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ilyaa1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 13, 2004
6
0
Delaware
Hello,

I've a Powerbook G4 15" (previous generation, not the current one), and I just bought a LaCie P2 Mobile HDD USB2. The LaCie HDD is supposed to be bus-powered, which was the point of buying it - have a tiny HDD to keep my music collection on.

The HDD apparently does not get enough power from my PB's USB port. The strange part starts here: this HDD works flawlessly on a desktop computer, plus on both iBooks and on the PowerBook G4 12" - bus-powered in all cases.

I went to our Apple store, and we checked the HDD on all the laptops they had - only PB 15" and 17" could not spin up the disk. I've talked to the Apple tech support, who said that iBooks and the PB 12" had a different circuitry layout then the PB 15" and 17". They basically told me to go check with LaCie about possible firmware upgrades, and call them back with the results :)

So here's my issue: the HDD works just fine. The only difference I've noticed in terms of ports between PB 12" and PB 15/17" is that the latter have a FW800 port added. However, AFAIK that shouldn't matter if nothing is hooked up to those ports. Is there a way to make the HDD work with my PB15"?

Thanks to all those who answer.
 
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