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Why won't a 2TB W.D. Black Drive Work in my G5 Power Mac?

Why won't a 2TB W.D. Black Drive Work in my G5 Power Mac?


It's a Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Black SATA III WD2002FAE


My G5 Power Mac can not "see" this new drive. As a test, I installed this drive in my Intel Mac Pro and it works perfectly.


On the back of the drive their Pins where one can install a jumper. Western Digital provided no jumpers.


Suggestions appreciated.

Posted on Jun 16, 2011 7:51 PM

Reply
13 replies

Jun 16, 2011 7:57 PM in response to K T

Because my Power Mac could not find the drive, I installed it in my Intel Mac Pro (to test) and formatted it for the Mac OS.


Are hard drives formatted differently for Intel versus G5? I tried to put the drive in the Power Mac G5 first but it was not found.


The Power Mac is running 10.5.8, The Mac Pro has 10.6.7.

Jun 16, 2011 8:53 PM in response to Ziatron

It's the SATA speed, G5's only deal with Sata I/1.5GB/s, try a jumper on pins 5 & 6 to slow it down... and if you made it GUID on the Mac Pro the G5 won't see it on the Desktop, but Disk Utility might see it & let you Partition it APM.


But I still don't know if the SATA 6.0Gb/s drive will slow to only SATA2, or what, at one time OWC had a warning that the 64MB Caxhe WD models wouldn't work on G5s, but I no longer find that...


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD2002FAEX/


This drive is SATA 6G (3G/1.5G Compatible) ...


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0F12115/


But may depend on the Mac's HW/SW to detect/tell the drive what speed it can handle.

Jun 16, 2011 9:55 PM in response to BDAqua

It's coming back to me now. I do need to limit the drive to 1.5 Gb/s.


Problem is, the links that you gave me do not look like the back of the drive. The WD2002FAEX Does not have the old-style four pin power connector.


Searching that number on Western Digital's website also shows the incorrect image.


After digging through my parts bin I found a jumper. (Western Digital saves $0.02 by not providing one) I took an educated guess as to where to install it. The drive now appears to be working properly.


Thanks to you all for your assistance.

Apr 22, 2015 10:30 AM in response to Tim York

It depends totally on the case & chipset in question, & USB isn't bootable on a G5, but it may or may not be needed depending on what SATA speed the chipset in it supports, some also do not support over a certain size drive, like the size it came with if it did, some may also not support the new 4096 Byte Sectors of Advanced Format drives.

Apr 22, 2015 11:11 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks - I see, so there are a few variables. The one I've I've got my eye on is this one, but the details don't say what the drive size limit is : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Allcam-IT-735-Enclosure-Drives--Black/dp/B000V8KQE6/ref= sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1429725942&sr=8-6&key…

I'm aware that USB isn't bootable, but FW cases seem to be a bit of a rarity nowadays.. Would FW be more likely to work in terms of the size?

Thanks for your time!

Apr 22, 2015 12:55 PM in response to Tim York

Yes, the real info we need is either hard to get or impossible, that is the most details I've ever seen on Amazon, which normally has no useful info.


From the manufacturer's site...

Technical Details

Convert any 3.5" SATA hard drive into an external hard drive in seconds, support both SATA-I and SATA-II

http://www.allcam.biz/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1136&osCsid=730cc04e5 0b2f027f0a2761d86f00171


So it may or may not need the Jumper, never saw this exact scenario before. 🙂

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 24 July, 2012.

One would assume it works with 4K Sectors then.

Why won't a 2TB W.D. Black Drive Work in my G5 Power Mac?

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