 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Mac Forum / General / Hardware / March 2006250GB drive in Quicksilver G4
Just bought a 250GB drive that I want to install into my G4-700 Quicksilver tower. I know that this machine cannot handle drives bigger than 128GB and that it will need to be partitioned into two 125GB drives. I've read that Speedtools is what I would need to do this, but I'm thinking that is only if you have access to an older Mac. Once the drive has been partitioned, you don't need Speedtools to see the drive. Rather than spend $89 for Speedtools, I think I have free ways to create the partitions then stick the drive into the Quicksilver. Option 1: Stick the drive into my external Maxtor drive case, create the partitions with Apple Disk Utility, then remove and install into the Quicksilver. Option 2: Same as above, but plug the external drive mounted 250GB drive into my 17" Powerbook and do the formatting. Option 3: Take the drive to work and install it into a G5 and do the partitioning. Any or all options sound feasible? > Just bought a 250GB drive that I want to install into my G4-700 > Quicksilver tower. I know that this machine cannot handle drives bigger [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Any or all options sound feasible? None. Partitioning the drive won't make any difference. Either the ATA controller in the Quicksilver will support large drives -- and some later models do -- or it won't. You'll either have to get an ATA adapter card for the G4 or use the drive in an external enclosure. > Just bought a 250GB drive that I want to install into my G4-700 > Quicksilver tower. I know that this machine cannot handle drives bigger > than 128GB and that it will need to be partitioned into two 125GB > drives. Stop right there. The _drive controller_ on the G4's motherboard won't see past 128GB. You can make as many partitions as you like, so long as those partitions add up to 128GB or less. The drive controller can't access anything past that. > I've read that Speedtools is what I would need to do this, but > I'm thinking that is only if you have access to an older Mac. Once the [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Any or all options sound feasible? AFAIK you have two, and only two, options: 1 buy a PCI ATA controller card which is Large Drive compatible and install it, then connect the drive to that card. 2 put the drive into an external FireWire case which is fitted with a drive controller which is Large Drive compatible, and plug the FireWire case into one of the G4's FireWire ports. If you use a card or a case which is not Large Drive compatible, you can partition and repartition 'til the cows come home and you won't be able to access any more than 128GB.  Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. > > Just bought a 250GB drive that I want to install into my G4-700 > > Quicksilver tower. I know that this machine cannot handle drives bigger [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > > > Any or all options sound feasible? None. See below. > AFAIK you have two, and only two, options: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > partition and repartition 'til the cows come home and you won't be able to > access any more than 128GB. There is a third option, which the OP was kind of dancing around but not quite correct on. Intech's SpeedTools includes a driver that does, somehow, make larger drives fully accessible on older machines. To the OP: It's not the fact of partitioning the drive that makes it work; it's software that's part of the SpeedTools package that gets (for lack of better explanation) "left behind" on the disk and acts as an intermediary between the OS and the device. So yes, you need a license to SpeedTools to do it. Or, as another person noted, it may just work. It's not a supported configuration, but the QS models built in (IIRC) 2002 are known to have controllers in them capable of supporting large drives. If the 3rd character of the serial number on your machine is a '2' you should be fine. Signature"Congurutulation!!!" - The subject line on some spam I received recently. I have no idea what it means, but it's such a cool "word" (by which I mean pronouncable sequence of letters) regardless. > > AFAIK you have two, and only two, options: > > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > character of the serial number on your machine is a '2' you should be > fine. Correct. I have a 2002 QuickSilver G4 933 which DOES have a 3rd character 2 in it's serial number and DOES support larger drives natively. I have installed internal 200GB & 250GB drives in it. Morenuf Signaturemorenuf@nobodyhome.com.invalid >>> AFAIK you have two, and only two, options: >>> [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > character 2 in it's serial number and DOES support larger drives > natively. I have installed internal 200GB & 250GB drives in it. Ah. Yet Another Apple Stealth Upgrade revealed. