taking ages to bring up external HD in finder

[cwedl]

Hi

This isn't that important but I wouldn't mind being able to sort this out....

I have two external Hard Drives and I connect them and it takes about 1-2 minutes before they show up in finder for me to connect to them, if I connect them up to windows xp or vista it connects up in a few seconds. is this normal. my ipods only take a few seconds.

thanks

 

[wrldwzrd89]

What's happening is that Mac OS X is spinning down your external drives to save energy when they're not in use. If you don't like this behavior, go into System Preferences -> Energy Saver and uncheck "Spin down hard disks when possible".

 

[KD7IWP]

I believe wrldwzrd89 is thinking of something else when he said that. The disc only spins down after it is plugged in and it is not being used, but it only takes a few seconds to spin it up again. The original question is why it takes so long for Finder to recognize a new drive when it is first plugged in. My Powerbook takes about 35 seconds to recognize my FW HDD and it bothers me, but I also have no fixes.

 

[mike.coulter]

Argh!

Mine does the exact same thing except its more like 2 - 3 minutes! It is soo annoying, so far this is the only let down with my iMac. I'd love it if someone knew why it happens, I though maybe its because there is so much stuff on it?