Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Hard drive issues

skippymac

skippymac

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 9, 2010
592
3
Hampshire, UK
I'm having a seriously confusing morning! :confused:

Backstory: I have a MBP with a 1TB internal HDD.

I recently put a 160GB HDD in there and created a new OS X... partition? (not on the same disk) which was then encrypted using filevault 2.

If I put either disk in the machine via the SATA II connection each one boots up fine.

Now onto my problem:

If I connect either HDD (or a number of others that I own) to one of my 2 USB enclosures, my MBP doesn't recognise it. Seems like a hardware issue? The thing is my iMac won't recognise them either!

Both computers recognise a USB flash drive.

If I power off my MBP and connect one of the drives by USB, I can select it in the boot menu and it boots up, and then freezes whilst opening my default apps!! :confused:

Sorry if this was really confusing to read, it was confusing to write! If anyone's got some suggestions they'd be welcome!
 
This sounds like a slave / master issue. Setting these little jumpers if the drive has any should fix the problem...One drive should be set to master (your main boot drive normally) and the other to slave.

If both are set to master they "fight" each other. If the drives have no settings, what make are they? Might be able to provide more detailed information.
 
skippymac said:
I'm having a seriously confusing morning! :confused:

Backstory: I have a MBP with a 1TB internal HDD.

I recently put a 160GB HDD in there and created a new OS X... partition? (not on the same disk) which was then encrypted using filevault 2.

If I put either disk in the machine via the SATA II connection each one boots up fine.

Now onto my problem:

If I connect either HDD (or a number of others that I own) to one of my 2 USB enclosures, my MBP doesn't recognise it. Seems like a hardware issue? The thing is my iMac won't recognise them either!

Both computers recognise a USB flash drive.

If I power off my MBP and connect one of the drives by USB, I can select it in the boot menu and it boots up, and then freezes whilst opening my default apps!! :confused:

Sorry if this was really confusing to read, it was confusing to write! If anyone's got some suggestions they'd be welcome!
Click to expand...

Hi,

Does the usb enclosure work properly on any other computer, pc with windows for example?
 
Macman45 said:
This sounds like a slave / master issue. Setting these little jumpers if the drive has any should fix the problem...One drive should be set to master (your main boot drive normally) and the other to slave.

If both are set to master they "fight" each other. If the drives have no settings, what make are they? Might be able to provide more detailed information.
Click to expand...

Do S-ATA HDDs still have jumpers? I thought they have been exterminated in that big time war Bill Pullman knows almost nothing about.
 
needfx said:
Hi,

Does the usb enclosure work properly on any other computer, pc with windows for example?
Click to expand...

Just tried booting from usb again and that doesn't work at all for either drive now... I don't have a windows pc to try it out I'm afraid! I thought it was really weird that neither enclosure would work?? :confused:

Macman45 said:
This sounds like a slave / master issue. Setting these little jumpers if the drive has any should fix the problem...One drive should be set to master (your main boot drive normally) and the other to slave.

If both are set to master they "fight" each other. If the drives have no settings, what make are they? Might be able to provide more detailed information.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid I don't know much about "jumpers". Both drives are WD scorpio blue, the 1TB I bought around 6 months ago and the 160GB I salvaged from my mums old pc laptop.

----------

Incidentally, when I could half-boot from USB, my bootcamp partition didn't show up when connected via usb but did by SATA.

Also the encrypted drive doesn't seem to have a recovery partition like the other one does, is this bad??
 
skippymac said:
The only reference to slave and master I can find in that link relates to IDE connections?
Click to expand...

Okay...On the rear of the drive(s) are there any small gold pins with a tiny bridge connector? If not, then you don't have them. Then you might want ot take a look at the compatibility article on the WD page...Apart from that or a faulty drive, I'm out of ideas.
 
Macman45 said:
Okay...On the rear of the drive(s) are there any small gold pins with a tiny bridge connector? If not, then you don't have them. Then you might want ot take a look at the compatibility article on the WD page...Apart from that or a faulty drive, I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...

No there aren't any. I thought this may be related to filevault as everything was pretty much fine before i did the encryption... but that doesn't explain why the drives don't show up on my iMac, and neither do other drives I connect. The only commn factor I can see here is the 2 USB enclosures but it seems really weird that 2 different models of enclosure (same manufacturer) would both fail at the same time in the same way :confused:
 
Enclosures appear to work with IDE drives.

Is it possible that somehow I've managed to fry the SATA-USB connection within both enclosures..?

(To clarify the enclosures are SATA/IDE to eSATA/USB)
 
Another update:

The enclosures now work perfectly.

All of my hard drives connect well.

My personal (1TB unencrypted) drive will connect, but doesn't show up in the boot menu when connected by usb. When my work (160GB encrypted) drive boots, I can see the 1TB drive in disk utility but it says it is unreadable...

The format is Mac OS extended (journaled) but it says it is not mounted...
 
skippymac said:
Another update:

The enclosures now work perfectly.

All of my hard drives connect well.

My personal (1TB unencrypted) drive will connect, but doesn't show up in the boot menu when connected by usb. When my work (160GB encrypted) drive boots, I can see the 1TB drive in disk utility but it says it is unreadable...

The format is Mac OS extended (journaled) but it says it is not mounted...
Click to expand...

It sounds like that drive may have corruption. Can you read it anywhere else?
 
It boots up fine when it's plugged in via SATA, I'll try booting the other one via USB later and see if I can see it via SATA
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back