Generic USB external disk drive problems

[gfroyle]

I have a G4 PB15" and I am trying to use a generic (el-cheapo) external 20Gb USB harddisk. I plug it in to one of the USB ports and it just starts to whir and click, but nothing ever progresses beyond that.

The drive works perfectly on my Windows and Linux machines...

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Gordon

 

[locopano]

its notgetting enough power to get the initialHDDspinning... does your el cheapo HDD enclosurehave a power input.... maybe your USB cableis faulty..

generally the constant boot up sound with no clickin gover into spining means there isnt ebnought power to getit spinning.. this is common with BUS powered external HDD (ie powered of the cable) not apowerpoint..

 

[FightTheFuture]

since it isn't mounting on the desktop - is the drive mounting in disk utility?

 

[gfroyle]

its notgetting enough power to get the initialHDDspinning... does your el cheapo HDD enclosurehave a power input.... maybe your USB cableis faulty..

This sounds possible - the disk comes with a PS/2 cable attached, with instructions to use that for extra power if the USB alone is not sufficient. However on both my Windows and Linux machines I have always been able to use the drive with no need to "piggyback" extra power like this.

These other two machines however are both desktop machines, so maybe they just have surplus power....

 

[gfroyle]

its notgetting enough power to get the initialHDDspinning... does your el cheapo HDD enclosurehave a power input.... maybe your USB cableis faulty..

Bingo... it just occurred to me that I could check this experimentally - I moved the Mac close enough to a desktop machine, plugged the "extra power" cable into the mouse port, then plugged the USB cable into the Mac and it came up immediately....

I wonder if you can buy a "USB power amplifier" or something like that supplies a bit of extra power...

Or maybe just get a new external drive..

 

[Sparky's]

I wonder if you can buy a "USB power amplifier" or something like that supplies a bit of extra power...

Or maybe just get a new external drive..

So why bother spending money on a power booster

BINGO!! a new drive

 

[MoparShaha]

Check to see if it shows up in System Profiler (Applications --> Utilities --> System Profiler). Mac OS 10.3.3 introduced some problems with USB storage devices. If the drive does show up in System Profiler, try downgrading to 10.3.2. It will probably work then. Also, you could just wait till 10.3.4 is released, as I'm sure it will have a fix for this issue (Apple is aware of it).