Macbook suddenly refusing to mount external HDD, not seeing a partition

[zombiedictator]

So this is a weird one. I've got a 500GB Maxtor external HDD that is HFS+ that I put everything on. I plug it in today and for some odd reason, it isn't mounting. This drive was fine the other day, but maybe it died. So the first thing I do is turn on my old Windows XP machine with MacDrive installed and plug it in. The WinPC reads it just fine, sees all the data, etc. So I plug it back into my Macbook. It lights up and starts turning so I know its active and not in sleep mode. Still nothing. Plug it into the other USB port. Nothing. I plug in a USB mouse and verify that the port is working.

So now the drive is making a bunch of noise plugged into the Macbook. Disk utility sees the drive, but has no partitions on it. All options are grayed out except format, basically, so I can't repair, verify, etc.

So I'm stuck with a drive I know is good and my Macbook (Leopard) won't see the partition my Windows PC with MacDrive saw just fine 5 minutes ago. Any ideas?

 

[heatmiser]

Is it a one-touch? If so, there are a bunch of Maxtor posts on this page...I c/ped a few.

Jul. 4, 2006

Dennis Pearce
I have a Maxtor One-touch II 300GB external drive that has worked beautifully with my Dual 1.25 G4 for the past 6-9 months. Purchased a Macbook Pro in March, shortly after they hit the stores, and it refuses to mount the external. The drive shows up on the bus using either USB or Firewire connections, but will not mount. I've tried Disk utiliity, taking the whole mess to the Apple Genius Bar, etc. No luck. Any suggestions?

Jul. 6, 2006

Everett Marshall
Regarding the Maxtor One-touch problem reported, I just returned a 500G One-touch after experiencing the same problems with a MBP and a 2.7 G5. I was able to get it to mount but only after random combinations of cycling the drives power switch, removing power from the drive, and disconnecting and reconnecting the FW cable. Then, sometimes it would mount. After a peroid of sleep, the drive would fail to show the contents of any directory and the whole mounting process would have to start over.

I did not install the One-Touch software and the most recent driver update was revised on 9/4/03.

Some investigation on Apple boards indicates that Mac users should stay away from One-Touch Maxtor drives. Not to bash Maxtor, I have had great reliabilty with Maxtor SATA drives in my G5.

Jean Sourisseau
I had problems getting my one touch to mount on a new macbook. The system profiler could see the drive; disk utility could not. Mounted fine when I plugged it into the old powerbook. When I removed the password protection it mounted flawlessly on the macbook. Turns out that the maxtor software doesn't like the intel macs.

Did you change any software settings on the Maxtor, by any chance?

 

[zombiedictator]

Is it a one-touch? If so, there are a bunch of Maxtor posts on this page...I c/ped a few.

Did you change any software settings on the Maxtor, by any chance?

It's this ugly thing, actually:

http://www.nextag.com/Maxtor-Personal-500GB-Hard-503927289/prices-html

So no, it is not a one-touch. As for software settings, nope, haven't touched a thing. The only thing I can think of I did is install some crappy zip file reader that I removed.

Keep in mind this thing was working great like, a day or 2 ago, so this isn't a systemic problem I've always had.