Can't see the external harddrive

[johnluk]

Hi, I am new to the Mac world and that might be my problem but I am trying to add an external USB harddrive onto Mac Laptop. The problem is the system does not react at all to me plugging in the USB cable - no error messages no nothing.

I am running OS 10.3.9.
The info on the harddrive is:
HD3-U2 USB 2.0 2.5" Hard Drive
Supports Self-powered and bus-powered mode.
Fits all 2.5" slim type hard disk (9.5mm)
Support Hard Drive up to 100GB
Instant portability for 2.5" HDD
Plug and Play for any PC or Mac system
Aluminum material
Excellent heat-dissipation
Easy to install
One LED to indicate power and status
OS support: Win 98 / SE / ME / 2000 / XP and Mac 9.0 or above
Chipset: Genesys GL 811E
Samsung 2.5" 60GB 9.5mm 5400rpm 8MB Buffer 12ms Hard Drive.


What can I do to get the system to recognize the external harddrive. The harddrive is currently formatted as FAT32.

Thanks,

[sparky77]

My Mac was not able to see my external hard drive either until i partioned it into smaller bits. Think i divided my 120 gig into 4. Depending on your operating system... that might be the solution.

[johnluk]

Thanks for the reply and I should have mentioned that my 60 GB harddrive is partitioned into two just under 30 GB partitions.

[imboden]

do you have the external hdd partitioned??
is it plugged directly into the side/back of the mac, or into a hub/keyboard?
is it detected on other comps?
using incl. cable (if applicable)
does the status light indicate any errors?

[johnluk]

Yes the external Harddrive is a 60 GB harddrive that is partitioned into two 30 GB partitions.
Yes the hdd is plugged directly into the side of the laptop (tried both USB ports) with the cable that was supplied with the hdd.
I cannot see anywhere - on the desktop or via Finder that it has detected the hard drive - yet it works fine on a Windows PC. So I know the hdd is good and working.
Status light - on the hdd does come on. Not sure if you are talking about any other status lights???
Thanks for trying.

[nbr10]

Use "Disk Utility" to see if the Hard Drive shows up there. Its possible that the drive is connecting it's just not mounting.

Disk utility can be found under "application/utilities". Some of these drives use a controller chip from Prolific (sp?) which can give OSX some grief.

[johnluk]

"Disk Utility" does not recognize the hard drive.

I have tried 3 different 2.5 external drives and none of them are detected by MAC, yet Windows has no problem and even the Linux PC I tried did not have a problem detecting the external drive.

I have tried reformatting the drive on Linux - and still MAC does not detect it. But when I attach a 128 MB USB Flash drive the MAC sees it fine. Go figure.

[nbr10]

When you connect the drive to the PC look in device manager under the "IDE controller" section or the "USB" section and see if the name "prolific" shows up there. Some versions of the prolific chipset are not Mac compatable.

I have one of their external cases which has both USB 2.0 and firewire (ieee 1394) and it works fine. But the USB only enclosures did not.

[johnluk]

On DISK UTILITY I do not see any indication that it can see or knows if the external harddrive is there. How do I format it if I can't see it? The DISK UTILITY is ver 10.4.4 and says it can be used to erase, partition and repair disks. In the middle panel it says select a disk, volume or image. But on the left side, only the main hard drive is listed???

This time on the System Profile under the USB contents - it does list USB HIGH SPEED BUS, USB MASS STORAGE DEVICE.

Does the Mass storage device just need to be mounted??? and if so HOW???
Thanks,

[nbr10]

I suspect it is the controller chip in the drive enclosure. Any disk that OS X can properly identify will show up in the disk utility in the panel on the left hand side where your see your HDD currently. Even if it is not formatted or partitioned properly it should still be in that list.

My advice at this point is to exchange the enclosure (if that is still an option) for one with USB 2.0 and Firewire on board. You don't have to use the firewire but I suspect it will work correctly on you Mac.

Personally I have had nothing but bad luck with "USB only" enclosures.

[johnluk]

It looks like its point to fact the MAC is VERY pick or the controller chip in the drive enclosure or USB on the MAC??? I have tried three different 2.5 USB Hard drive enclosures and none were being recognized the MAC, yet Windows and Linux had absolutely no problems.

[nbr10]

I have had good luck with both the 5.25" and 3.5" firwire/USB versions of these

http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=004447&cid=516

I have not tried the 2.5" versions but I cant see the controller chip changing in the 2.5" version.

[Tim]

I use a bytecc 2.5 firewire 0 problems. The usb on it doesn't work on the mac, but usb blows chunks compared to firewire so I'm not shedding many tears over it. :)

just saw your post NB, yea that's the one.

[johnluk]

Well mark this one SOLVED. I figured out how to get it to work. The external drive came will a USB Cable (A-mini B) which had two ends at the PC side (a thick cable and a thinner cable). When I plugged both USB ends into the laptop it recognized the external drive and it came online. I then formatted it thru the MAC for MS-DOS (FAT32). It works like a charm now.

Thanks to all for your help...

[Tim]

wow. Never heard of plugging in two usb ends. That's a new one.

[johnluk]

I have a PowerBook G4 and I even tried it on IBOOK. It would not recognize the drive until I plugged the two USB end into the laptops... and it would only work if you did the thick cable first followed by the thin cable - go figure....

Thanks,

[Child of Cupertino]

That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard! presumably, this must be done on a PC as well? Maybe the drive draws more current than one USB bus can provide???