Errors on external USB drive

I'm trying to track down the cause of failed backups to a brand-new 300Gb Seagate drive in a external USB <-> SATA enclosure.
I observe these errors in Retrospects verification phase.
These errors could
- be 10.4.6 not playing well with external USB drives - that the new drive is essentially DOA
- that the enclosure is a dud.
- reflect an inability on Retrospect's part (e.g. unable to work properly with USB drives on 10.4.6)
I've asked on the EMC Retrospect forum for their take on this, buts that's a very slow forum...
Any pointers are welcome. I strongly prefer not to have to buy commercial solutions; after all, the "fix" may be to ask the supplier to take his drive back and refund me and I wouldn't want to spend if that's the case. Command-line solutions are fine.
The data can be correctly backed up to another external drive (via Firewire) so its not the source data. Its not the specific USB port: tried other ports, etc. At one point there were some errors reported by Disk Utility, but I've repaired these and it now claims all is well.
Dual G5/2Ghz/4GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) ExternalUSB enclosure; 300Gb Seagate SATA drive

I see my question is so popular, I'm left composing a soliloquy... :-/
Anyway, an upgrade to OS X 10.4.7 (from 10.4.6) seems to have put this right, after a lot of different testing exercises and reading. At least for the first time in many attempts I've been able to run a sizeable backup using Retrospect without the verification pass yielding hundreds of errors.
It would seem, at least for Retropsect users, that OS X 10.4.6 needs to be avoided if you intend backing up to an external USB drive--?
Dual G5/2.0Ghz/4GB RAM

Similar Messages

Single-user mode: How to mount and access an external USB drive?

My MacBook Pro HD is acting up. Cannot boot normally or into "safe mode". Cannot reinstall OS without wiping out the HD. Need to recover some critical files but DiskUtil First Aid and Restore options cannot successfully complete. Problem traced down to "invalid node structure" which means I either have a hardware problem or my filesystem partition directory structure is corrupted. I need to recover some files that are not backed up (timin issue with my regular backup process).
I can boot into single-user mode, mount the root file system (/sbin/mount -uw /) and can see/navigate the rot filesystem structure via good UNIX command line. Here's what I would like to do (in single-user mode):
1. Mount an external USB drive (250 GB already formatted as Mac OS X Extended)
2. Copy various files and/or directories from my HD to the external USB drive (UNIX cp command)
I realize I could go spend $$ for the Disk Warrior or Data Rescue products (or something similar) that SHOULD help me recover my HD or files, but it seems silly to do this when I can see, touch and taste them from within single-user mode....
Comments? Suggestions?
TIA --
Trent
P.S. Once I've recovered my files, I'll try to reformat the HD and then reinstall the OS. And THEN go have Apple look at my machine (thank goodness for AppleCare coverage)!

Resolution:
1) Boot system in single-user mode (SUM) with external HD attached.
2) Execute the following UNIX CLI commands once SUM boot process is completed:
# fsck -fy
# mount -uw /
# mkdir /Volumes/target_directory
# mount -t hfs -w /dev/diskXXX /Volumes/target_directory
# cp -RXv /source_directory /Volumes/target_directory
Where XXX is the device-level name for your external HD's data partition. In my case this was /dev/disk1s2. It may take some experimentation to identify this device name if your system has multiple HD's.
3) Verify contents were successfully copied onto the /Volumes/target_directory.
Comments and observations:
- Do NOT use "/" as your source directory - cp will make a second (redundant) copy of /volumes/target_directory
- I was able to successfully copy ALL files off my HD despite the fsck command's "invalid node structure" error message with this simple procedure. YMMV, depending on the state of your HD.
- The repeated disk0s2: I/O error warnings displayed during the SUM boot process did not seem to have a negative effect on this procedure. I also received this same error warning intermittently as I navigated the mounted filesystem did not seem to be a problem, either. Again, YMMV.
Commercial software:
I downloaded ProSoft Engineering's Data Rescue 3 product (trial version) before spending $99 to attempt to recover my "bad" HD's data via mounting to a good system with FW target mode. It could not successfully complete its "QuickScan" process and immediately hung on block 0 of 390M during its "Deep Scan" process. The product did seem to function properly on an operational system. ProSoft's technical support was responsive and helpful but had no answer for my "Deep Scan" error.
I did not attempt to use Alsoft's Disk Warrior 4 product. I could not find any trial software available and was reluctant to spend $100 based upon the mixed reviews and comments on this discussion forum as well as other reviews. Alsoft does claim to address the "invalid node structure" error in their marketing materials. Hindsight being 20/20 - I saved $100 by using this simple procedure.
Final note:
Neither Leopard nor Snow Leopard's installation DVD could recognize the bad internal HD when trying to do a reinstall. While DiskUtil was able to "see" the bad internal drive it immediately failed when I tried to do an "erase and format". Took the system to my local Apple store and the Genius ran a tool called "SMART Utility" from Volitans Software (www.volitans-software.com). SMART utility confirmed that my HD was bad so it was replaced. AppleCare pays for itself (once again!).

