I have recently purchased an external usb hard drive and it won't mount on my Powerbook G4 . I have looked through several other places listing issues, but it does not resolve my issue. The device is powering up and indicating that it is receiving enough power (it is a bus powered device). The ports are working and my usb flash drive has no problems. The device does not show up in system profiler or disk utility. I have repaired permissions on my system and tried it from a reboot. Still no luck.

The device (Smartdisk FireLite 80GB USB portable hard drive) is intended to be used on both Windows and Mac OS X. It operates correctly in Windows.

How can I get the drive to work?

You say "it operates correctly on OS X," but that seems to contradict your problem. Please explain.

Sorry, it should have said "works in Windows." I corrected the post.

Is the drive formatted correctly? I'm no expert, but some formats work on both platforms but others will only work on one or the other.

The Firelight is sold for Mac and PC use and should work straight out of the box. Reformatting it for Mac use is a good idea just as long you don't want to use it to transfer data to/from a PC.

Run Apple's Disk Utilities and see if it is listed in the drives on the LHS of the window. If it is then click once on it to select and try the mount button at the top of the window and if that fails look at the bottom of the window for the "Mount Point". This is the Unix path that the disk should mount from. There is a blue underlined text here for the disk name. It's a hot point so click on that and the disk may mount. Also if the disk can be seen by Disk Utilities then running the verify check would be a good idea.

The drive does not show up in disk utility

It's probably faulty then, take it back for a replacement.

again, as stated in the question, the drive is not faulty it works on windows computers. I took it to another PPC mac and it didn't show up. I tried a couple of drives that a buddy uses on his windows laptop. The first one was the same situation, didn't mount, didn't show up in disk utility or system profiler. The second one didn't mount or show up in disk utility, but showed up in system profiler. A third, desktop drive, which uses external power, mounted without any issues.

If you bought it for the Mac and it does not mount then it does not work as purchased so take it back. Just because it mounts on a PC box does not matter, you can't use for the intended purpose it was sold for.

I do find this very surprising as the Firelite is meant for the Mac and to run powered from the USB port. With your tests with other Macs it seems that the drive is pulling too much power for the USB port. These ports will fold down to protect themselves if presented with too high a current draw or a short circuit in the extreme.

I once pulled a 2.5" drive from a dead G4 titanium powerbook, put it in an external case intending to use it as a portable drive for my new Ali G4. Did not work on the new PB as there was not enough power available on the USB port. The drive just chattered all the time and did not mount. Connect the same drive to my G4 tower with an add on PCI USB2 card and it works like a charm.

So, if you can, take the drive back to the shop, with your PB and show them it does not work and get it changed or a refund.

i have been using and developing for Macs since 1991. I have 4 USB2 external mini drives and they work F A N T A S T I C A L L Y when they get plugged into Pismos running 10.3.9 or 9.2.2.
I purchased a 1.6ghz Powerbook Running 10.4.7 and guess what... NON of them work. Lights came on, drive doesn't spin. I think there may be a power issue. Haven't tested using a Powered USB Hub yet... If anyone else has the problem - speak up!
the drive formatting problem is a red herring. CtrlAltEsc has it right - not ENUFF POWER.

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!

When you selet the drive to scan with DW, it will run anywhere from 3 to 45 minutes scanning the drive. If things go well it should present you with a list of changes it wants to make, and give you Preview and Replace options. If replace hangs or fails, you can instead rescan it and click Preview this time. It will pop up the original HD (if possible) AND the "proposed replacement" as well. Both are read-only. From there you can drag documents and folders off the preview disk to some other place to salvage what you need. If you use something like Disk Utility you can create a disk image based on the preview, (stored somewhere else like on another HD) and then replace the bad drive and use Disk Utility again to restore it.

Thanks to everyone that has posted to this thread.

Trying to recover data from my girlfriend's dead Pearl White I-Book, I mounted it's HD in an Ultra USB 2.0 HD enclosure. It worked fine on my PC with MacDrive, but (while trying to export Entourage data) on another (borrowed) Pearl White I-Book, the drive wouldn't mount.

I don't have a powered USB hub, but plugging the power-only USB cable into my PC and then the USB data cable into the I-book did the trick. I never would have thought of such a crazy thing with out the discussion here.

Also, I noticed that having a HD continually loose power confuses 'Disk Utilities' in OSX and it takes a while for it to recover and recognize a properly powered HD. A clean restart seems to expedite this process.

The usb ports are not rated to deliver much power, and they will safety shutdown if you try to draw too much. 100+gb laptop drives and most 3.5" HDs draw too much power, particularly when trying to get spun up, and require the additional connector. This splits the power draw more-or-less evenly between the two USB jacks, and provides your HD with double the usual allotment of power, which usually does the trick.

Firewire is rated much higher current and does not have this problem.

