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Help Please! Problem with WD MyBook Premium 320GB HDD & MacBook

sonictonic

sonictonic

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
I just bought a 320GB external MyBook Premium from Western Digital, and I'm trying to get it hooked up with the included firewire 400 cable.

The hard drive will NOT mount! 🙁

I don't understand why this is complicated. I've never used firewire before, but I understand about Firewire 400 and 800, and that my macbook has 400. So does this drive. So why won't the drive mount when I plug it in and turn it on?! 😡

I rebooted, repaired permissions, and reset the PRAM. Nothing helped.

It seems to me from what I've researched the past hour, that many people have issues with firewire... so maybe I should just stick to USB 2.0?

Is the problem here most likely with the drive or my macbook's firewire port? I'm worried and I have no other firewire devices to test.

Just plugged it in with the USB cable and it mounts and works fine... but should I even use this drive with USB or is that risky since the drive might be faulty??

Can anyone help me with some good sensible advice on this? Thanks in advance 🙂
 
If you do a google search on this brand of external HD you will see that numerous people have had problems with them especially when used with the new intel based macs. I would recommend returning to store and going with different model. despite it working with USB.

Firewire is usually straightforward - plug and play-.
so what could be wrong:
The firewire port on your mac might be hooped. does anything else firewire work in it?
The firewire port on the drive might be hooped. see if ti connect via firewire to another computer.
 
I have a WD MyBook Premium 400GB model and that works fine on an early MBP with Firewire 400. Firewire worked straight out of the box without problem. I asssume that you are still powering the drive from mains with the FW cable plugged in?

Do other FW devices work? Have you tried another cable? It sounds like the drive is fine - it's more likely to be a problem with either the FW controller on the drive, the FW port on your computer, or the cable.
 
PatrickF said:
I have a WD MyBook Premium 400GB model and that works fine on an early MBP with Firewire 400. Firewire worked straight out of the box without problem. I asssume that you are still powering the drive from mains with the FW cable plugged in?

Do other FW devices work? Have you tried another cable? It sounds like the drive is fine - it's more likely to be a problem with either the FW controller on the drive, the FW port on your computer, or the cable.
Click to expand...

Hey thanks for the reply... Yeah I have it plugged in with the AC adapter. Should I not?

I'm worried, and I'm close to bringing it back to exchange... just to see if the drive is faulty. I don't have any other firewire devices to test, and this is my only computer...
 
sonictonic said:
Hey thanks for the reply... Yeah I have it plugged in with the AC adapter. Should I not?

I'm worried, and I'm close to bringing it back to exchange... just to see if the drive is faulty. I don't have any other firewire devices to test, and this is my only computer...
Click to expand...

The drive is not capable of being bus powered so you definitely need the mains plugged in for it to work at all.

I would definitely take the drive back to have someone test the firewire interface on the drive. Like I said, it could either be the drive (in which case you should get a straight replacement) or it could be the firewire port on your Mac (in which case you'll want to get that repaired).

I wouldn't worry about causing any damage - sounds like using the USB interface will be fine.

Good luck!
 
sonictonic said:
Hey thanks for the reply... Yeah I have it plugged in with the AC adapter. Should I not?

I'm worried, and I'm close to bringing it back to exchange... just to see if the drive is faulty. I don't have any other firewire devices to test, and this is my only computer...
Click to expand...

It works with USB, so the drive in the case is just fine. However, if you hook it up with USB, you could have bought the cheaper non-Premium MyBook instead. That't the same drive and enclosure, just without the Firewire ports, and a bit cheaper.
 
sonictonic said:
I just bought a 320GB external MyBook Premium from Western Digital, and I'm trying to get it hooked up with the included firewire 400 cable.

The hard drive will NOT mount! 🙁
Click to expand...
I have two 320Gb My Book Premium daisy chained from my intel iMac and they've been happily running for many months. Its been some time since I set them up but ISTR the first thing I did was connect via firewire and copy the WD apps off to the iMac and then reformat to HFS+.

Can you test another firewire device on that port? I'd test the setup in the following order

1. try a different firewire cable to the My Book

2. try a different firewire device to the same port with the original cable and then any replacement cable

Depending on the result that should help you pin down if the problem lies with either the cable or the port on your Mac.

