Bus powered external hard drives and the Powerbook G4 17 inch

Does anyone have a suggestion for a bus powered external hard drive that will work with the Powerbook 17 inch? I had purchased a Simpletech Simpledrive portable USB 100GB bus powered drive and it will not work with my 17 inch. It works with my 15 inch titanium and a G5 but not the 17 inch. Simpletech told me that it isn't getting enough power from the USB ports (I even tried using the adapter to plug it into both ports at the same time).
I am going to return the drive and probably buy a Firewire one instead since you can boot from Firewire but I am wondering if I will have the same problem with Firewire on the 17 inch and HAVE to use an AC adapter.
PowerBook G4 17 inch Mac OS X (10.4.1)

This also happens on the PB 15". It is perceived as a problem. If you check via the System Profiler you will likely see that the USB port output is 500mA. Most drives - in a USB or FW case - need 1A to boot. There are some drives that will boot with 500mA. If a 500mA drive is installed in the USB case it should boot off the bus power. If using a ext HD you can only boot the computer from the FW port and not the USB or PCMCIA slot.
The FW port will power the ext HD. I do not recommend daisy chaining unless you use a powered FW hub. I blew 4 FW ports and had to replace the logic board 4 times but Apple Care paid for all the work. The newer FW ports are more robust but it is still a chance if you try to draw too much power.
MJ

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Bus Powered External Hard Drive?

Can anyone recommend a good bus-powered External Hard Drive that I can use with my iMac? I really like Western Digital's MyBooks, but they require mains power and come with a big power brick, which is pretty messy. I want a hard drive that gets it's power through either USB 2.0 or Firewire. And I'd like something that has at least 250GB of storage. Any suggestions?

I bought a bus powered OWC laptop drive (100GB 720RPM) for around 170 dollars. But, that was for my laptop, as it's much easier to have a bus powered laptop drive then needing to plug it in to use it. This way I can sit somewhere, not near a power outlet, and be able to use the drive.
As mentioned in an earlier post, 3.5 Hard Drives require to much power in order to be bus powered.
You could buy a 200GB hard drive, bus powered, 4200RPM, and is a laptop drive for your iMac, but that's not the best way to go. First, the drive is going to be very expensive. You could get a 320GB 3.5 In HD for way cheaper. Second, it's going to be noticibly slower.
When I get externals, I buy the drive, and pitch in 50 bucks or so for an external enclosure. It's the CompUSA brand and they work quite well. They are not bus powered, but the Power Brick is limited in size and is relitively small. It's cheaper this way. This can be a challenge to someone who isn't really 'computer-talented.'
I'd go FireWire....It's much faster and won't slow you down while you're trying to access your files and do your work.
OWC if you really want that bus powered laptop drive.
NewEgg if you want to shop for drives, and get them cheaper. Not to mention their fast shipping.
Give it some thought.
-benny

I cannot get my iTunes library from my old computer to my new one. The old computer is so messed up that I cannot even get google to open. I tried to copy to an external hard drive and the music was there until I went to upload to the new computer.

I cannot get my iTunes library/music from my old computer to my new one. The old computer is so messed up that I cannot even open a browser.I tried to copy to an external hard drive and the music was there until I went to upload to the new computer. I disconnected my old computer so I will have to reconnect it I am sure. thank you for any help. Last time I transferred I used a product I purchased. That was a long time ago.

First of all make sure that you've definitely backed up the movies to your external hard disc.
In iMovie click on any event you don't want, go to the file menu and select 'move event to trash'. Then do the same for any unwanted projects - 'move project to trash'. Quit out of iMovie and empty the trash.
Hope that helps!

I just bought a mac mini over the weekend. I saved items from my old G4 to an external hard drive. I go to plug in the external hard drive and the new computer is not recognizing it. Help.

I just bought a mac mini over the weekend. I saved items from my old G4 to an external hard drive. I go to plug in the external hard drive and the new computer is not recognizing it. Help.
Here is the information I have. The external hard drive is a 120GB Acomdata. It has both USB and Firewire. When I go to plug in to the mac mini through USB, it is not being recognized. When I switch to Firewire on the old computer I can see it, however when I go to USB it is not being recognized (even on the old computer).
I'm at a loss as to what to do. Any advice would be helpful.