If the HD manufacturers wanted to, they could design their HDs not to suck so much power trying to get the platters spun up in record time, and we would not have this problem.

Thanks for your help!
I've over 100 gigs of back up on this ext. hard drive and can't afford a new one to do a back up (from the "sick" one).

I did find, for unknown reasons, I can access the ext. HD via my alternate login on the very same computer. It's a guest login for when my Niece's want to play on my computer. This saves me from having to make an expensive purchase right now.

Depending on how you have ownership set up (or to not be ignored) the different users may have different access to the drive. Though for backing up, disabling permissions on the drive may be a bad idea.

I had the same problem until I used a dual USB to single mini USB connector. The USB ports on the Mac PowerBook G4 aren't powered enough for a dual OS hard drive, however, using BOTH of the USB ports is possible and preferred, the moment you plug the dual USB's in, and plug the miniUSB to the hard drive, it mounts itself to the desktop and you're set to go.

If the hard drive you're using is full size, and has a full size USB port on it, there are tri USB cables available, too.

Image of USB to miniUSB cable:
http://file.skyok.co.kr/sky/ct/tv/skytvusb_usbcable2_h.jpg

eBay has portable hard drive cases that come with these cables, they are cheap and this is an efficient way to make everything work smooth! It's worked like a dream for me. (I use a portable 80G formatted in Fat32 for my Mac in a Sony VAIO portable hard drive case). For as little as $1.99USD, Here's a link to one of the cases on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Black-2-5-External-hard-drive-enclosure-case-USB2-0_W0QQitemZ140020213803QQihZ004QQcategoryZ86759QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Or you can go on eBay and search for:
"External hard drive enclosure/case USB2.0"

Firewire is a very convenient connector as well, if that is available to you, for you, then use it! All of these connectors are readily available.

i´ve the same problem, my external HD doesn't mount. But it mounts if i connect to the keyboard USB port!!

I got a "my book" 250gb hard drive on black friday (external USB) and it worked fine at 1st then I installed security patch and the drive wouldn't mount on my g4 agp. (I have an internal mac supported usb pci card that it's plugged into).

I would also have trouble at times mounting a hard drive I put into a gutted lacie cd firewire enclosure.

I kept playing around and found that if I hold down the option key at boot and they go to the system info the drives would mount. no matter what else I did they wouldn't show up. if I optioned and system info they show up.

I think there should be a command to tell the mac to check the firewire and usb busses for drives but there is not. sounds like a system bug.

I'm having sort of the same problem. I plug in the firelite, it lights up, disk spins, if I run a search it shows up as an option to search, if I'm in a program it's in option to open a file on it (but I get an error) and when I un-plug it I get the "improper removal of device". So basically it acts like it's working but can't access it from my Finder window. This drive has been working great for almost 2yrs but now I don't know what happened.

I had exactly the same problem as you describe. My missing disks showed up when I used another startup disk and logged on. When I switched back they were gone again. I ended up, after many frustrating hours, hooking my disk up to a different Mac where it mounted. I then reviewed the ownership and permissions and changed all the permissions to read and write, clicked ignore permissions and then ejected the disk. When I hooked it back up to my original machine it appeared on the desktop!

I had the same problem - running a LACIE USB hard drive for a year without problems and then suddenly one day it wouldn't mount. I tried matthew_white's solution of keeping the Command key pushed down when booting up and voila, my drive mounted. I have no idea how it happened, but try it - it really works.

I recently upgraded fromMacOS 9.1 to 10.4.8 and I have an external Hard Drive that I transferred everything from prior to installing the upgrade. My external Hard Drive worked fine prior to the fresh install, but now I get three messages, "Initialize, Ignore, Eject." Every graphic design file I have created in the last 4-5 years is on that hard drive. The external hard drive shows up as a device, but I cannot get any information from it. It does not show upon my desktop either. Please help!! Thanks!

Try File Salvage.

What diagnosis does Disk Utility give for the external drive?

"Disk Aid Failed" when I try to run Verify Disk. I get these facts:
Verifying volume “disk6s1”
** /dev/disk6s1
Invalid BS_jmpBoot in boot block: 000000
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 non HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

"First Aid Failed" when i try to Repair Disk. I get these facts:
Verify and Repair disk “disk6s1”
** /dev/disk6s1
Invalid BS_jmpBoot in boot block: 000000
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 non HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error

Here is the information from the bottom of the screen:
Disk Description : DMI Total Capacity : 57.3 GB (61,492,838,400 Bytes)
Connection Bus : FireWire Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Connection ID : 1752792595294242 Partition Scheme : Master Boot Record

Thanks!

Rodney

I have not seen this error before, and it cannot be the only error on the disk, because bootblocks are required only for booting.

Try searching for this expression (keep the quotation marks) at Google, in these forums, and the Apple Discussion Forums:

"Invalid BS_jmpBoot in boot block: 000000"