problems with new hard drive - initialization and size

[pavinder]

Hi,

Got a G4, OS 10.2.8, internal hard disks 20GB (original) and 80GB (bought and installed myself).

I bought a new hard disk (200GB) and an external case with firewire connection. When I plug everything in, there is no recognition that the new drive is connected. System profiler says nothing is connected to firewire ports.

The manual for the case said no driver installation was necessary for OSX, but given there was no detection of the case I installed the driver anyway - this installation started up Classic environment and installed driver there.

I thought maybe disk utility would detect the drive and so tried to use OSX disk utility to initialize the drive (as I did with my 80GB drive in OS 9.2) but can't find any such option in OSX. All I can find is options to partition a disk.

So I figured maybe there's a problem with the external firewire case, and therefore removed my internal 80GB drive and replaced it with the new 200GB drive.

At least the drive is recognized now but is showing as only 128GB, not 200GB.

So my questions are :
1. Is there some OSX size limit of 128GB which means I need to partition the 200GB drive into 2 partitions of (say) 100GB each? If so, how do I do this when only 128GB seems to be available?

2. Is there an initialization option in OSX disk utility like in OS 9.2?

3. Any ideas why the system may not recognize the firewire-connected external case? Might partitioning the disk properly sort this out?

Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[rman]

1. Is there some OSX size limit of 128GB which means I need to partition the 200GB drive into 2 partitions of (say) 100GB each? If so, how do I do this when only 128GB seems to be available?

The limitation is not the software but the G4 hardware itself, due to the disk bus. Which G4 do you have?

The only way you are going to see the 200 is break the disk into partitions.

 

[Chamorro]

The 128GB limit you're referring to only applies to internal drives on an ATA/66 system. If your HD enclosure has a good chipset (Oxford 911) you should be able to read the full 200GB w/o partitioning.

First, make sure everything's powered on and plugged in properly (i.e. computer and HD enclosure both powered on and connected via FireWire).

Now, if System Profiler says nothing is connected to FireWire....you have one of the following:
bad FireWire cable
bad FireWire port on your HD enclosure
bad FireWire port on your computer.
Try using a different cable, then a different port on your enclosure, then a different port on your hub or computer. If the issue is w/ your computer's ports, you can try zapping PRAM, resetting in Open Firmware and the
Programmer's reset to see if that will help. If not, look for a FireWire PCI card and a powered hub.

FireWire is advertised as hot-pluggable, but MANY people have had their ports go bad by doing this. Now, I power everything off, then connect, then power on (kinda like w/ SCSI peripherals).

I've started using a powered FireWire hub and connecting everything to that, to save the ports on my computer.