Shalese wrote:
Have you ever tried the FW 400 to 800 adapter?
I have used them on multiple occasions and they work just fine.
Try this (maybe you already have):
-Boot Mini with drive disconnected.
-Do not connect drive but turn it on
-wait a few seconds for drive to spin up
-plug cable into the Mini then into drive.
This is an old drive and may have some timing
issues.
I had an Acomdata drive a long time ago. It
worked fine with FW but USB was flakey.

How much external memory is necessary for a IMac desktop that has 4GB? I have a 500gb external hard drive and the computer is saying it is full.

My Imac has been recalled by Apple to replace the Seagte 1TB hard drive. I was told to back up my computer and I have a 500gb external hard drive. The computers memory is 4gb. why is my 500 gb external hard drive not enough space?

Your backup drive has half the capacity of the internal drive. Depending on how much of the iMac's drive is full, the external drive may or may not be sufficient.
It is like trying to pour the contents of a gallon milk carton into a half gallon pitcher. You may be able to pour the entire contents into the pitcher - but not if the milk carton is more than half full.

What's the largest capacity bus-powered external hard drive?

I realize that this isn't a Mac specific question, but I'd really like a recommendation. What's the largest capacity bus-powered (preferably USB) external hard drive available. My new MBP has a 500GB drive so I would need something with probably 640GB or bigger. Problem is I can't find anything over 500GB that's bus-powered. Everything I've found requires an external power supply which is what I'm trying to avoid. If anyone has a recommendation, please share it.

Have a search on the web for USA retailers who supply empty enclosures and drives separately. The enclosure is the physical case and the bits of circuitry and the physical ports. Tell them what you want and ask him what drives and enclosures he has to suit your purpose and if he can fit the two together for you. I have such a supplier but am in UK.
Does it have to be a USB bus? Firewire is better and gives more power. One way I power a 360GB pocket drive is to feed from TWO USB ports on the computer into one input port on the drive(now in the enclosure) you should be able to buy a sort of "Y" shaped cable with two full size flat USB connectors at one end and one single connector at the drive end. The drive end often will be a mini usb port. What you want will depend upon the size of the input into the drive.

How do you restore your playlists on iTunes after moving data to external hard drive and the playlists are deleted?

after moving everything to an external hard drive, is there a way to restore the playlists you've already created if they're not there anymore?

If you moved the iTunes folder to your external drive, you moved the iTunes library file - iTunes Library.itl, which is in that folder.
You need to tell iTunes where it is, start iTunes with the shift key held down and iTunes should ask you to choose a library.

Time Machine, External Hard drive, and the Windows Partition

Is it possible for me to back up my mac with Time machine, and also back up my windows partition on the same HD? I just got the External HD today, so I'm very new at this. Thanks for your help.

Time machine does not work with windows drives.
however the way I have backed up my bootcamp partition is to use diskutility to make a dmg of the windows partition. I then only make regular backups of my user account on the windows partition.
You could partition the new external drive and make 1 partition hfs+ and the other fat32. Then when booted into windows it will see the fat32 partition on the external drive. Then you can carry out backups from within windows to that partition.
Timemachine will backup your mac partition with no problems.

I copied my iPhoto library to an external hard drive and all the event windows are black. Once you click on a square the photos are still there. How do I fix that?

I copied my iPhoto library to an external hard drive and the event windows show up black.
The photos are still there once I click on an event but they don't show in the window.
My next step is to delete the iPhoto library from the internal memory to free some memmory space but I don't want to do this until I see that the library works fine on the external hard drive.
How do I fix that?

Hold down the "option" + "command" keys and launch iPhoto.
Select the "Rebuild Thumbnails" choice.

Can i make (for example) 3 partitions on my external Hard Drive, and make different formatations for each, so i can share files of one of them in a pc and mac?

