Installing Maxtor HDD on powerbook

[Chocobot]

Hi all -
I've had this HDD lying around for a while now, and I decided that I should put it to good use with my Powerbook to store all of my recorded audio files. I bought a USB 2.0 enclosure, popped the drive in, and tried to format it. The drive appears as Maxtor Calypso in Disk Utility and the System Profiler, yet I can't mount it, erase it, or partition it. It does not appear on the desktop.

Is my Hard Drive Dead?

 

[Makosuke]

Since it shows up in Disk Utility, what happens when you select it in the pane on the left then try to partition it? Is the "Partition" button greyed out, or does nothing happen when you click it?

Generally if the drive is recognized at all, it should work (and if it sees the model, the drive's electronics are certainly fine, and I expect the drive is, too).

 

[Sun Baked]

Since it's the only drive in the enclosure, you may want to check the jumper settings -- and also see what the enclosure company recommends.

OWC Drive jumper links

 

[CanadaRAM]

Better choice would have been a Firewire enclosure. Can you swap the USB 2 .0 case back to the seller for a Firewire one?

Most Powerbook models prior to the latest crop of G4's do not support USB 2.0 -- USB 1.1 is pig-dog slow for drives.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

 

[Chocobot]

Actually I have a new Powerbook so I've got USB 2.0, and I ordered the enclosure online so I'd end up spending twice as much in the long run with all those shipping costs.

About the jumper settings - I don't have anything plugged in there, but there doesn't appear to be enough room for another cable in there. It didn't even come with a cable to hook up to it. Where would I plug the other end of it?

 

[Chocobot]

Any suggestions?

 

[Makosuke]

About the jumper settings - I don't have anything plugged in there, but there doesn't appear to be enough room for another cable in there. It didn't even come with a cable to hook up to it. Where would I plug the other end of it?

It doesn't sound like you're familiar with hard drive jumpers, and this may well be your problem. I apologize in advance if this is something you already know, but the jumpers on an IDE hard drive are how you tell it whether it's the master, the slave, or to base it on cable select position. They are set by putting tiny pieces of plastic with a metal bar inside (the jumper) across pairs of pins in the block on the hard drive between the power and IDE connector.

Depending on what your drive was installed in before, it might well be set to cable select, in which case you'll have to change it to master before it'll work in your external case. That would explain the problem you're having.

You can look up the proper jumper settings on Maxtor's site (they might also be printed on top of the drive); I think the Calypso in called the DiamondMax Plus 9 in the US. I attached the jumper image from Maxtor's site for that drive, from the page here:

http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/jumper_settings/style_a2.htm

By the way, you still haven't said what happens when you try to format the drive in Disk Utility--when you select the drive, does the Partition tab show up, and if so what happens when you select a partitioning scheme and click partition? Is something greyed out?

 

[Chocobot]

Ok, the partition tab does show up, but when I try to partition it an error occurs, and then everything grays out.
I have installed an internal slave hard drive on my pc before before, so I know something about jumpers. What confuses me about the external drive is placement of the other end of the jumper cable.

Thanks for your help so far.

 

[pncc]

Ok, the partition tab does show up, but when I try to partition it an error occurs, and then everything grays out.
I have installed an internal slave hard drive on my pc before before, so I know something about jumpers. What confuses me about the external drive is placement of the other end of the jumper cable.

Thanks for your help so far.

No, you aren't understanding him. Open the USB case and look at the back of the drive, you should see some jumper pins like the graphic in the previous post. Put a jumper pin on CS (cable select) or master. Close the case back up. plug in the USB cable and startup the drive, launch Disk Utility.

 

[jeremy.king]

... the other end of the jumper cable.

Thanks for your help so far.

Jumper cable? This isn't a car. LMAO.

http://www.computerhope.com/help/jumpers.htm

 

[Makosuke]

Ok, the partition tab does show up, but when I try to partition it an error occurs, and then everything grays out.

Ok, this does sound rather like a problem communicating with the drive, which could well be caused by incorrect jumper settings. The drive is probably set to either slave or cable select, and needs to be master.

What confuses me about the external drive is placement of the other end of the jumper cable.

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about (maybe you're just using terms I'm not familiar with), but there is no "jumper cable" on anything but some old SCSI drives, which this isn't. There are only three things going into the hard drive itself: a flat grey IDE cable (the big block of pins on the right in the image above), a 4-pin molex power connector (on the right), and the section of about 8 pins between the two where the little tiny jumpers go.

I can almost guarantee that your drive needs to be set to "Master" mode to work in the case, so you need to identify your exact model, figure out what the correct jumper position is (probably as shown above), and then take the drive back out of the FireWire case and make sure that's how the jumpers are actually set. If not, get a pair of needle nose pliers or tweezers and fix them.

Then, put everything back together and it'll probably work fine. There's no way to check this without craking open the FireWire case and looking at the drive, though.

I apologize if I'm sounding condescending by spelling everything out, but your post didn't make it sound like you were quite following what I was saying--could be a misinterpretation on my part.