MS-DOS HDD not appearing on new rMBP

[Joe91]

Hey all,

So I have a Western Digital portable hard drive formatted to MS-DOS which always worked (and still does) on my 2008 MacBook.

Unfortunately it never appears/mounts on my new Retina MBP though. The hard drive obviously has power as I can feel it spinning, but it isn't visible. Checked Disk Utility and it didn't appear there either.

Any suggestions?

Scratching my head on this one!

 

[jafingi]

ML can easily read/write FAT.

Do you remember to always eject the disk before disconnecting the USB cable?

Sometimes when it is disconnected without being ejected, OSX cannot read it.

 

[Joe91]

The disk has never worked in the new laptop, in my old one I eject it yeah. The old MacBook is still running OS 10.7.5, not that it matters I suppose.

 

[maflynn]

Are you plugging it directly into the laptop or a hub? Could it be that the USB that you have it in is not powering it enough.

I have a drive that if I plugged it into one of my usbs on my hub, it would spin up and I could hear it moving but the symptoms are as you mentioned. It wasn't until I plugged it directly into the laptop.

My recommendation is to try a different usb port.

 

[justperry]

The disk has never worked in the new laptop, in my old one I eject it yeah. The old MacBook is still running OS 10.7.5, not that it matters I suppose.

Enable debug Menu in Disk Utility, then in the debug menu choose List all disks, see if it shows up.

Also, open System Information, locate USB and see if it shows up there.

What Maflynn said but use a Y USB cord.

 

[Joe91]

Cheers.

I've tried both USB ports (is plugging directly into the laptop), restarting the laptop too - no joy unfortunately!

----------

Enable debug Menu in Disk Utility, then in the debug menu choose List all disks, see if it shows up.

Also, open System Information, locate USB and see if it shows up there.

What Maflynn said but use a Y USB cord.

Didn't even think of that! Tried another Micro B USB 3.0 cable and it works a charm. Interesting.

The Debug Menu is a cool trick too, thanks for that.

Appreciate the help all!