Problems with external USB HD

[livingfortoday]

I recently switched from PC to Mac, and I had my old 200GB drive sitting around. I formatted it to NTFS and stuck it into a USB 2.0 external enclosure, but my PowerBook won't recognize the drive at all. I've tried two different drives, and nothing. The unit powers up, and I've tried USB cables I know work with it, but still nothing.

Am I forgetting something? Do I need to reformat the drive as FAT32 or something for the Mac to see it? The case came with drivers, but only USB 1.1 Mac drivers for Sys 9, and I'm on X, so it's not much of a help.

Any advice?

 

[cluthz]

I recently switched from PC to Mac, and I had my old 200GB drive sitting around. I formatted it to NTFS and stuck it into a USB 2.0 external enclosure, but my PowerBook won't recognize the drive at all. I've tried two different drives, and nothing. The unit powers up, and I've tried USB cables I know work with it, but still nothing.

Am I forgetting something? Do I need to reformat the drive as FAT32 or something for the Mac to see it? The case came with drivers, but only USB 1.1 Mac drivers for Sys 9, and I'm on X, so it's not much of a help.

Any advice?

What version of OSX?

OSX reads NTFS, but can't write to it. OSX both reads and writes FAT32.

Can you see the drive in Disk Utils? or in Apple System Profiler?

 

[mklos]

It may or may not mount on the desktop. You may have to go into Disk Utility (yourHD/Applications/Utlities/Disk Utility) and mount it manually. Like the person above me said, OS X cannot write to a NTFS drive. If you don't use the PC anymore, then I'd take all the important stuff off it and reformat it for HFS+, which is the file system OS X uses.

The file system doesn't matter whether or not it operates using USB 2.0 or USB 1.1. If its a USB 2.0 drive then it should operate at USB 2.0 speeds if your Mac has USB 2.0. You shouldn't have to install any drivers for it to work. Macs don't need drivers for things like this.

 

[livingfortoday]

What version of OSX?

OSX reads NTFS, but can't write to it. OSX both reads and writes FAT32.

Can you see the drive in Disk Utils? or in Apple System Profiler?

I'm running OS X 10.3.6, and I can't see the drive in anything. Not Sys Profiler, not Disk Utilities, not anything. I'm at a complete loss as to why this is happening. I'd reformat it on the PC, but I know that even if the Mac didn't recognize the drive type (which it should), it would at least see it and ask me to reformat it.

The PC can see the drive as an external one, just not the Mac.

 

[cluthz]

I'm running OS X 10.3.6, and I can't see the drive in anything. Not Sys Profiler, not Disk Utilities, not anything. I'm at a complete loss as to why this is happening. I'd reformat it on the PC, but I know that even if the Mac didn't recognize the drive type (which it should), it would at least see it and ask me to reformat it.

The PC can see the drive as an external one, just not the Mac.

Sound strange. Even with a non-readable format the macs would find it in DiskUtil and ASP.

What brand is it? Maybe it contains a odd chipset. Is it labeled "USB Mass-Storage Class"?

 

[livingfortoday]

Sound strange. Even with a non-readable format the macs would find it in DiskUtil and ASP.

What brand is it? Maybe it contains a odd chipset. Is it labeled "USB Mass-Storage Class"?

The HD is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 200 GB drive.

 

[cluthz]

The HD is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 200 GB drive.

The DiamondMax9 is an internal drive. Have you built the drive with an external casing and the DaimondMax9 or is it a Maxtor OneTouch (or similar..)

 

[livingfortoday]

The DiamondMax9 is an internal drive. Have you built the drive with an external casing and the DaimondMax9 or is it a Maxtor OneTouch (or similar..)

Yeah, it's an internal drive, but I put it into an external USB enclosure in the hopes that I could use it as an external drive on my PowerBook, but so far, no luck. I've tried setting the jumpers to every possible setting, nothing seems to make the Mac recognize it.

 

[livingfortoday]

Oh, also, System Profiler can see the case when I set the drive to slave mode, but only under the "USB" option, and it says "USB to IDE" and gives no other info about what's plugged in. I can't see the drive itself or anything.

 

[livingfortoday]

Ok, thanks for everyone's help, but the problem has apparently sorted itself out...

...and by that, I mean that both USB ports that I tried plugging the drive into no longer work. So I guess this isn't an issue anymore, as much as saving my USB ports is an issue.

 

[nifty_nigel10]

av you looked to see if disk utility picks it up?

 

[Makosuke]

Ok, thanks for everyone's help, but the problem has apparently sorted itself out...

...and by that, I mean that both USB ports that I tried plugging the drive into no longer work. So I guess this isn't an issue anymore, as much as saving my USB ports is an issue.

That would certainly explain the behavior you were seeing, but I have never once heard of a blown USB port, so it sure sounds like there's something seriously wrong with either your case or the cable you were using. Although, I can't figure out why System Profiler would see the case... if the ports were dead, it should've seen nothing, so is it possible you've got something installed that is interfering with them? Just a guess that'd be a lot easier to fix than broken hardware.

There have been problems on occasion with blown or flakey FireWire ports, so here is a bit of advice that has worked for a handful of people:

Try resetting all the low-level hardware on your Mac. That means first zapping the PRAM (hold down Command-Option-P-R when you first turn the computer on, and keep holding them till it chimes three times), then boot into Open Firmware (Command-Option-O-F at start), and type "reset-nvram" then "reset-all" into the white command line screen you will see.

If that doesn't work, the one other thing you can try is this: Shut down the computer, unplug everything (including power), take out the battery, push the power button once to bleed down any capacitors, then let it sit like that for a few hours.

If it doesn't work after you put it back to gether, you've got some toasty ports. Sad.