Imac G4 800 MHZ Hard Drive

Question

I'm looking to upgrade my HD to 500gb+. I read somewhere that there is a way to make the computer recognize all of the available space, instead of capping at 250gb. Is there a way to put a 500gb+ hd in a imac g4 800MHZ? Thanks

Answer 1

Some of the older computers can see or use larger disk drive
sizes; support in some was limited officially yet some users
have found their machines could support larger than the early
limits of 128GB in the iMac G4 700/800 computer. The later
iMac G4 800 officially supported larger drive capacities; yet
some brands of hard disk drives may have their own issues.
A helpful downloadable free database for general specifications
can be obtained from http://mactracker.ca - and it is advised.
Partitioning schemes help allow use of larger and otherwise
not supported capacities of hard disk drives in these machines
since that lets you install a system on a supported size section
and the other sections can be used for other systems, or other
applications; or storage. Boot volumes, including OS9 support
may require keeping to appropriate formatting and installation
of additional drivers early in the process of pre-OS preparation.
There may be additional advantages to having a partitioned
HDD within a computer capable of supporting only one hard
disk drive; since some utilities can be run from a booted section
and repair another one on the same drive, for example.
{Issues and other answers apply when putting an iTunes library
or iPhoto library on another partition or other drive, one that is
not the boot drive readily accessible to the applications directly.}
In any event...
Good luck & happy computing!