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Toshiba HD not working on 2018 Mac Mini

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Biggerplay

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 15, 2015
9
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I've been using my old Toshiba external Hard drive ( Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB Portable External Hard Drive) for a few years with my old Mac Mini (2011) and it's worked fine. I copied a tonne of stuff to it, and plugged it into my new Mac Mini (2018) and it's nowhere to be seen, not being recognised at all.

A blue light comes on, on the toshiba, which stays on for about 60 seconds, then goes off. I've just tested it again on the old Mac mini and it shows up fine.

I've gone into preferences in the finder and made sure everything is turned on. I've used to the terminal to do diskutil list and it doesn't show up there either.

The blue light on the hard drive is a bit weird, could there be something different (wrong) about the 2 USB ports on the new Mac Mini and the toshiba is detecting that ,and that's why I'm getting a blue light? Or is it something else? Would there be any point getting a USB > USB C cable and trying that?
 
fastlanephil said:
If you can’t get your Mac mini to recognize your external drive in the terminal list then it probably won’t show up using Apple’s Disk Utility either. You could try resetting the PRAM and the SMC.

Here’s a link to a conversation that is somewhat similar to your problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/datarecovery/comments/3wxrtu/toshiba_canvio_1tb_drive_not_recognized_solid/
Click to expand...

Had a look at that thread, but in my situation the drive works completely fine when plugged into the 2011 Mac Mini, Its recognised and I can access it. When I plug it into the new Mac Mini its just a solid blue light, but the 2018 is brand new I only started using it a few days ago, so why would I need to do reset the PRAM and the SMC? (ha, which I have no idea what they are, I'll take a look).

It would seem the issue has something about plugging it into a USB3.0 port? Would some kind of adapter (USB2 > USB3) help?
 
Last edited:
BasicGreatGuy said:
I have the same model drive in 2TB connected to 2018 Mac mini via USB and it works fine for me. I just accessed the drive and the blue light is on. When the drive is not being used, there is no blue light.
Click to expand...
Ah ok, so the problem must be with the new Mac Mini, strange though why it doesn't even recognise it's plugged in. Maybe setting the SMC reset might do it.
 
You could try an USB 2 to 3 adapter. Maybe pick one at a local Best Buy where you can probably return it if you have no luck with it.
 
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BasicGreatGuy said:
Did you reformat the Toshiba drive? Try it in another computer?
Click to expand...
It works completely find on my older 2011 Mac Mini, which has a USB 2.0 port. When plugged into the USB 3.0 port on the 2018 Mac Mini, it's not recognising it.
[doublepost=1549739468][/doublepost]It's working fine now, just set things and it's all back to normal. Thanks for the help.
 
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fastlanephil said:
You could try an USB 2 to 3 adapter. Maybe pick one at a local Best Buy where you can probably return it if you have no luck with it.
Click to expand...

USB is backwards compatible. I don't think they exist... since they are pointless
 
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