Discussion:
200gig replacement external Firewire only shows 128 gig
(too old to reply)
Terry McDanel
2004-09-30 04:18:21 UTC
Permalink
MacOS X.2

My Maxtor 120 gig external Firewire HD went out. I bought a 200 gig
ATA 100 EIDE Western Digital to replace it. They are cheap. But the
OSX Findern says its only 127 gig. The Disk Utility calls it a "128
Maxtor". I assume the problem is in the bridge logic board of the
Firewire box.

Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
--
email: t mcdanel att fast mail dott fm
Gregory Weston
2004-09-30 11:12:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Terry McDanel
MacOS X.2
My Maxtor 120 gig external Firewire HD went out. I bought a 200 gig
ATA 100 EIDE Western Digital to replace it. They are cheap. But the
OSX Findern says its only 127 gig. The Disk Utility calls it a "128
Maxtor". I assume the problem is in the bridge logic board of the
Firewire box.
Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
No.
--
Standard output is like your butt. Everyone has one. When using a bathroom,
they all default to going into a toilet. However, a person can redirect his
"standard output" to somewhere else, if he so chooses. - Jeremy Nixon
S***@signature.atbottom
2004-09-30 13:45:00 UTC
Permalink
Post by Terry McDanel
MacOS X.2
My Maxtor 120 gig external Firewire HD went out. I bought a 200 gig
ATA 100 EIDE Western Digital to replace it. They are cheap. But the
OSX Findern says its only 127 gig. The Disk Utility calls it a "128
Maxtor". I assume the problem is in the bridge logic board of the
Firewire box.
Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
No.
So what is happenning and why?

Could i put the drive into a new encloser and have it work properly?
David Besack
2004-09-30 15:18:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by S***@signature.atbottom
Post by Terry McDanel
Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
No.
So what is happenning and why?
Could i put the drive into a new encloser and have it work properly?
Yes, you can buy separate enclosures that will house the drive and
(hopefully) show it as a 200 GB drive.

Before you do, check the jumpers on the drive, some manufacturers have the
ability to set it as a lower capacity drive. Also, possibly contact Maxtor
and ask them if their controller board has the limitation you guessed and a
possible way to circumvent it.
William Lazarou
2004-09-30 15:38:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by S***@signature.atbottom
Post by Terry McDanel
MacOS X.2
My Maxtor 120 gig external Firewire HD went out. I bought a 200 gig
ATA 100 EIDE Western Digital to replace it. They are cheap. But the
OSX Findern says its only 127 gig. The Disk Utility calls it a "128
Maxtor". I assume the problem is in the bridge logic board of the
Firewire box.
Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
No.
So what is happenning and why?
Could i put the drive into a new encloser and have it work properly?
Try partioning the drive as two drives,
one as 100 gig. and the second as the balance, (which will be about 70 gigs)

worth a try,

Will
James Glidewell
2004-10-01 16:24:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Lazarou
Try partioning the drive as two drives,
one as 100 gig. and the second as the balance, (which will be about 70 gigs)
The problem is how the bridge board addresses the drive. The ATA access method
that older bridge boards use doesn't support addressing past 128GB. Partitioning
won't help, as Drive Utility will see the drive as 128GB and won't let you
create a partition past there.

Only fixes are a bridge firmware update (slight chance) or new case that
explicitly supports >130GB drives (sure thing).
Gregory Weston
2004-09-30 18:13:40 UTC
Permalink
Post by S***@signature.atbottom
Post by Terry McDanel
MacOS X.2
My Maxtor 120 gig external Firewire HD went out. I bought a 200 gig
ATA 100 EIDE Western Digital to replace it. They are cheap. But the
OSX Findern says its only 127 gig. The Disk Utility calls it a "128
Maxtor". I assume the problem is in the bridge logic board of the
Firewire box.
Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
No.
So what is happenning and why?
What's happening is that the controller in the case simply doesn't know
the proper protocol to address the full capacity of the drive.
Post by S***@signature.atbottom
Could i put the drive into a new encloser and have it work properly?
Absolutely. Make sure you get one that's asserted to support large
drives, though. I'd be surprised if anyone is selling them new that
won't, but better to confirm up-front.

G
--
Standard output is like your butt. Everyone has one. When using a bathroom,
they all default to going into a toilet. However, a person can redirect his
"standard output" to somewhere else, if he so chooses. - Jeremy Nixon
morenuf
2004-09-30 23:50:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by S***@signature.atbottom
Post by Terry McDanel
MacOS X.2
My Maxtor 120 gig external Firewire HD went out. I bought a 200 gig
ATA 100 EIDE Western Digital to replace it. They are cheap. But the
OSX Findern says its only 127 gig. The Disk Utility calls it a "128
Maxtor". I assume the problem is in the bridge logic board of the
Firewire box.
Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
No.
So what is happenning and why?
Could i put the drive into a new encloser and have it work properly?
Could very well be the Firewire Bridge in your enclosure can not address
large capacity drives.

I have an OWC enclosure on an older G4 450 (which can't directly address
Post by S***@signature.atbottom
128GB drives) and it works with 200GB seagate drive on this machine.
The OWC has an OXFORD bridge in it.

I also ran into a quirk with Western Digital drives, where I had to set
the jumper on the WD drive to SINGLE to get it to mount quickly and
correctly in the Firewire case. Most drives can be and should be set to
MASTER jumper settings in such firewire enclosures. I doubt this is your
particular problem but remember this quirk too.


BY far the best resource for snafus & "Gotchas" with add on mac hardware
is www.xlr8yourmac.com.

For particulars on your hardware try this url:
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/search.drivedb.lasso


and set the dialogs to your machine, osx version, firewire bridge and
search for others who might have encountered your problem and perhaps
posted workaround or fix.

Hope you find a fix. You may have to get another Firewire enclosure.
G'Day
Morenuf
--
***@nobodyhome.com.invalid
Thomas Jahns
2004-10-01 13:00:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by Terry McDanel
Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
Chances aren't high, but the manufacturer of the enclosure or the bridge
chip might have produced a new firmware for the device to support 48bit
addressing (which is required for more than simple 28bit LBA addressing:
512byte/sector*2^28sectors=137438953472byte=128GB).

Although even if the device could technically do this, manufacturers
don't tend to provide such upgrades since doing so prevents another
sale.

Thomas Jahns
--
"Computers are good at following instructions,
but not at reading your mind."
D. E. Knuth, The TeXbook, Addison-Wesley 1984, 1986, 1996, p. 9
David C.
2004-10-03 19:20:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Terry McDanel
My Maxtor 120 gig external Firewire HD went out. I bought a 200 gig
ATA 100 EIDE Western Digital to replace it. They are cheap. But
the OSX Findern says its only 127 gig. The Disk Utility calls it a
"128 Maxtor". I assume the problem is in the bridge logic board of
the Firewire box.
The bridge chip in the case doesn't support the LBA-48 mode needed to
support drives larger than 128G.
Post by Terry McDanel
Is there any way to get it to see the rest of the hard drive?
Not very likely. Some have suggested a firmware update, but I
wouldn't count on it.

A new external case with a more modern bridge chipset will work.
Make sure it is explicitly documented to support LBA-48 or drives
larger than 128G (137G as HD manufacturers count bytes.)

-- David

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