Hello, I am hoping someone here may have had a similar experience or knows what to do:

I have an old (2000? ADS Tech. Oxford911 chipset) external firewire/1394 enclosure, my problems began this morning when I went to install a larger, newer hard drive (Seagate Barracuda 7200 200GB UltraATA). I am using the setup mainly with a MacBook Pro for dv backup. I've previously used the drive both internally and in other external enclosures without any problems.

Right off, the drive was recognized as 128GB. Foolishly, I tried to reformat. The drive would then not mount at all. After reading online I discovered that the lock of 128GB is most likely a limitation of the firmware on the bridge card. So, I pulled a bridge card out of a newer external case (one that I had stopped using because of problems with the power supply) and plugged it in through USB to my Linux desktop, since I don't have any firewire port.

I reformated the drive in gparted (it claimed it was 186GB) and then plugged it back in to the Mac's firewire port. It will not recognize the drive at all! Yet, I can use the drive through the USB port just fine. So, I swapped the drive out again with another, to confirm that the firewire bridge was still working, and indeed it does function.

What I want to know is how to "rescue" the 200GB drive so that I can use it through firewire. I read online about HPA (host protected area) and don't know if possibly that is the problem?

I have not tried to reattach the drive via the old bridge, but I suspect that it would continue to work with the 128GB lock.

Probably a limitation on the 1394 controller. Try a different drive on the same box, other wise get a different box (www.pctradestore.com are cheap)

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IF the drive connected to a good known system is recognised with full capacity, then it's a logical / controller problem. IF NOT, the drive needs to be serviced. HPA is another thing.