I have a first generation apple tv synced to a itunes library on an external USB drive. Movies and Music Won't Play

Here's my setup. First Generation Apple TV. G4 Powermac running OS X 10.5.8 iTunes 10 with the Library stored on an External 3 Terabyte USB 2 drive. It's plugged into a PCI USB 2 card. Everything worked fine till I transferred my iTunes library to the external USB drive. Things seem to sync up fine. I have it set to copy TV shows to the Apple TV's internal drive and that seems to work but when I try to play music or movies that are streaming from the library, I get an error. With movies I get the "The selected video cannot be played. The format was not recognized." error. The movie and music list seems up to date but now it won't play. Did I waste my money on this external drive? How do I get this setup to work?

I don't think this will be a complete answer to your question, but may point you in the right direction.
I have a similar setup (same OS X and iTunes versions), but my library is on a network attached 2TB harddrive (vs a USB 2 drive). Mine works fine, both syncing (which you don't have a problem with) and streaming. It's possible that iTunes doesn't like the USB 2 drive, but I don't know. Are you able to watch TV shows on your PowerMac after having moved the files to the USB drive? If you can watch content on your laptop but not on your AppleTV, it suggests the Apple TV doesn't like the USB drive.
Perhaps you didn't transfer iTunes library content correctly. (Forgive me if I'm telling you things you already know.) The iTunes library consists of a list of content and it's location (local harddrive, network drive, etc.). If you simply moved the files, but didn't actually update the library with the new locations, this can explain why you can't stream the content. The Apple TV displays what is in the library, but cannot play it if the library entry is pointing to the wrong location. Note: This "library update" I'm referring to is not the same as simply changing the iTunes media folder location in iTunes > Preferences > Advanced.
When I moved my content to an external drive, I had to delete everything in my iTunes Library, then re-import everything (File > Add to library). Don't let the phrase "delete everything in my iTunes library" freak you out. Deleting entries in the library is not the same as deleting the files (which you definitely do NOT want to do).
If you select an item in your iTunes library and press the Delete button, it asks for confirmation thus:
Are you sure you want to delete the selected TV show from your iTunes library?
It's OK to answer "Delete TV Show". It will then ask you if you want to delete the file. Do NOT delete the file. You can select your entire library and delete everything at once, just make sure you do NOT delete the files when it asks. When that is done, make sure the iTunes Media Folder Location is set to where you want and that the files are there. Then, go to File, Add to Library and re-import everything. It will take several minutes to more than an hour, depending on the speed of your computer and the size of your library.
I have had to do this everytime I've moved my library to different storage devices. If there is a simpler way, I am not aware of it.
I hope this helps.

EXTERNAL USB Drive will not open with Snow Leopard

External USB drive will open with SL. The drive icon appears on the desktop. When I click on it, Error message, "The alias USB Drive can't be opened because the original item can't be found." When I click on "Fix Alias", a window pops up and shows the usb drive in a list but does not respond when I click on it. I then tried disk utility and tested the disk and it tested OK. The drive still will not open. This problem started after I installed Snow Leopard. Need Help.
Message was edited by: PHAT ROB

The same error is produced when I try to mount a smb share.
I select the "connect to server" (cmd-K). Input the share info "smb://<user>@<server>/<share_path>
At the auth prompt, I input my credentials.
The error pops up, same as original poster.

