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External USB HD will not stay mounted upon restart

Q

quackquack

macrumors member
Original poster
Hello everyone,

I've scoured the net for hours trying to find a solution to this problem with no luck. Hopefully the bright minds in this forum will know what's going on. My Iomega USB 2.0 hard drive mounts fine when I turn it on while my macbook pro is up and running. If I restart the computer, the drive will no longer be mounted when OSX boots back up. To get the drive to mount, I need to turn off the drive, wait a few seconds, and turn it back on.

This is very irritating because 1) it's a hassle. and 2) the drive remains spinning full speed until I turn it off and back on. Somehow the spin-down feature does not kick in when the drive is turned on but not mounted. This means that if I restart and forget to power cycle the drive, it will continue spinning for hours and hours (getting very hot in the process).

Anyone have any advice? My other external hard drive (Western Digital) does not have this problem, if I restart the computer the orange hd icon is still there when osx comes back up. This problem occurs in both OSX and Windows via boot camp. Does this mean it's a problem with the drive? Is there any way to fix it?

Thanks for your help... I'll be greatly indebted to anyone who can figure this out.
 
Does the USB drive require power to turn on? Or is the USB cable powering the drive as well? I've had an interesting problem as well with a FireWire drive. But all I did was repair the permissions and it started working normal again.
 
I have a no-name external drive that has similar problems. Ironically, it only happens when connected via Firewire, and works fine with USB (the drive has both interfaces.)

In my case, the drive isn't waking up right for some reason, I believe ther's just a glitch with the controller.

I have another external drive that works perfectly.
 
madmaxmedia said:
I have a no-name external drive that has similar problems. Ironically, it only happens when connected via Firewire, and works fine with USB (the drive has both interfaces.)

In my case, the drive isn't waking up right for some reason, I believe ther's just a glitch with the controller.

I have another external drive that works perfectly.
Click to expand...

I have 2 USB drives, one wakes on Mac Mini reset, the other one I need to restart for it to be visable. Very strange.
WD drive has no problems, its my new Lacie drive I have issues with.
 
From those with similar experience it seems to be a problem with cheapo external drives (Iomega, no-name) but not with bigger name brands (western digital). Your problem with the Lacie seems to be an exception to this... I guess I'll stick with WD for now on..
 
quackquack said:
From those with similar experience it seems to be a problem with cheapo external drives (Iomega, no-name) but not with bigger name brands (western digital). Your problem with the Lacie seems to be an exception to this... I guess I'll stick with WD for now on..
Click to expand...

**ahem**... Apologies to Lacie... just checked now I'm home and it's an Iomega 500Mb.. I nearly bought the Lacie !
 
Wow, so out of the 4 people in this thread experiencing this problem, 3 were with Iomega drives! Must be a problem with their controller? I tried to contact Iomega support, but my drive's warranty just ended...
 
quackquack said:
Wow, so out of the 4 people in this thread experiencing this problem, 3 were with Iomega drives! Must be a problem with their controller? I tried to contact Iomega support, but my drive's warranty just ended...
Click to expand...

Mines new (as of last week). I'll try and raise it with them.. Issue is their web site is dog slow at the moment. I'll try from home later.

Cheers

Mark
 
Same problem with Iomega drive

I just got my Iomega 500GB external HD from Amazon a couple of days ago. I partitioned it using Disk Utility. Setup 3 partitions. 2 are Mac OS, 1 is MS DOS. I used one of the Mac OS partitions as a Super Duper backup partition. Made it bootable and backed-up a clone of my MacBook HD with Super Duper. But now I cannot boot to the drive b/c the MacBook is not recognizing the drive upon boot unless I unplug and replug the drive into the USB port. I have tried holding down Option upon powering up, but it just goes straight into HD without option of selecting other disks. I have also tried the "Target Disk Mode" in the Startup Disk section of System Preferences, but I just get an icon on reboot with not options. Regardless, the drive is not mounting when I turn the system on. I have to manually replug.

I am considering reformatting the drive with Mac OS partitions only.

Very frustrating. I was wanting to create a bootable image before updating to Leopard. I will not do so until I can get a bootable clone of my current Tiger MacBook system on an external drive (hopefully this Iomega).
 
I'll second what quackquack said. My WD 500GB USB myBook is operating just fine when it comes to re-mounting after sleep and restart.
 
Since this seems to be happening in both Windows and OSX (and mainly with Iomega drives), I'd guess that it is a hardware-specific problem and no amount partitioning/reformatting/etc will fix the problem.

I think our best bet is to raise the issue with Iomega and see if they can figure it out...

blackscooby: any luck with contacting tech support?
 
Someone over at the Iomega forums suggested I erase the drive, put only 1 partition on it, try it, and then if it works - go back and add additional partitions. Not sure if that suggestion is based on a known issues or what. I'll let you know if it works.

Oh joy - more hours watching the drive erase....😕
 
Looking at the number of people having an issue with this and the importance of Time Machine to apple, I wouldnt be at all suprised if these issues are addressed in the 10.5.1 update...


Dont quote me on that tho..... unless im right 😛
 
Update

I have noticed that the Iomega ext HD is powering-off (blue light goes off) when the MacBook is booting-up. It specifically powers off when the "chime" sounds when booting. I also get a repeated chime like the Mac is hanging during boot. I don't get that when the drive is not attached. So in short, the drive is turning off when the MacBook starts booting-up. Any ideas???🙁
 
Just a long shot in the dark...

...since I won't be installing Leopard until the current thunderdunders roll on by (hopefully tonight), and I don't have the particular external HDs in question; but, in case it would help anyone: in Cocktail 3.8.3...
http://www.maintain.se/cocktail/index.php
...under its Disks > Misc tab, there is a check box that says "Mount external disks without user login."

The presence of that option seems to indicate that, at least in some cases, externals are NOT mounted early on. Perhaps that's causing some of the problems experienced in this thread?

Cocktail is not Leopard-compatible (yet), so you'd have to start up in Tiger to launch it and check the box, and I have no idea where that setting is recorded - perhaps not "deep enough" to still be in effect after a Leo-boot - but it might be worth a shot. 😀
 
Iomega HD

I have the same problem with my new Iomega USB drive. I have had no luck with Iomega support to this problem and I am awaiting a second response before I give up and take it back to the shop in France where I bought it. I just hope they will refund in full under the guarantee.😡
 
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