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Jett

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 19, 2004
12
0
Indy
just got a Seagate 160 external hard drive and am not smart enough to get it installed! Followed their online instructions to no avail. I am using Disk Utility to erase it first but it doesn't show up on the desktop like they say it should. any suggestions? or can you just tell me how to do it? thanks
 
are the jumpers set correctly? some manufacturers put a sticker right on the drives listing various jumper settings. the last 2 seagate drives i bought had a sticker. depending on your machine, you may have to play around with the jumpers until you find a setting that works. sometimes there are conflicts with existing HDs and optical drives. http://www.seagate.com will have product specs & jumper settings if you don't have them on hand, but you may need to do a search if the seagate-recommended jumper settings don't seem to work.

also: are you just erasing, or erasing and then formatting?
 
jumpers, i don't know- i didn't think externals even had jumper settings. i did go to seagate's site and couldn't even bring up the product when entering the model number for a search. not much help there

as for formatting, i don't even know where to do that at. i didn't see anything like that in disk utility. maybe you could tell me how to do that! thanks
 
You should be able to plug it in (firewire) and turn it on while your Mac is on. I'm assuming the case has its own power switch and power cable. Then, in Disk Utility, you should see a list of drives on the left. Your main internal hard drive and your firewire drive. Select your firewire drive and then the Erase tab to the right. From there you can set it up.

If you're still having problems, post some screen shots (command-shift-4, then select the Disk Utility window) so we can see what's going on.

cpjakes
 
in disk utility, when you erase a disk, you tell it to format the drive in a specific format. use HFS+.

there are jumpers on all hard drives. try searching under different names you find on the hard drive. seagate will have the setting online for you if you search hard enough.

also, make sure you have all other peripherals disconnected from your book. this will reduce any possibility of a conflict, but i doubt there is one. chances are, your drive is in slave mode, but it needs to be a master.
 
thanks all for your help
no peripherals were connected
thanks to cpjakes for the idea on screenshots, here's 4...by the way, just got off the phone to Seagate support. He tried to walk me through the process, had a different Disk Utility screen than I do on a G4, 10.2, but still could only tell me that it was either a bad drive or my OS- bottom line- we never got it installed and he suggested I take it back and try another one!! It's ging back but I doubt I'll try another.
Screen 1- no choices for hfs+
Screen 2-after erasing the drive, no follow-up choices to make
Screen 3- trying to partition the drive
Screen 4- after hitting the partition button it freezes here with no progress ever and i have to force quit to get out.

Thanks for all your help- after reading some of the threads, will probably go with an OWS unless someone has a better idea for video editing
 

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screen 2- if there's an easier way to do this I'd sure like to know
 

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Oooops - screens 3 and 4 got posted on a new thread, sorry about that.
Not too easy to tell I'm a newbie is it?
 
Yeah, this process should have been much simpler, sounds like there were some problems with it.

Sorry to hear that, generally Seagate makes good products, although I haven't heard of their external drives much. Maybe it's a new venture for them and they're having problems with it.

Keep us updated on what happens.

cpjakes
 
Originally posted by idkew
there are jumpers on all hard drives. try searching under different names you find on the hard drive. seagate will have the setting online for you if you search hard enough.

When dealing with external drives that come in an enclosure, there should be absolutely no fiddling with any jumpers. If you bought an enclosure and then added your own drive, then yes, you might need to play with the jumpers. In this case, it was already assembled and opening the case would be a bad idea, especially when the warranty is in jeopardy.
 
Thanks to everyone who responded
as it turns out I took the HD back to Best Buy, told them that I called Seagate, who said it was probably faulty, and they gave me a full refund...thanks Best Buy.
Then I went down to my local Apple store and quized them for a while to confirm what I thought anyway. Which is, if I want to do video editing from my iBook, give it up and buy a G5.
Thanks again to all - it is nice to have a place to go for answers, afterall, everyone's got an opinion...right!
 
From what's going on, it sounds like there's a problem with the drive. If you click on the part where it says, "149.05 GB", then go to the Partition Tab, then pull the menu down where it says, "Current" and select "1 Partition", pick "Mac OS Extended", name it, and partition it, it should mount the drive afterwards. If it doesn't, try ejecting it and then plugging it back in again. If that doesn't work, click on the gray drive ("Untitled 1" in your picture) then go to the Options menu and select "Mount". If it doesn't appear, eject it and try it on another machine. If it shows up, you have an OS problem. If not, dead drive. :\
 
Originally posted by Jett
Thanks to everyone who responded
as it turns out I took the HD back to Best Buy, told them that I called Seagate, who said it was probably faulty, and they gave me a full refund...thanks Best Buy.
Then I went down to my local Apple store and quized them for a while to confirm what I thought anyway. Which is, if I want to do video editing from my iBook, give it up and buy a G5.
Thanks again to all - it is nice to have a place to go for answers, afterall, everyone's got an opinion...right!

Ah, you neglected to mention Best Buy. Yeah, just return it and say it doesn't work, which is what you did. :)

Hope the G5 is nice. :)
 
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