External USB drive goes to sleep, iPhoto complains when it try's to access it and exits

I moved my iPhoto to an external USB Harddrive and everything at first worked fine. Now I get these errors sometimes "Your iPhoto Library is missing". iPhoto will exit and when you start it again everything is fine. What I think is happening is the external USB drive has gone to sleep due to inactivity. Is there a setting in OS X that I can control this with ? I ugly hack would be to set up a cron job to do a ls of the root external USB drive every 15min. Is there a special feature that you should look for when buying an external USB drive ? It is very iratating to get these messages from iPhoto and iTunes.
Thanks

Check your System/Energy Saver preference pane and and make sure this checkbox is unchecked.
OT

FSCK and reboot issues with external USB drive

I'm having an issue with an external USB hard drive I'm using. I've always had issues with this drive cause my reboot to "freeze" when it's mounted. Basically the system message with be sent out, but it doesn't actually proceed with the reboot. No switch to init 6 or anything, but the shutdown process is still active. I can continue to use the computer as usual, but I can't cancel the existing shutdown or try to enter init level 6 by hand. So I just got around this by unmounting the drive before I shutdown. However, lately when I try to unmount the drive I get an error saying that the drive is in use and I should check to see what processes are using it by runing lsof or fuser.
Yesterday I tried copying dsome files from the drive but there wasn't and activity on the drive. cp didn't report any errors though, it just sat there and did nothing. I tried running fsck on the drive, but didn't get much farther. I'll see some activity on the drive for about a second, then all activity stops and fsck just sits there. When I try to kill fsck, it won't. Even with a kill -9.
I'm really confused as to what is going on. Has anyone else had this problem? Anyone have any ideas what could be causing all this or what I can do to stop this? Thanks in advance!
David
[email protected]

Press the reset button on the device. It is located between the USB and power ports. Make sure to take-out the external USB drive before you reset the device. Or you can also restore the defaults by accessing the Administration tab > Factory Defaults sub-tab in the router’s web-based setup page. Check out this link for the set up; http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?vw=1&docid=32cffead811249aea7e9fc6730bf59ad_KB25681_EN_v1.xml...

Unable to access external USB drive on my windows machine

I have an XP SP2 box with several partitions. I Just purchased a MacMini (fisrt time apple user). I have joined the maac to the same workgroup as the XP box and can access all the partitions on the XP box with no problem. With the exception of the C: drive and the External USB drive.
I have the drive at Fat32 and can connect directly to the mac with no problems. Read, write all works fine. connect back to the XP box and I get an error -43. It ask for a user name and password and knows if I use the wrong password. I can even see a list of shares on the sub folders of the external drive but get the error when I try to access.
Thanks in advance
Mac mini Mac OS X (10.4.4)

This could be a smart design inside XP. FAT32 can't store file ownership so maybe it refuses to share a FAT format drve? From a security point of view this would be the right thing to do. On the other hand it could be a bug in XP that just by dumb lock looks like it is doing the right thing.
Either way it sounds like you have a good workaround: put the drive on the Mac and let the Mac share the drive. It's best if the drive is reformatted for the Mac so that user ownership and permissons can be used.
Don't worry one computer can't know how another's dive is formatted. The network hides this. All my shared files are on EXT3 formatted drives on a Linux server. All the clients see is "SBM".

Iomega external USB drive not working

Hello, I have a K8n neo4f board, 1.9 bios, AMD64x2 4400. For some strange reason my external USB drive doesn't work with this setup. I get i/o or insufficient resource errors, and the system will hang. This is puzzling since I have plenty of system resources available (2G ram), and my USB inputs work with other devices. I currently have a dvd drive, ir receiver,memory card adapter, and a cordless mouse receiver plugged in. All of these devices work flawlessly. There is nothing wrong with the external drive, it works with my Dell Inspiron 8200 Laptop. Is this a bios issue, should I upgrade to the latest 1b ? I'm hesitant of doing so, because of the horror stories I've read in this forum of systems becoming unuseable. Maybe someone with a similar problem can help me out.

Are you sure this is not software related .
Ref:
https://iomega-eu-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomega_eu_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=16552&p_sid=7UzKoC4i&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0xOTgmcF9wcm9kX2x2bDE9MyZwX3Byb2RfbHZsMj0zNSZwX2NhdF9sdmwxPTUwJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=

