Ok...This is weird.

I have a SATA WD CaviarSE 250 GB. Everything works fine as long as the drive is un-partitioned. Once I partition it in OS X my system won't make it pas the POST screen. It detects all the drives & hangs when it would normally jump to the next screen and look for an OS.

I have 2 other 200gb WD SATA Caviars in the machine & those work fine. I tried booting with just the 250 by itself but it made no difference.

My mobo is an MSI 945g Neo. Latest BIOS and all that.

I'm writing 0s to the drive right now with WD diagnostic tools on another machine (where it works fine BTW intel brand 915g board). I'll see if that helps...

Partition the drive in Windows or something other then osx.

I would use at least 2 partitions, both FAT32

Yeh, but I need it to be OS X bootable.

I'm going to backup my ol' school 10.4.4 install to it & then install 10.4.8.

If your planing on using the whole disk for osx, then make two partitions FAT32 .

You have to install a full working install on one and then set up the second for your new 10.4.8 install.

You can play with either one after you all set up.

To clarify I think the proiblem is anything newer than 10.4.3 disk utility make's a hidden efi partion at the front of the drive. So you need to partion either w/10.4.3 disk or fdisk. You can use disk util to format just not partion.

I have 2 other HFS drives in the system, including my current 10.4.4 install that was partitioned in .4. Plus it works in my other machine. I wipe it with WD utilities, duplicate my running system to it & boot it in my other system on this 250.

FAT32 didn't work either. The BIOS is showing it's only a 137gb.

I'm tired of messing with it. I've been looking for a reason to get a new mobo... Probably go pick something up with a 975 to make way for core 2.

Thanks for the help though!

Just an FYI -

I put the drive in my other machine. Booted the XP install CD & deleted the partition there. Then I used iPartition to partition the whole drive as HFS & told it to put the partition at the end of the drive. All is well now.