Greetings. I can use some help, please, and soon.
I've got a G5 Original Dual Processor 2.0GHz which
supports Hard Drives larger than 128GB for my two
internal Seagate SATA Drives. I'm running Mac OS
10.4.8.
Recently my old VST External FireWire 30GB Drive
died. I installed a Maxtor Ultra 200GB Internal Hard
Drive that is an "Ultra ATA/100" drive. The model
number is L01P200/L01V200. I successfully formatted
the drive as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but I can
only use/see 128GB.
From what I've read Apple says the G5 internal
controller will support drives larger than 128GB and
they claim that FireWire drives are no problem. I can
only assume that the controller in my old VST
FireWire housing does not support Ultra ATA/100. Does
this make sense to anyone?
If I'm on the right track and I purchase a NEW
External FireWire enclosure to replace the VST can I
be certain the enclosure will support Ultra ATA/100
in 2006? I'd obviously like to have all 200GB (or as
much of that as I can) to work with without resorting
to funky software patches or a PCI card.
Any light that can be shed on this topic given my
scenario, above, would be appreciated. I don't want
to use the drive until things are "right".
Thanks in advance!
PWRMAC
G5 Dual 2.0 GHz
Mac OS X (10.4.8) Also using two other
VST FireWire enclosures with a 60GB and a 120GB
drive
I had no end of problems with my older firewire enclosures and newer iG5 and G5 towers. Eventually replaced them. Major problem was the power supplies - older capacitors starting to deteriorate. repair and replace power supplies did not solve problems for all of them, but also would not support larger drives. Kept crashing with the G5's in the office.
There are problems with the older Oxford 911 firewire interface and newer Macs. If you go to About this mac/more information/firewire it will tell you about the bus in your enclosure. The G5 interfaces do support the larger drives, as do most firewire buses available new now.
I've been doing a bit of video editting lately, so firewire back up was the best option for me.
I bought four replacement IceCube firewire enclosures (MacPower) through the apple retailer which support the bigger serial or IDE drives with a firewire interface and interface fine with my G5. They are expensive (aluminium cases) and have a range of firewire 400/800 and USB interfaces - between $110 and $190 Australian, to replace the older Oxford 911 enclosures which I junked.
I also added an internal serial card and frame from Wiebetech (www.wiebetech.com) who have a range of storage solutions. Check out their web site. International delivery in two weeks (premium freight)
The Maxtor Onetouch enclosures also work. Buy a cheap one with a small drive and replace the small drive with your new bigger drive for best bang for buck. Comes with Retrospect software. (Pain in the butt to configure for Mac but think I have it working now).
Best solution is to retire your old enclosure to be honest.