PC-SATA-card with a free Mac driver. Note I also have two different SATA-PCI-cards that are for Macs only with firmware that supports boot. (I formatted it as GUID).

I now only use it as an external drive in an inxtron SuperS combo enclosure, that supports drives up to 3TB and has Firewire (among others).
This is why I would recommend using an external case (preferably with firewire) that supports drives of 4TB.
THen hook that enclosure up to your G5 or other PowerPC Mac. You should be able to access/copy the data as long as you don't have to repair the catalog hirarchy (B-tree). I never tried repairing these files system stuff with a drive in an external case.

If you don't want to spend the money on the case and instead use a SATA-PCI card and your Mac has PCI or PCI-X instead of PCIe you can buy this card and try if it sees the big drive. http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=271571378732
with this driver http://www.drivers-download.com/en/downloadlist.php?id=72
(the one for SiL 3124) or use this backup I made https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75270900/SiI3124_2.1.4.0_Sil_Pkg.zip

I have the feeling I posted this somewhere and it got deleted by a mod, don't know why, so bette rbe quick with downloading or make a copy of this page.

For a PCIe-G5 there are cheaper cards, too, that do not support booting, but work. It seems the G5 can handle drives better on the PCI cards than on the onboard SATA connector.

Here https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/19304627/ I list a picture of a cheap compatible SATA-II PCIe cards for the G5 2GHz DC, 2,3GHz DC and Quad.

And this is for a bootable SATA-III card for a G5 PCIe https://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1755983.html

 

[sarthak]

Thanks all for the input.

The drive does show up however, since it was formatted as a Logical Volume in a newer version of OS X, there is little backwards compatibility.

I ended up cloning and formatting the drive in Leopard as GUID which insures forwards compatibility (compared to APM for PowerPC). I am only storing data on it so booting is not much of a concern.

I do have a CalDigit FASTA-4E (Quad eSATA 3Gbit/s) card. So I'll look to getting an Apple-esq external eSATA enclosure preferably single bay since all the multi-bay units are poorly designed and manufactured (lack FW400 to start with, excludes OWC).

A little background in case someone is interested:

Previously I had the Mediasonic 4 Bay USB 2.0 (which I ended up selling), picked up a Mediasonic 4 Bay USB 3.0/eSATA enclosure (which had a rattling fan, RMA'd and new unit still had a rattling fan). The last unit was a Nexstar 4 Bay external USB 3.0 enclosure.

I prefer not to stuff the drives in the G5 as I do with my Mac Pro since there is not really any secure place inside.

 

[Cox Orange]

Ah, ok I missed, that you can still acess the data, then it is of course the easiest to just clone it and reformat it.

What you say about the multibay enclosures is what I experienced as well. I had a Inxtron Hydra, which should show 4TB, but for some reason it showed only 2TB under 10.4. My single Bay enclosure with the 3TB dirve is fully recognised under 10.4. I tried writing it full in over the magical 2,2TB limit, that exists when used internally.

 

[robertdsc]

I prefer not to stuff the drives in the G5 as I do with my Mac Pro since there is not really any secure place inside.

There's room in front of the processor fans. You can use a popsicle stick (or equivalent from a craft store), drill holes, and screw the stick to up to three drives. Naturally, you'll need to do some wiring involving splitters out of the Molex connector for the optical drive, but it's very doable.

You can also take the optical drive out and lash two drives together into that space. I've done it with plastic zip cables, but I could also do it with popsicle sticks.

Of course, this is possible provided you have a SATA card to connect the drives to.

 

[sarthak]

Ah, ok I missed, that you can still acess the data, then it is of course the easiest to just clone it and reformat it.

What you say about the multibay enclosures is what I experienced as well. I had a Inxtron Hydra, which should show 4TB, but for some reason it showed only 2TB under 10.4. My single Bay enclosure with the 3TB dirve is fully recognised under 10.4. I tried writing it full in over the magical 2,2TB limit, that exists when used internally.

I was able to clone it to an external drive by stuffing it back into the Mac Pro. I put it back in the G5 and formatted it as GUID. Cloned it back (much slower to do checksum read from USB).

