[G4] Re: HD questions about G4 Digital Audio (with complete answer)

[Ken Presley]

Roxylee wrote:

Hi!

I need a bigger HD for my G4 digital audio AGP. I read somewhere that
this machine would only recognize up to 128 G. My question is, should I
just stick with getting one this size, or is there a simple workaround
if I bought a bigger size? Also, does anyone have one for sale? Thanks,

Roxylee


Paul Moortgat probably had the best answer by suggesting you use an
external firewire case (make sure it is a rather recent model circa 2004
or so, many earlier firewire cases also suffer from the 128GB limit).

The main reason I have responded is that although this subject has been
covered many times on many lists I am not sure I have ever seen a
complete answer as this subject is actually very tricky on G4's and
especially Digital Audio and earlier models.

I do indeed have a G4 Digital Audio model and recently faced this exact
subject. Although I am relatively technically competent, I noticed that
there was a LOT of conflicting information from people more technical
than me who were sure they knew the answer.

Well, after a LOT of research and some good info articles from OWC and
Intech and others, I know quite a bit about the 128GB limit. Even
reading Apple's own technical knowledge-base will still often give you
the wrong impression on this subject. So my research (and testing)
uncovered the following:

(1) Stock G4 Digital Audio (and earlier models) will NOT properly
support an INTERNAL IDE HD greater than 128GB no matter what version of
OSX you use or no matter WHERE and HOW the drive is formatted. Even
though many people think differently, since the boot rom of this model
does not support the famous 48-bit (LBA) addressing you are essentially
out of beer (and neither does the internal IDE controller). Although OSX
adds in this support for many models it explicitly EXCLUDES models that
do not have the necessary 48-bit support in their boot rom. Notice I
said properly. You might fudge something and make it partially work (and
likely lose some data and corrupt a drive partition in the process).

(2) You can of course buy an additional ATA PCI controller card for
about $65-$70 that supports 48-bit addressing and hook your large
(>128GB) drive to it. This works fine. (Also SATA cards with SATA-to-ATA
adapters would probably work).

(3) You can use Intech SpeedTools software add-on ATA Hi-Cap OSX kernel
extension to add support for larger than 128GB drives, but it does have
some partitioning and booting limitations (you can use the whole large
drive but see their website for specifics).

(4) You can certainly use a late-model (circa 2004) external firewire
case that has the necessary 48-bit support to incorporate greater than
128GB drives. As I (and Paul) mentioned above, this is probably the best
solution.

(5) And just to add further fuel to the fire, don't forget that not only
does the G4 Digital audio support TWO daisy-chained 128GB IDE internal
drives, you can also add a THIRD 128GB drive on to the SLOWER CD/DVD IDE
controller (the necessary power and IDE connectors ARE there but this
sometimes requires a bit of drive cage trimming with tin-snips!). I have
three drives in my G4 Digital Audio via this method.

(6) Oh, and has been mentioned many times, G4 MDD (mirror-drive-door)
models and above (not quite sure about Quicksilver models, someone else
can answer for them) support the 48-bit addressing necessary for
greater-than 128GB drives in their stock configuration, so you can
forget (!!) this email for those models!

I am SURE that there are other assorted odds-and-ends that can be added
to this subject but this covers the major sub-topics for greater than
128GB support.

Happy computing to all with our old dinosaur G4s!

- Ken Presley