I bought a drive powered with bus (80GB) cant use it on my powerbook g4 cause it doesnt support enough power
but if you get the power from the second usb connector the disk will mount. And run. Must be formatted in MAC friendly format or MS-DOS file system otherwise you might not be able to write to it. (Or read) There is USB cable available just for that purpose on the market I'm usig one myself, drive works no problem.

I wondered what the USB cable with 2 USB connectors at one end was for. I have one for an 2.5" drive case but have never had an issue with not having enough power. Thanks.

Hello,
I am having similar problems and have spent hours searching for answers. Thus far, I am unable to mount my external hard drive.

The specs:
G5 2 GHz PowerPC tower (1 of the earliest of G5s)
OS 10.4.3 (I had 10.4.7 but returned to 10.4.3 because my EyeTV is not compatible with 10.4.7)

NOT MOUNTING: LaCie d2 160GB HD USB 2.0 FW800 (firmware v 1.0.2) connected via USB

LaCie Porche Firewire 80 GB HD connected via firewire (this is mounting fine)

What led to failure:
1. On my Lacie d2, I changed permissions to "No Access," except for the Owner
2. Before I shut down I tried to change the permissions (just to make sure I could!) but I could not change permissions back to the original settings
3. Upon restart the LaCie d2 longer mounts.

What I've tried:
1. Restarting

2. Ran Disk Utilities and ran repairs (it does see the hard drive)
a. It say it doesn't need repairs
b. The mount button is greyed out
c. Write Status: Read/Write
d. S.M.A.R.T. Status: Not Supported
e. Repair Permissions is greyed out

3. I reinstalled my OS version 10.4.3

4. Checked for the newest driver for the LaCie d2 and installed it

5. I ran Disk Warrior it sees the HD but says it doesn't need repairs

6. Changed cables from USB to FireWire – it made no difference and I am back to using the USB as I had it before.

7. I can see the drive if I am installing something (I can also see all the documents on my drive)

8. I've been reading through the LaCie website and have not found anything helpful

9. I've been reading the posts here on MacFixIt, but still have no luck

That's my predicament...

Any ideas?

Thank you,
janellu7_dotmac

If DW can see it, you can select to Preview it, and then copy your data off, then reformat it and put your data back. DW's preview feature is very very nice.

It seems like there is not enough power that goes through the firewire to the external hard drive. Try purchasing a 12 V/ 1 A /+ DC adapter and plugging it into the firelite.
I have been having the same problem. I've tried mounting the firelite 80GB onto an iMac and MacBook pro with no luck. The only place I can mount it is on the xserve.

In all cases I've seen, a firewire-powered drive works fine with any mac. USB however is different. I have not seen any usb-powered 3.5" externals, and usually if the external drive is a 2.5" it will not work if it's 80gb or larger. (guessing the larger drives require more power) In those cases you have to attach a second USB connection to boost power to the drive. They work, but that's one more cable to carry around so I don't care for them.

Firewire should be able to provide +12 at something like 2A. USB is limited to what, 250mA or so, per connector? (anyone have specs?)

Firewire is spec'd at something like +10 - +15 and is considered somewhat unregulated. Not sure on the current but it must be high. I have never seen a problem with drive of any size overdrawing the firewire port on a computer.

As for USB, those figures you speak of I think may be for High Speed. Most of the Full Speed usb ports have a much smaller power limit, except for the ones that are in powered hubs. Not sure why like 99% of the FS usb ports in computers and laptops are all low power. Guessing wildly that the FS ports are fixed at 100mA?

This is a big issue for me because I have a 4gb flash drive. It is strictly a USB HS device, and will kick off a Low Power Warning if plugged into a FS port on most any machine. I can plug it into powered FS hubs though. It's annoying not being able to plug it into keyboards, since those are unpowered hubs. But I won't give up the 4gb of storage for a minor issue like that.

My 2GB 2.0 High-Speed flash drive draws too much power when used on a USB 1.1. machine to be used when connected to the keyboard but my 128MB flash drive works fine. USB power issues are a pain. Never had issues with FireWire, even when connecting a number of non-self powered FW devices.

I'm having the same problem as janellu7_dotmac. Did you have any success?

MacWizard, what do you mean by "you can select to Preview it". How can I do this when the disk won't mount but only shows up in Utilities and DiskWarrior?

ANY insight or help would be SOOO appreciated!