So I had an old school maxtor 3000dv external HDD, 60gb 7200 RPM drive on the inside, firewire 400 ports on the outside. I saw a seagate 250gb internal hdd on sale today and so i grabbed it, 60 dollars. i took out the old hdd and installed the new "internal" drive into my old "external" drive casing/enclosure, and it finally mounts, but it says that it is only a 128 gb hdd, anyone know what is going on and how i can fix it?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
External Harddrive Swap
- Thread starter atx_knepp
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Try reformatting it, but your case may not support large drives (greater than 128GB) depending on how old it is.
ya, i've tried formatting using several different programs, and no luck, just 128 capacty, with like 112gb of free space 
Anyone know any fixes?
Anyone know any fixes?
ya, i've tried formatting using several different programs, and no luck, just 128 capacty, with like 112gb of free space
Anyone know any fixes?
Get yourself a new HD enclosure.
I guess the circuitry on you case can address a max of 112 GB of disk space only.
It could be, but usually it doesn't matter what brand the drive is, just whether the case is capable of seeing larger drives at all. I agree that a new/different case might be a good idea, but make sure it's capable of being used with larger capacity drives.
you could try partitioning the drive.. didn't that used to fix the capacity limit on the old powermac G4s? does anyone think this would be along the same lines?
Yeah, that's a good idea. It doesn't always work (haven't tried it on an old Mac), but it's certainly worth a try.
Take a look at this link. There seems to be a driver to overcome this issue.
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml
The firmware on the ATA to Firewire bridge board needs to be updated to support LBA48 for it work with drives larger than 128GB.
So is there a way for me to update the firmware to support LBA48? And i would assume that you mean the ATA/Firewire bridge on the case itself correct? So is there even a way to update tht firmware?
Firmware upgrades (hacks) were available only for the old HD enclosures that had the Oxford 911 chipset when Maxtor introduced the 160 GB HD.
Maxtor uses its own logic board in their 3000dv HDD enclosure. So there might not be any firmware upgrade available. From the article below, it seems like Maxtor themselves added a hack to their logic board and introduced new HDD enclosures to accomodate disks with capacities larger than 128GB.
www.wiebetech.com/pressreleases/ATA6firewire.htm
Now the only other way to check is to partition the drive into two 125GB partitions and check if they are accessible. I have my doubts that it will work. But its worth a try.
Maxtor uses its own logic board in their 3000dv HDD enclosure. So there might not be any firmware upgrade available. From the article below, it seems like Maxtor themselves added a hack to their logic board and introduced new HDD enclosures to accomodate disks with capacities larger than 128GB.
www.wiebetech.com/pressreleases/ATA6firewire.htm
Now the only other way to check is to partition the drive into two 125GB partitions and check if they are accessible. I have my doubts that it will work. But its worth a try.
It'll be cheaper for you to spend the 20 bucks on a new enclosure than waste time/money researching other ways.
Go down to your local "Mom and pop" PC shop and they will have a great enclosure for you to slap that drive into.