Experience with Iomega 250GB Ext Drive & Lacie PCMCIA to Firewire 800?

Hi!
I bought an Iomega 250GB Ext. Hard Drive and I'm contemplating buying a Lacie PCMCIA to Firewire 800 PC card for my PowerBook G4 (the G4 is older and does not have built in Firewire 800 capability.) Has anyone had experience with this configuration? I'd like to know if there have been any problems trying to go with this configuration before I buy the Lacie card. If there are problems with this set-up then my best choice it appears would be to use the Firewire 400 port on the laptop and on the ext. drive. (There is also USB 1.1/2.0 capability.) Anyone with experience in this area please advise.
Thank you!
tenntooter

Hi t,
I haven't had experience with this setup, but ran across this test sometime ago. They tested the LaCie card you're looking at with a Ti 800MHz with no issues.
(There is also USB 1.1/2.0 capability.)
Take my word for it, you don't want to use USB1 (major slow) and to use USB2, you'd need to buy a PCMCIA card to USB2 adapter anyway. Even then, in real-world transfers, FW400 is faster than USB2, so if your FW port is working, there's no reason to go the USB2 route.

Similar Messages

Can I replace my 60GB hard drive with this 250GB hard drive?

Hi all,
I've searched the forums and I do not see any mention of the suitability of a 250GB hard drive as a replacement for a 60GB hard drive in a Titanium Powerbook DVI 1GHz. Here is a link:
http://www.ifixit.com/Apple-Parts/250-GB-5400-RPM-Western-Digital-ATA-Hard-Drive -New/IF107-052
I love this machine, but I am out of room and have only 1.5 GB to spare. The data on this machine I need access to and do not want to archive. My iMac G5 PPC at home has a 250GB, and I would like to sync the data on both.
I guess my real question is, what is the maximum size (storage) that I can place in my Tibook and it function WELL and DEPENDABLY.
Thanks in advance for your input,
Dani

Hi, Dani. Yes, that drive is compatible with your 1GHz Tibook. Most slower Tibooks and all G3 models would be unable to use more than 128GB of it; the 867MHz model released at the same time as yours is a possible exception. iFixit should not advertise the drive as compatible with all G3 and G4 Powerbooks; that's misleading because of the 128GB limitation noted above.
If you ever have any reason to start your Tibook up in OS 9, bear in mind that OS 9 can't start up from any volume larger than about 190GB. It can read and write data from/to larger volumes, but they can't be made bootable in OS 9. Therefore, if you intend sometimes to start the PB up in OS 9, you'll need to create a smaller partition on the 250GB drive on which to install OS 9. It will also be important to install OS 9 drivers on both partitions if you want OS 9 to "see" them both. These issues are only important if you plan to start up in OS 9 — if you always start up in OS X and use OS 9 only in Classic mode (or not at all), you can disregard this paragraph.
Message was edited by: eww

Nasty experience with grub, fstab, and drive names

Hi all
Yesterday I tried to install Arch on one of my PCs.
After installing the base system and rebooting, grub complaint he couldn't find the proper partition/filesystem, etc. OK, this was something I had encountered in the past, so I started changing the drive assignment in the grub boot line. After an hour, I gave up and reinstalled thinking that maybe grub wasn't happy sitting in the same ext4 partition with /. So I created a separate ext3 /boot partition but I was still having problems. This time, however, after finding the correct drive assignment in the grub boot line, the kernel was loading and then I was greeted with a message saying that my / partition was probably not a valid filesystem, etc, etc. My first thought was to start changing the drive assignment in the kernel line, but this didn't help. Instead, kernel now couldn't boot at all, which means that the UUID in the kernel line was correct and the problem was occurring afterwards. After much thought, I loaded the / filesystem in read/write (according to the error message immediately after the kernel was loaded) and started examining the devices in /dev. To my huge surprise, after every reboot, the drive names (sda, sdb1, sdb2, etc) were different This meant that all my attempts at changing the entries in fstab were unsuccessful.
Fortunately, I was aware of the blkid command so I modified the fstab file and added the UUIDs instead of the drive names, which finally worked. Still to my surprise, when I log in to my desktop, the drive names are always different. My PC has a raid-0 configuration with 2 120GB sata drives and Windows XP, a 320 GB IDE drive with 2 partitions, and a Raptor WD 74GB which is devoted to Arch. The only thing that comes to my mind is the Plug n' Play option in the BIOS, which is set to NO, meaning that system resources are assigned by my motherboard and not by the OS.
If anyone has a clue why the drive names are different after every boot, I would be glad to hear.

