At some point since installing the 10.5.5 update, my Seagate Freeagent drive started putting itself to sleep after a very short timeout, even when the drive is being written to. Does anyone have an idea on what I can do to fix this? I'm using an late-model iBook G4.
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USB External drive powers off/on repeatedly
- Thread starter Objectivist-C
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What are your Energy Saver preferences? Check the Sleep options to see if the 'Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible' is checked. If yes, uncheck it to see if that solves the issue. BTW - I'm using Tiger, so Leopard's ES Prefs might be different.
Okay, I've just educated myself about the Freeagent drive, and I learn that it's USB-powered. I remember reading in another forum about lack of power to USB ports in Mac laptops; and that one of the USB ports has better power provision than the other. I wish I could be more specific. Why the update to 10.5.5 might affect USB power I cannot say.
So, all I can suggest is that you try the other USB port, and if that doesn't solve things, then try a powered USB-2 hub for your Freeagent. There's even a battery powered USB-2 hub, Cyberpower brand, ideal for portability.
Update: see if this article helps your situation:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20011024160033481
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20011024160033481
Sorry, I should have specified that I have the desktop version, it's powered via an AC adaptor. I tried switching ports anyway, no effect there.
I'll try this, but it's been happening even while data is being written to the drive (downloads, compiling, etc.).
Mac Pilot has an option to never sleep hard disks which seems to be seperate from Energy Saver. but its shareware and i have no idea on how it does this as apparently it gives settings for secret/hidden OS X features.
Tried this, it's already set to never sleep. I'm thinking it's possibly hardware failure in the disk enclosure, I'm going to try contacting Seagate.