Disk Utility Not Formatting External USB Drive

Hello,
I recently upgraded to Leopard.  Around this same time, my company purchased two, 1 Terabyte USB External drives for my coworker and I in the graphics/web development department.  They arrived this morning and we were very excited.
My problem is that I cannot get Disk Utility to erase/format the new, external USB TB drive for use with my MBP.  Disk Utility fails almost immediately with the following message:
"*Disk Erase Failed*
Disk Erase failed with the error:
File system formatter failed."
The options I'm choosing for the Erase are:
Volume Format: MAC OS EXTENDED  (i've even tried the 'journaled' version too)
Name: TB
As soon as I hit 'Erase' I get the error message I listed above.  The volume never mounts on my desktop and does not exist.  I can see the drive itself in the System Profiler, so my Mac sees it, it just can't format it!  I've also made sure all my permissions were repaired, so I'm just a little confused as to why this simple task keeps failing?
Is there some additional, esoteric step that I'm missing?
My coworker was able to get his disk to work because he did NOT have Time Machine turned on yet.  When he connected his new TB drive, Time Machine asked him to format/initialize the disk and he of course said "ok."  I had Time Machine set to use my OLD external USB drive and it's been working great. As of this writing, my coworker is a happy camper. I, however, am not.  I'm not blaming Time Machine, just noting the differences between my coworker's experience and my own. Since the volume is not currently mounted on my machine, I can't format my disk the same way as my coworker has done using Time Machine, since Time Machine doesn't see the volume.
My fear is that the manufacturer (whom I've also contacted and am awaiting their response) will throw this back to a software problem....and the folks on the forum here will point their fingers and say 'hardware problem.'  Ah, the eternal struggle.....who to blame?
Any help or additional troubleshooting tips are greatly appreciated.

This is the best, and only, way to format an external hard drive, which is courtesy of Kappy.
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

PowerBook G4 external USB drive problem

I've got a 12" Powerbook G4.
All of the following operations were performed with the laptop plugged into the power adapter.
Today I connected a Bytecc external USB drive model 7050 containing a Maxtor 6 L060J3 60 GB and started backing up my main drive and moving some movie projects to it.
I initialized the drive using the Disk Utility.
I used Finder to copy almost 55 GB of data to the initialized drive.
I attemped to use the 'eject' icon in finder to disconnect the drive so that I could remove power and move some things around my desk. The drive did not 'eject'.
I disconnected the USB cable from the G4 and got the warning message from OSX.
I powered down the drive and moved things around then attempted to reconnect the USB drive.
I repeatedly got a "Volume not found" error with the correct name of the drive. The drive still appeard in the finder pane.
I attempted to verify and repair the disk using the Disk Utility, which still recognized the disk, but was still getting the "Volume not found" error when I attemtped to access the drive using Finder.
I used the disk utility to verify and repair the G4 system disk, at which time the USB drive dissapeared from the Finder window.
Now, attempts to reconnect the drive, do not show the drive as present in the Finder window, yet:
- when I disconnect the drive, I get a warning about stopping a device
- the drive still appears in the list of drives in the disk utlity app.
Any ideas on how I can get this drive to work again? I spent a lot of time dumping video into iMovie from my digital camcorder and I'd like to avoid reformatting the drive.
P.S. What is the correct way to shutdown and remove an external drive?
Thanks,
Larry Ice
12" Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

The proper way to shut down and remove the drive is to unmount it (drag it to the trash) and then power down the drive before you unplug the usb cable. If the eject icon didn't work you should have tried dragging to the trash. If that didn't work go to Disk Utility and unmount from there. if that didn't work try Repairing the drive from Disk Utility. I would not have pulled the usb cable as you did.

[SOLVED] Problem with external USB drive started yesterday

My system freezes for about 65 seconds at the login screen. After 65 seconds, I can login and everything is normal afterwards.
I discovered that I can eliminate the freeze by disconnecting the external USB drive from the PC. Here are the error messages from kernel.log when the drive is connected:
Oct 15 23:10:14 localhost kernel: [ 17.035091] usb 1-1.3: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Oct 15 23:10:29 localhost kernel: [ 32.155955] usb 1-1.3: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Oct 15 23:10:29 localhost kernel: [ 32.325394] usb 1-1.3: new high speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd
Oct 15 23:10:31 localhost kernel: [ 34.045126] MediaState is connected
There is supposed to be a kernel boot option (irqpoll) to prevent this from occurring. However, that option seems to no longer work for kernels after 2.6.39. If I try using it with Arch, the system will not boot, saying all the CPU's failed.
I also don't understand why this just started happening yesterday, as the USB drive has been connected to the PC longer than I've been using Arch. Also, my kernel has not been updated since I installed Arch on Oct 8.
Does anyone know another fix or workaround for this problem?
Thanks,
Tim
Last edited by ratcheer (2011-10-17 01:30:08)

Problem solved
I feel stupid, but I also feel better. I turned off the PC, disconnected the power from the USB drive for about 15 seconds, reconnected the power, rebooted, removed the irqpoll kernel option, and Ubuntu started, perfectly. I need to learn that the USB drive just goes freaky sometimes and remember to do this. But, this is only the second time I've had to do this in months of use.
Tim

USB Recording - requirements for the external USB drive

What are the requirements for the external USB drive to be recognised by the TV?
I've tried two now, which can both be seen by the TV to show media, but neither are recognised by the TV to be used as USB Recording space.