Hello ...
My name is Rui, i'm from Portugal ... (so please be patiente with my english, it can get a bit confusing)
so... first of all ... i have to say ... i'm still a pc user ... i don't have a Mac ... yet ... they are sold out right now in the shops near me ... i am waitting for them to arrive so i can pick up mine ... (i wish in a couple of days i will be entering the Mac world ....) ... i'll be picking the "entery" iMac model, the 21,5'', i5 with 500gb hard disk ... well .. i know it's the cheapest one (i hope it is a good machine tho) ... but it's my entering Mac world too (my only apple products till know were the ipod ...) ... one of my concerns are being the 500gb hard drive ... that for my pc experience is a little bit short ... that makes me a little scared (but paying 300e for the next model to have a 1tb disk, it's not a good option for me right now) ...
so..
I've been reading a lot about iMac's ans OS X so i can get familiar with this all new world ...
and i couldn't get any answer for some of my doubts... so i decided to ask you Mac Users ..
My idea is to have an external HD to store files (and not to fill the 500gb of the iMac) ... and i am wondering if it would be possible to make this ...
- make three partitions on the external Hard Drive and
- the first be formatted in Mac OS extended (journaled) mode
- the second on fat 32 - so i can store and share files with a mac or pc
- third be reserved for Time Machine
i wonder would that be possible... or would make sort of incompabilities ... would it work all well ?
hummm ...
I hope someone can help me with this ...
... if it is a silly question ... sorry ... but please remember, i've never had a Mac computer (i'm waiting for my 1st iMac to be available on store) ... so a lot of things are "flying" in my head right now ...
... and of course .. sorry for my english ... i hope you all understood me ...
thanks (obrigado) a lot for your patience...
Rui from Portugal

Hi! Dwagner, once again ...
I've just got my Mac last friday ... i'm still getting amazed with this new world to me ... eehe .. quite different ... but
... "i can do it, i can do it" eheeh
i'm in that period that a new question appears at almost every mouse click ... lol
so ... can you help me (once again) ..
you said you had your hard drive with this settings...
"You can partition for OSX (extended Journal) - read/write by only OSX or read only by Windows via BootCamp
You can partition for Windows (NTFS) - readable by only Windows
OR - you can format with ex-FAT and this is read/write capable for both operating systems."
how did you formated the partition in NTFS ? ... on the mac? using the "disk utility" ? or did you use another program to do so ...?
i hope i'm not "bugging" you ... this might be a silly question for most of people ... but right now ... it's a major question for me ... ehehe
once again Obrigado (Thank You)
Rui from Portugal

Moving Content to External Hard Drive and Using New Computers

Before doing this, I want to make sure I know how to do all of it:
We are going to buy two new laptops, and retire the old one. I want to move all of my iTunes content from the old laptop to an external hard drive attached to an Airport Extreme. I then want to be able to share the content between the two computers. I know how to do this, and plan to move the library data base files to the external hard drive, as well.
However, I also want to be able to continue synching all of the content to the Apple TV. To what should the Apple TV be synched after the content is moved to the external hard-drive and the old computer is replaced by two new computers? How is that done under the circumstances? And, in the meantime, will the Apple TV lose all of its content and need to be re-synched entirely from scratch, or will it continue recognizing the current iTunes library as moved to the external hard drive?
Thanks!

This is an option, although as a note of caution; depending on how regularly you modify your library this could become a little bit of a chore. The option is likely a good one in many cases but not all.
In my own case I considered using an old mac as my media server in the sense mentioned by tmartine. (I do a bit of experimental stuff and need to restart my mac quite often, I also have 5 Apple tv's and a library which is too large to do anything but stream, my family don't take too kindly to my frequent restarts and I find myself waiting until the early hours).
However I also modify my itunes library on a daily basis, I buy quite a bit of stuff and also add my own movies regularly, as well as make several recordings a day through my eyetv, all this new content would need to be manually added to my (server) library (and deleted manually), I felt this would be too many extra things for me to do and so my personal preference is to have my itunes library on my main computer as the primary library.

Music stored on external hard drive and iPod no longer displayed in iTunes

I have all of my music stored on a portable external hard drive. For some reason, when I last booted up my computer the drive name from the external hard drive changed from F:\ to G:\. Unfortunately the source for all the music was linked to the F:. Now the iTunes doesn't know where the music is. I have tried to consolidate the library, but it didn't work. And now nothing is showing up in my iTunes. But all of my music is still stored on the external hard drive and the iPod. Any suggestions?

Close itunes, go into windows disk mgmt and set the drive letter back to F:
When you re-open itunes it should be back to normal.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

Itunes: Intertwining external hard drive and PC hard drive?

