Issues with Seagate External HD

[Einst3in]

Hello everyone,

Ive searched online and have found people having a few issues with this drive. Ive also searched this forum however anything ive found hasnt helped me with my dilemma here.

Issue: "Seagate Expansion 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST902504EXA101-RK " this drive isn't even showing up on my mac book pro with 10.5.4 my power settings are set to performance. The drive is humming like its working and the led is on. However the drive doesn't show up on the desktop, finder, or disk utility. Any ideas from anyone?

Some more system info is as follows:
MBP 15" 2.2ghz intel core 2 duo
4gb ddr2

 

[DewGuy1999]

Sometimes USB drives require more power than a single USB port can supply and they have a dual head USB cable to use with 2-USB ports. Does that drive have one of those dual head USB cables?

Is your Desktop and/or Finder set to show hard disks? Does the drive show up in either System Profiler or Disk Utility?

Assuming that your Desktop/Finder preferences are set to show hard drives, a possibility is that the hard drive(s)'s visibility bit is set to invisible. This article, AppleSprite: Controlling Hard Drive Visibility With Onyx tells how to use OnyX to change a currently visible hard drive to invisible. You could use OnyX to check what the visibility bit of your drive is set to and change it if need be.

HTH

 

[Einst3in]

Thanks for the reply,

The drive has a single usb2.0 head.
The desktop shows both partitions on my desktop for mac and xp. Also the drive dose not show up in the disk utility at all, and i have not checked the system profile. Ill have to do that when i get back to the house tonight but im going to assume no since its not showing up in the disk utility.

As far as OnyX goes that's why i picked up this hard drive was because it recommended i backed up my system before using it in case of failure

Currently im leaning towards lack of power from the usb port but im not sure what i could do to remedy that.

 

[DewGuy1999]

Thanks for the reply,

The drive has a single usb2.0 head.
The desktop shows both partitions on my desktop for mac and xp. Also the drive dose not show up in the disk utility at all, and i have not checked the system profile. Ill have to do that when i get back to the house tonight but im going to assume no since its not showing up in the disk utility.

As far as OnyX goes that's why i picked up this hard drive was because it recommended i backed up my system before using it in case of failure

Currently im leaning towards lack of power from the usb port but im not sure what i could do to remedy that.

Personally I don't use OnyX, but I don't believe that it doesn't do anything harmful by default, but having a backup just in case couldn't hurt.

You mentioned: "The desktop shows both partitions on my desktop for mac and xp." I guess I don't understand what the problem is if the drive is showing up.

 

[Einst3in]

It shows both partitions for the internal drive, im having issues with the external drive that im trying to use for back ups.

ive never used onyx either when you go to run it, it suggests that you back up everything before using it so i figured it was worth while advice coming from the creators of the program.

 

[DewGuy1999]

It shows both partitions for the internal drive, im having issues with the external drive that im trying to use for back ups.

ive never used onyx either when you go to run it, it suggests that you back up everything before using it so i figured it was worth while advice coming from the creators of the program.

Now I understand. If I remember correctly you can pick and choose which of the many tasks OnyX performs. If you unchecked everything but the visible/invisible setting for the external hard drive I think you'd be safe without a backup.

Have you used the drive previously? Do you know if Seagate offers either a external power supply or a dual head cable for that drive?

Edit: I just checked on my iMac (OS X 10.4.11) and my internal hard drive shows if the Finder preference to show hard disks on the Desktop is checked, but the external hard drive doesn't. For the external hard drive to show up on the Desktop the preference to show CDs, DVDs and iPods need to be checked. For the Sidebar preferences, the check box for hard disks effects the showing of both internal and external hard drives. This may be changed under newer OSes though.

 

[Einst3in]

Ill have to test onyx when i get home.

The drive is brand new and i should test it on another computer to see if it works in general. as for separate power supply's the only port on the drive is a usb. Im not sure on the availability of a dual usb tether. if there was my mac only has one usb port on each side making the little dual plug cables a bit tough to use.

The settings in finder are set for everything to show. I just tested another external drive (iomega) and it pops up just fine. On a side note to that it has a plug for a separate power supply(not in use) and it has a dual usb plug (im only plugging in one however and it still works).

 

[DewGuy1999]

Ill have to test onyx when i get home.

The drive is brand new and i should test it on another computer to see if it works in general. as for separate power supply's the only port on the drive is a usb. Im not sure on the availability of a dual usb tether. if there was my mac only has one usb port on each side making the little dual plug cables a bit tough to use.

The settings in finder are set for everything to show. I just tested another external drive (iomega) and it pops up just fine. On a side note to that it has a plug for a separate power supply(not in use) and it has a dual usb plug (im only plugging in one however and it still works).

From what I've heard over the years, various portable external hard drives have different power requirements and some work with one cable and some don't. Looking at the comments on Amazon it appears that others have had the same "not enough power" experience as you with the Seagate Expansion 250GB portable.

 

[Einst3in]

yup,

sounds like i might have just bought a new external for my desktop...

 

[Einst3in]

another update,
Attempted to show all objects in onyx and still no luck. Planning on updating to snow leopard tonight and will see if any new features help, because some of the write ups ive seen have been for 10.4.down or 10.6.up.

 

[DewGuy1999]

another update,
Attempted to show all objects in onyx and still no luck. Planning on updating to snow leopard tonight and will see if any new features help, because some of the write ups ive seen have been for 10.4.down or 10.6.up.

I suppose it's possible that the drive is just DOA. Were you able to try the drive on any other computers?

 

[Einst3in]

Doh, not yet that was the one thing i forgot to check.