Hi,
I have a similar question.
I have a 40L6353 and I cannot seem to playback anything recorded onto USB.
I have tried a large 500 Gb Toshiba (USB powered) drive and 2 or 3 others such as an 8 Gb SanDisk and a smaller capacity non branded 500 Mb stick.
All of the above I have formatted in the TV. When I press record the pop-up staes that recording has started and when I press stop it asks me to confirm. When I go to the recorded list it shows the files but says that they are an unsupported file format!!
I can play videos and music transferred to another Toshiba 500 Gb drive by PC.
I have also tested the sticks and they pass the 2 on-screen tests and I believe when a stick is inserted I can pause live TV.
Does anyone have any ideas?
I have been trying to get this to work for over a week - if there is a fault I will need to go back to the vendor but I want to be sure it isn't operator error.
Thanks in advance.
Message was edited by: banzai

Performance Issues with 10.6.7 and External USB Drives

I've had a few performance issues come up with the latest 10.6.7 that seem to be related to external USB drives. I have a 2TB USB drive tha I have my iMovie content on this drive and after 10.6.7 update, iMovie is almost unusable. Finder even seems slow when browsing files on this drive as well. It seems like any access to the drive is delayed in all applications. Before the update, the performance was acceptable, but now it almost unusable. Most of the files on this drive are large dv files.
Anyone else experience this?

Matt,
If you want help, please start your own thread here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1339&start=0
And if your previous thread you aren't getting sufficient help for your iPhone, post a new topic here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1139
You'll get a wider audience, and won't confuse the original poster. Performance issues can be caused by numerous issues as outlined in my FAQ*
http://www.macmaps.com/Macosxspeed.html
If every person who had a performance issue posted to this thread, we'd never find a solution for the initial poster. Let's isolate each case one by one. It is NOT necessarily the same issue, even if the symptoms are the same. There are numerous contributing factors at work with computers, and if we don't isolate them, we'll never get to the root cause.

How can i create a Trash for external USB Drives ?

Hello,
how can i create a Trash for external USB Drives or my TimeCapsule ?
Thanks.

You do not need to create trash cans for individual drives. The trash can on the desktop holds deleted files from all mounted drives.
TimeCapsule manages its own space. If it fills up it will delete older backps to make space for newer ones.

How can I do backups on internal disc while sharing an external USB drive?

Hi,
On my Airport Utility there are two lines: "Time Capsule Disc", and below (indented) "Data".
(When I plug an external USB drive I can see it in this window as well)
Clicking (selecting) the first line, on the right hand side I can see the disc details (name, capacity and SMART Status (Verified)), and two buttons: Compress and Erase (I don't know if these are the words used on the english version mine is spanish).
Clicking on the second line (Data) I can see the Name "Data", capacity, used and available sizes and number of users connected.
First question:
Why Time Machine can't see the "Data" volume if I untick the "Share files" checkbox?
Second question:
Moreover, I've got a USB External Drive attached to my Time Capsule, so I have to have the "Share Files" checkbox ON, this makes my USB disc (fat32) available to my Windows computers but ALSO the "Data" volume can be seen from Windows. If there is any attempt to assign a Windows drive letter to the "Data" volume, next time Time machine wants to do a backup I'm getting a "disc wrong or missing, check credentials (or something similar)".
In summary, what I'm trying to do is Time Machine backups to the internal Time Capsule disc (making that disc unavailable/invisible to any other computer in my network) while sharing a USB external drive attached to Time Capsule.
Advice, please!

Yes you can go to > Music > iTunes folder and copy the whole iTunes folder and drag the folder to your external and then on the new Mac click and highlight the iTunes folder and then in iTunes click on the button at the top (add folder to library) and you should see all your songs transfer from the external to the Mac and all songs start filling up in your iTunes library on the Mac.
This is the easiest method all songs and other media such as songs, movies, apps will be transferred over however you may not be able to keep ratings & last played counts using this method.
To keep all metadata including ratings & play count use the Apple method exclusively for this if you have to have your metadata, play counts and ratings saved.
I used scenario one above because it one of the simplest methods and I was just satisfied enough just to transfer all media over.

Errors on external USB drive

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