The drive didn't work in the G5, it would show up but I could not mount it since Logical Volumes aren't supported. But now, it works just fine.

There's room in front of the processor fans. You can use a popsicle stick (or equivalent from a craft store), drill holes, and screw the stick to up to three drives. Naturally, you'll need to do some wiring involving splitters out of the Molex connector for the optical drive, but it's very doable.

You can also take the optical drive out and lash two drives together into that space. I've done it with plastic zip cables, but I could also do it with popsicle sticks.

Of course, this is possible provided you have a SATA card to connect the drives to.

It's not that bad an idea to stick some additional drives in and use a PCIe SATA card (cheaper PC variants with Mac Drivers as suggested by Cox Orange). I'll see if I can get a metal cage that fits 2x 3.5" or 2.5" drives. I'd have to be aluminum, I've seen some options out there specifically made for the G5 Quad but they cost more than the machine! Orico makes a few like this (search "Orico Hard Drive" on eBay):

If one of those Orico models fit, it would look rather nice.

At the moment I got the 4TB to work but I'd want to make use of the CalDigit eSATA 4 port card I have. It should pair up with an external eSATA enclosure with an aluminum design ideally.

 

[Altemose]

I have a WD 4TB Black hard drive that I pulled from my Mac Pro and am trying to use it in the PowerMac G5.



Unfortunately, the disk won't mount. Here's the message.

Image



I cannot run repair disk as all buttons are greyed out. It was initially formatted in OS X Lion and showed up as a Logical Volume. There is data on the disk so formatting it is not an option (unless, I stick it elsewhere, clone it, format it in the G5 and clone it back).



How can you use 4TB drives in Leopard?

I think your problem isn't one you may of thought of. You need to install a jumper to get this drive to mount. I had the same problem.

 

[sarthak]

I think your problem isn't one you may of thought of. You need to install a jumper to get this drive to mount. I had the same problem.

Jumper for which setting? There are jumper pins on the drive but it does not say what they are for.

It shows up as unknown partition type (which is actually a Logical Volume created in Lion and worked just fine in a Mac Pro).

Guess it is too late now since I cloned, formatted and restored it. Though, it would be helpful to know in case someone else has this issue or I add a different drive.

 

[Altemose]

Jumper for which setting? There are jumper pins on the drive but it does not say what they are for.

It shows up as unknown partition type (which is actually a Logical Volume created in Lion and worked just fine in a Mac Pro).

Guess it is too late now since I cloned, formatted and restored it. Though, it would be helpful to know in case someone else has this issue or I add a different drive.

Power Macs generally have issues with SATA III and even some SATA II drives down-stepping to the correct SATA I (150 MB/s) speed. As a result of this limitation, on some drives you must use a jumper to force the drive into SATA I mode. This is a diagram from the Western Digital website regarding the jumper settings. You would want to set it to Jumper Option 1 (Pins 5 & 6).

 

[sarthak]

Power Macs generally have issues with SATA III and even some SATA II drives down-stepping to the correct SATA I (150 MB/s) speed. As a result of this limitation, on some drives you must use a jumper to force the drive into SATA I mode. This is a diagram from the Western Digital website regarding the jumper settings. You would want to set it to Jumper Option 1 (Pins 5 & 6).

I see, I will try it with a different drive as I already formatted this unit.

I thought PM G5 has SATA II?

 

[Altemose]

I see, I will try it with a different drive as I already formatted this unit.

I thought PM G5 has SATA II?

PowerMac G5s and iMac G5s only have a SATA I (150 MB/s) controller. This controller has issues with SATA III drives especially but works fine with most any SATA II drive.

 

[Cox Orange]

A WD tech support guy once emailed me, that 5&6 is good and if I want to go even further I can use 7&8 to get SATA-III to SATA-I, but I don't remember if it was additionally or without the 5+6.

On Hitachi drives, there is a small jumper, too, but that is only for sleep management (don't recall the right naming, some three letter abreviation beginning with A...), but it is not meant to be set, if there is no real need. One should read up on it first!


PS: how the cables can be routed and the Y-molex-adapter can be seen in the Sonnet pdf for the G5 Jive.