Hi: does any body know what can i do to get my POWER MAC G4 recognize Hard Disks bigger than 128GB. I installed one with 200GB but the system tells my that is of 128GB, i also put another one of 160GB and does the same. Do i need to upgrade the firmware??? The operating system i am using is 10.3.9

I had a similar problem earlier this year when I replaced a HD into a LaCie external casing. This is how it turned out. I learned what to do from a Maxtor support guy. Here's the drill according to him: 1) You're supposed to put the 300GB HD in a Windows based PC with any other HD's removed. 2) Start up with a floppy or CD. 3) Update the firmware with MaxBlast previously downloaded from maxtor.com. 4) After that the 300GB HD is supposed to work to full capacity on a Mac or any PC. Being a Mac user, I took the HD back for a refund. Maxtor should update the firmware themselves before selling their hard drives (the lazy bums) or at least provide clear instructions on the box. Some other manufacturers are in the same boat (more lazy, money grabbing bums). So I bought a 120GB Samsung that runs much quieter to put inside the LaCie housing, and since also splashed out on a external LaCie 250GB HD for backing up data. The latter already went bang within 6 months, and is now with Lacie d2 for repair under warrantee. I checked it with TechTool Pro 4, and you guessed it, there was a 300GB Maxtor inside with 2 permanent bad sectors. I would never buy the Maxtor brand again (well certainly not with my own money). It's worth paying a bit more for quality. Hitachi or Samsung are the business. Cheers, Chris Paulsen. Trouble formating large ATA hard drives over 128 GB 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 ne

Well, in my case i am using a Western Digital HD, i will try to contact these guys and see what they tell me.

This tool is the answer. You have to partition your drive, that's the downside (if you can call it a downside...). [quote] ''The Intech ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver software was created to allow the use of extended capacity ATA drives (drives greater than 128 Gigabytes in size) on older (Pre- Mirrored Door) G4 and G3 Macintoshes running MacOS X versions 10.2 and later. Without this software installed, any extended capacity drive which is connected to the native ATA bus on older Macintosh models will be limited to only 128 Gigabytes. Later model G4's and all G5's do not suffer from this limitation.''[unquote] I've used it or more than a year and it is flawless. Works like a charm... Download from: http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml