external harddrive problem

[sk3pt1c]

ok,a few problems i have to solve before i go all mac

one is that i have an external hard drive with all my music on it

it's a western digital passport 80gb drive that is usb powered

it is suitable for macs and it does say so on the website

but when i connect it to my powerbook it lights up (which means that it IS

getting the power) but it doesn't seem to connect to the computer

it keeps trying to spin and connect but nothing, and Tiger is not popping

anything up on the screen

help help! (i'm being repressed)

 

[revenuee]

ok,a few problems i have to solve before i go all mac

one is that i have an external hard drive with all my music on it

it's a western digital passport 80gb drive that is usb powered

it is suitable for macs and it does say so on the website

but when i connect it to my powerbook it lights up (which means that it IS

getting the power) but it doesn't seem to connect to the computer

it keeps trying to spin and connect but nothing, and Tiger is not popping

anything up on the screen

help help! (i'm being repressed)

try using disk utility to repair permissions

ALSO -- try a program called mountme ... you can get it at versiontracker.com

 

[SpaceMagic]

Was it formatted NTFS on a Windows XP machine?

 

[davizod]

what system is your drive formatted on, mac or PC? Only fat32 will work on both systems unless you get one of the mount it programs which will allow a pc drive to mount on a mac or vice verscia.

 

[yellow]

I find that the USB's bus power on ALL powerbooks to be sub-par. USB powered external drives REALLY don't work very well. You may have to get a new enclosure that has a separate power supply, or a firewire powered bus to have it work properly.

 

[sk3pt1c]

it works fine on my pc laptop
i haven't formatted it since i bought it
i checked and it's fat32 so it should work
any more suggestions?

 

[yellow]

it works fine on my pc laptop
i haven't formatted it since i bought it
i checked and it's fat32 so it should work
any more suggestions?

The problem is the power on the USB bus SUCKS on powerbooks.

 

[NYmacAttack]

The problem is the power on the USB bus SUCKS on powerbooks.

Yup, its not getting enough power. You can either buy a new enclosure or you could buy a powered USB hub that should be able to supply it with the extra juice.

 

[superleccy]

The problem is the power on the USB bus SUCKS on powerbooks.

Ditto for iBooks, in my recent experience. I have just purchaced a Seagate bus-powered USB2.0 Hard Drive, and a single USB port on my iBook is not powerful enough to drive it.

Fortunately the seagate drive comes with a special Y-shaped "double" USB lead that lets the drive suck extra power from a second USB port... and that works fine. Could be a longshot, but, can you get such a lead for your WD drive?

FWIW, my (work's) Dell X300 laptop strugges in exactly the same way.

Regards
Superleccy

 

[sk3pt1c]

the thing is i bought this drive because i want it to be portable
it's very small and i didn't want to carry around power adapters and cables and all that,so it really pisses me off that i either have to buy the power adapter or a powered hub.
what if i get a usb-to-firewire cable(if such thing exists) and try connecting it to a firewire port?
would that give it enough power?

 

[yellow]

I don't think there is such a things as a USB to Firewire cable.

You only have 1 choice really. An externally powered enclosure. You could get a firewire powered enclosure and it would work fine, but how many PCs come with IEEE 1394 ports? That leaves you with.. trying to find an enclosure that has both USB and firewire and can be powered by both.. does such a beast exist? I don't know.

 

[sk3pt1c]

or i just buy the power adapter for the one i have
it's just sold separately in case you have a problem like this
but that sucks though
anyway,thanks