Please give me advice on how to format a new ATA hard drive that is larger than 128 GB to it's full capacity using Mac OS X or even OS 9.2 My new 300 GB DiamondMax 10 shows up as 128 GB in size when I would like to use it's full 300 Gb capacity. Apple's Disk Utility only sees 128 GB, and as a result, formats the larger than 128 GB hard drives as only 128 GB in size.

info... With large capacity hard drives whose capacity is greater than 160 GB and Mac OS 10.2x, after the drive is plugged in, the drive will not show up on the desktop. In order to see and format the drive, the end user must use the Macintosh on-board disk utility. from... http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid= 1336&p_created=1042668091 also... A local MS-DOS (FAT32) volume, whether a whole disk or a partition, will not appear in the Finder ("mount") if it is larger than 128 GB. Symptom * The MS-DOS volume does not appear on the desktop or in a Finder window. * In the log file /var/log/system.log, there is a line containing "mountmsdosfs(): disk too big, sorry". Products affected * Mac OS X 10.2 through 10.2.8 * local MS-DOS format volumes Note: "Local" volumes are those that are directly connected to your computer, including hard drives that connect via ATA, SCSI, USB, and FireWire. This issue does not affect remote volumes, such as "shares" on a Microsoft Windows server. Solution If your computer has a hard drive that is larger than 128 GB and that must be used locally in MS-DOS format, partition it so that no individual partition is larger than 128 GB. You could also share the disk from another computer and connect to it from your Macintosh.

Thanks but Apple's Disk Utility only sees 128 GB, and as a result, formats the larger than 128 GB hard drives as only 128 GB in size. I also tried it with a WD 200 GB EIDE hard drive and the same thing happened. It only shows 128 GB not 200 GB. I'm using the external FireWire hard drive with a PowerBook G4 and sometimes with my older G4 desktop Mac. How did my problem start? Well, my LaCie 200 GB hard drive worked for two years and two months, the crashed. The internal Maxtor 200 GB hard drive's not working, but the LaCie FireWire housing is fine (I tested it with a smaller ATA hard drive). The machine's just out of warrantee, so I bought a replacement Maxtor DiamondMax 10 (300 GB) internal ATA hard drive. I've tried Apple, Western Digital and Maxtor without luck.

try LaCie website?

Only newer Macs can use a drive over 128GB. It's an IDE Controller limit. You need to get an ATA/IDE 133 controller PCI card to install and you can use any size drive.