I just moved my iTunes library from my old computer to my new one. But there's a problem. I want to have my computer rely on its own hard drive for the storage of my iTunes, but it currently relies on my external hard drive. I would also like to have new songs simultaneously downloaded on the external hard drive and the PC's hard drive, when the external hard drive is plugged in. When its not plugged in and I have new content downloaded to iTunes, it would store it on the PC's hard drive, and later when the external hard drive is replugged in, it will download new content onto it as an automatic update. Is there anyway I can successfully do this? Any help is appreciated.
'Keep iTunes media folder organized' and 'copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library' are enabled. I have been trying to enable 'consolidate files', but it will not stay enabled and it will not do anything when enabled. Again, any help is appreciated. Thank you.

To move your library to the internal hard drive, copy the whole library folder structure (which includes the iTunes database - the iTunes Library.itl file - as well as your media). If you currently have the database on the internal drive and only your media on the external one, see turingtest2's tip on Make a split library portable for the procedure that will bring everything together under one location.
There is nothing in iTunes that supports the "Intertwining" of two drives that you describe. The best approach is to use the internal drive as your "master" drive and regularly synchronize with the external one - many find Microsoft's SyncToy tool an effective method for this.
"Consolidate files" is not a setting - it is a one-off operation that will copy any media files that are currently outside the standard iTunes folder structure into that structure; again see turingtest2's notes referenced above for the scenarios where you may need to do this in order to create a well-formed, manageable library structure.

External Hard Drive and Time Machine questions

Hello, I am new here to the forums and I have looked all over for the answers to two questions that I have regarding external hard drives and the time machine feature.
For some background, I recently had a scare (water spill but luckily I had a keyboard cover on and the entire spill landed on the cover) with my Mid-2012 13" Macbook Pro (2.5Ghz) and due to almost losing all my data I've decided to invest in an external hard drive. However, rather than just purchasing a 500GB HDD to use as an external hard drive, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and upgrade my Macbook Pro as well by investing in the 480GB OCW Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. I'll be using the SSD as my internal drive so the original hard drive that came with my Macbook will serve as my backup external drive. Lastly, I plan to use the external drive solely for the purpose of backing up my MacBook in case something ever happens to my Macbook.
I am using this guide to help me with this whole process: http://circuitremix.com/?q=content/macbook-pro-solid-state-drive-upgrade-guide-a nd-performance-testing.
My two questions are:
1) When following the guide, it never mentions anything about the Partition Map Scheme. After being alerted to this and doing some additional research, is it better to go with the GUID Partition Table rather than the Master Boot Record?
2) After I have cloned everything onto my new SSD and replaced the HDD in my MacBook with it, should I erase everything on my HDD before setting it up with time machine? I was thinking about keeping the original data on the original hard drive (which would now be my external drive) just in case something goes wrong with time machine but I have read that people recommend solely dedicating the entire external hard drive for time machine backups.
Thanks in advance!

Format the new SSD in Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and that will solve question No. 1.
After formatting, clone the new SSD using Disk Utility>Restore or Carbon Copy Cloner (down load from the Internet). Test the new SSD and if it performs as expected, do the physical swap.
Question No. 2. Erase the Time Machine HDD using Disk Utility and then install Time Machine. See this excellent website regarding Time Machine.
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
If you want an external boot HHD, get another one and use Carbon Copy Cloner. This will give you redundancy in backups as well which is a good strategy. CCC also can update the contents in an incremental manner similar to Time Machine.
Ciao.

Could I use a USB hub to connection both a printer and an external hard drive to the time capsule?

I am planning on purchasing a new router. The Time Capsule looks amazing. However, I have Macs and PC's in my how. So, I need to know if I can connect a printer (for all computers) and external hard drive (for the PC's) by way of a USB hub on the Time Capsule. I've read that you can do this with the Air-Extreme.

Couple of comments:
You will need to use a powered USB hub to connect multiple devices to the USB port on the Time Capsule
The hard drive for use with the PCs will not be compatible for use with the Time Capsule if it is currently formatted for Windows NTFS, which it likely may be if you have been using with the PCs.
Same info applies to the AirPort Extreme.
The following hard drive formats would be supported:
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
MS DOS FAT32

Bus powered external hard drives and the Powerbook G4 17 inch

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