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. >> Just bought a 250GB drive that I want to install into my G4-700 >> Quicksilver tower. I know that this machine cannot handle drives bigger [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > partitions add up to 128GB or less. The drive controller can't access > anything past that. Mr. Pedant says: "There is no IDE controller on the motherboard. There is some variety of ATA _adaptor_. The IDE controller is on the drive itself. This is, in fact, one of the defining aspects of ATA/IDE. Not to mention that many of the on-disk controllers are actually some variety of SCSI with an IDE wrapper." Otherwise correct. > Just bought a 250GB drive that I want to install into my G4-700 > Quicksilver tower. I know that this machine cannot handle drives bigger [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Any or all options sound feasible? It's not a matter of partitioning. The built in ATA controller can see only so many blocks on the drive. 2^28 blocks (268,435,456 512 byte blocks) or so. Anything past that doesn't exist to the controller. And the controller doesn't know anything about partitioning. Speedtools gets around that probably by doing it's own controller mods. And, if you're not boot from that 250GB drive, you can leave it as one partition. You just can't see the whole drive until the system is loaded with the Speedtools extension. You can read more about HD limits here: <http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/Limits.htm> <http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/ATA.htm> Greg B. SignatureThere's just one 2 in my e-mail address, so delete one to e-mail me. > Just bought a 250GB drive that I want to install into my G4-700 > Quicksilver tower. I know that this machine cannot handle drives > bigger than 128GB This can't be right. There never was a 700MHz G4. The Digital Audio and Quicksilver series shipped in 733Mhz versions. Perhaps you have one of them. Either way, it does not have an LBA-48 ATA interface, so the 128G limit applies... > and that it will need to be partitioned into two 125GB drives. I've > read that Speedtools is what I would need to do this, but I'm thinking > that is only if you have access to an older Mac. OK, here's the deal. If you do nothing, you have a 128G limit, regardless of how many partitions you create. You can get a PCI card with an LBA-48 ATA interface and use that. Then the drive will work at its full capacity. The third option is Speedtools. This will install a software wedge allowing your old-style ATA hardware to talk LBA-48 with the drive. The drive will be seen as 128G before the driver loads, and will be seen at its full capacity afterwards. This means that if the drive is not your boot partition, you won't need to create any partitions. If you want to boot from that drive, your boot partition (and any other partitions that may be used during the boot sequence) must be contained entirely within the first 128G of the drive. If Speedtools costs $89, it would probably be cheaper and easier to go with the PCI card route. > Once the drive has been partitioned, you don't need Speedtools to see > the drive. Rather than spend $89 for Speedtools, I think I have free > ways to create the partitions then stick the drive into the > Quicksilver. Not true. In order to work around your hardware limit, the Speedtools driver will have to be running whenever the drive is used. And its installer should include instructions on how to set it up. -- David > > Just bought a 250GB drive that I want to install into my G4-700 > > Quicksilver tower. I know that this machine cannot handle drives [quoted text clipped - 42 lines] > > -- David Thanks for all of the advise guys. I rounded, it's a QuickSilver 733. I ended up going the SpeedTools route and it's working like a champ. I'm still using the original 30gb as the boot drive. The 250GB has been partitioned into one 127.99GB drive and the other has what's left. The 127.99 was what's recomended in the release note. BTW, I found burried down in the SpeedTools site that you can buy just the ATA-Hi-Cap drivers for $24.95. Which is what I did. Now to move my old 80GB drive that this one is replacing into my daughters G4-450. SignatureTake out the "REMOVE" in the return address to reply > I ended up going the SpeedTools route and it's working like a champ. > I'm still using the original 30gb as the boot drive. The 250GB has > been partitioned into one 127.99GB drive and the other has what's > left. The 127.99 was what's recomended in the release note. Good advice. This way, if you happen to boot without the SpeedTools driver (perhaps booting a CD), you won't have any partitions straddling the 128GB line - which could create problems. -- David |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2009 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.