New Western Digital Caviar Not Showing/Working

[Feverish Flux]

Hi all -

I just purchased this drive, popped it in the lower slot of my PowerMac G5 Quad, and it doesn't even show up in Disk Utility.

Every other Seagate drive I've ever purchased just plugs in and works - any idea what I might be doing wrong before I return it?

 

[velocityg4]

Did you replace an existing drive or add to an bay and SATA port? If added to an empty port I would first test the drive on a known working SATA port on the motherboard to see if it is the motherboard or the drive. Other things to check would be that all cables are securely connected and to try a different SATA cable to see if the existing one is damaged.

If everything I suggested checks out and the drive will not show in disk utility or system profiler then you may very well have received a bum unit.

 

[Feverish Flux]

No, the bay and SATA/Power cables work, because when I plug in the old Seagate drive that was in previously, it works perfectly.

I've always assumed you just plug in an SATA drive an it works or at least shows for formatting in Disk Utility. This one doesn't.

 

[velocityg4]

Does it even spin up when the computer is turned on?

As far as SATA goes with any PC I have built and any Mac I have put one in, the SATA drives are recognized by the computers formatting utility, though they still need formatting before mounting. The drives that need some fiddling with are IDE and SCSI drives not SATA. Sounds like you may have gotten a bum unit.

Unless you have another computer with SATA to test it in I would consider returning it.