One further suggestion - when you say they won't mount are you simply looking at the Desktop for an icon or in a Finder window for the drive?

3. I had a problem with Finder a few months ago and lost the external drives, although they didn't show up in Finder or on the Desktop they did show up in Disk Utility (Apps>Utils)! Not a My Book problem as my Nano didn't appear either. Try that after you've tried the above suggestions.

4. Do you have access to another firewire equipped Mac? If so take the original lead and any replacement and try to connect each in turn that'll show if the My Book has a port problem.


Really I can't praise these drives highly enough and I'm about to buy a 500Gb Pro to add to the setup.

If there's any more you want to ask let me know. HTH
 
Thanks guys. Thanks Tenex. Like I've been saying, I do not have another firewire device or cable, nor another computer with a firewire port.

I ended up returning the drive to Best Buy, and told them it was faulty. I exchanged it for the same model, got it home, and guess what - works fine. YAY!!! So - apparently I did in fact have a drive with an issue before. I'm relieved it wasn't my MacBook!

I stuck with Western Digital because they've never done me wrong in the past, and I also appreciate that mac support of their external drives (unlike Seagate). I have a 120GB WD drive in my MacBook, and a 120GB Passport drive which is great, and now this 320GB one...

Anyhow, thanks for the help and advice everyone!
 
Return The Piece Of Crap!!!!

sonictonic said:
Thanks guys. Thanks Tenex. Like I've been saying, I do not have another firewire device or cable, nor another computer with a firewire port.

I ended up returning the drive to Best Buy, and told them it was faulty. I exchanged it for the same model, got it home, and guess what - works fine. YAY!!! So - apparently I did in fact have a drive with an issue before. I'm relieved it wasn't my MacBook!

I stuck with Western Digital because they've never done me wrong in the past, and I also appreciate that mac support of their external drives (unlike Seagate). I have a 120GB WD drive in my MacBook, and a 120GB Passport drive which is great, and now this 320GB one...

Anyhow, thanks for the help and advice everyone!
Click to expand...

I went through two of them today! They will not mount Firewire. They software does not help. I brought mine back and exchanged it thinking that the firewire bus was faulty, but new one failed to mount as well.

get a LACIE. I have about 6 of those drives and they never fail to mount. For $10 more you can get a D2 Lacie drive with usb2 firwire400 and firewire800.
I just picked it up and it mounts right away and is just as quite.

Yeah the Mybook looks great, but it is really unstable. (for some) which means it s a crap shoot as to what you will get with one...
 
i'm having a problem too with the mybook firewire. looks like it's a bit of a problem...should i take it back or try another firewire hookup?
 
furcalchick said:
i'm having a problem too with the mybook firewire. looks like it's a bit of a problem...should i take it back or try another firewire hookup?
Click to expand...

I registered my drive a couple months ago and WD sent me an email a few weeks ago saying that the FW cable could be faulty and sent me a free replacement. If your drive does not work in FW but does in USB either exchange it or ask WD for a new cable.
 
i know it's not the macbook, it plugs right into another firewire device, so it's either the drive or the cable that's faulty. i think it's the cable, but the bad news is that i don't have another firewire cable on me at the moment. i may just buy one to see what happens...

it does work fine in usb though, so no problems there, i'm just backing up my files right now, so the firewire isn't a major deal at the moment. if i have another crash like last night though, i'll be getting a firewire replacement cord.
 
Same Problem...

I'm having the same problem with my Intel Mac. I specifically bought this MyBook for it's Firewire connection and it only works with USB. Not even a different cable works. Anybody learn anything that will work before I take it back?
 
Sounds like a lot of people are having a problem with it. maybe its something to do with OSX then. my 1 terabyte works fine most the time, but occasionally decides to unmount itself and and not connect for a while.
 
I plugged in into my Intel MacBook and it mounted! I then plugged it back into my iMac and it mounted there too! But now it's not working in either again. I can find no rhyme or reason to it.
 
not sure about this, but intel macs can boot from usb right? the guy at apple told me that they can't, but i heard from some sites, they can boot.
 
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