[X4U] ATA hard drives

[John Baltutis]

On 04/07/05, Randy B.Singer <randy at macattorney.com> wrote:
> John Baltutis said:
>
>>Internal ATA drives are limited to 128 GB. For larger drives, you'll need a
>>133 MHz card to extend that capacity or revert to FW.
>
>
> The limiting factor is that his G4's ROM only supports 32-bit LBA
> (Logical Block Addressing), and support of greater than 128 GB requires
> 48-bit LBA and OS X 10.2 or later.
> http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86178
>
> Most G4's prior to the "mirrored drive doors" models do not support
> 48-bit LBA.
>
> Intech's ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver software ($25) allows the use of
> extended capacity internal ATA drives (drives greater than 128 Gigabytes
> in size) in older (pre-mirrored door) G4 and some G3 Macintoshes running
> MacOS X versions 10.2 and later.  (Obviating the need to purchase an
> ATA/133 PCI card.)
> http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.html

True. However, it has this limitation: "Šif you boot your Macintosh from
another source (such as a MacOS software installation CD/DVD or a disk
repair utility CD/DVD) the SpeedTools ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver will NOT
be available to load and your drive will be limited to 128 Gigabytes until
you reboot from a MacOS X installation which has the ATA Hi-Cap Support
Driver installed."