/dev/hda1 etc is linux kernel without devfs
ArchLinux uses devfs so the above becomes /dev/discs/disc0/part1
(hd0,0) = /dev/hda1 = /dev/discs/dics0/part1
(hd0,1) = /dev/hda2 = /dev/discs/disc0/part2
(hd0,4) = /dev/hda5 = /dev/discs/dics0/part5
(hd0,5) = /dev/hda6 = /dev/discs/dics0/part6

I currently have a MAC Mini, which has 1 Firewire 800 port. I have a 1TB external hard disk that runs at Firewire 400. Can I insert another external hard drive that runs at Firewire 800?

Here's the deal. Currently running SL 10.6.8 on a MAC Mini. Planning for eventual upgrade to ML. Have a 1TB external hard drive partitioned into two volumes, one volume for Time Machine and one volume for SL which I periodically update using Superduper. Thus I always have a point-in-time bootable backup on the external hard drive.
The MAC Mini supports Firewire 800. However, booting from my current external hard disk is pretty slow, since it only supports Firewire 400. I am considering buying an Iomega MiniMax which supports Firewire 800. Then, I would use the MiniMax as my bootable backup volume, and relegate the older hard drive to Time Machine.
So, question #1 is, can I daisychain the new MiniMax between the MAC Mini and my existing external hard drive? My expectation is that the new Mini Max would run using Firewire 800 and that the existing hard drive would run at Firewire 400 speed as it does today. If it doesn't (e.g., daisychaining in the Firewire 400 external disk with the MiniMax Firewire 800 external disk ends up running the whole leg at 400), my resolution will be to run the existing hard disk off an available USB port and have just the MiniMax running at Firewire 800.
Why am I going to all this trouble? That's question #2. I don't trust upgrades; they always break something. When I upgraded from 10.5.x to 10.6.x, the web directories got renamed, and all of my web apps 403'd until I figured out what happened. Plus, I have accounts for other family members, and in order to ensure their ability to use the computer during my upgrade process, I need to have the ability to fall-back quickly to a known-stable version of OSX. So what I'm trying to do is insulate myself from problems by partitioning the MiniMax into two volumes, taking a Superduper image of my current installation on the Mac Mini to MiniMax external drive volume 1, then upgrading to ML on the MAC Mini, and take a SuperDuper image of that to MiniMax external drive volume 2. Then, if the upgrade results in problems I can't resolve immediately, I can simply reimage the MAC Mini from MiniMax volume 1. BUT ...
... I've read that the ML installation creates a "service and support" partition that is different than the startup disk. I'm concerned that I won't be able to reimage the hard disk in the MAC Mini once I upgrade it to ML because of the partitioning changes it introduces on the startup disk. Theoretically, I +should+ be able to use the disk utility on my SL system to repartition the disk in the MAC Mini prior to reimaging it from my backup, but I'm considering the possibility that the new partition may be of a type that the SL disk utility cannot identify, and might therefore be unable to delete or even detect. So I'm hoping someone else has been down this road and can advise me. Even at Firewire 800 speeds, booting from an external disk is still going to be slow, so I want to be able to restore my SL image to the MAC Mini hard disk.
A little background on me. I work for a major disaster recovery provider. I used to have a Mac PRO G5, which I got used, and the first thing I did with it was install a second hard disk, SuperDupe an image from the first disk to the second, and made sure I could boot from the second. THEN I started using and customizing the MAC. I really feel vulnerable with the MAC Mini, since it only has the single internal hard drive - sort of like going out in public dressed only in a long T-shirt. So my whole thing is, I ABSOLUTELY MUST BE ABLE TO PUT THINGS BACK THE WAY THEY WERE before I do the migration to ML.
Obsessive-cumpulsive? Yep. Anal? You got it. That's why I'm in the DR business.

You may have overloaded the port, following the instructions below it should reset:
+1. Shut down the computer.+
+2. Disconnect all devices and all other cables, except the keyboard and mouse cable(s).+
+3. Disconnect the computer from the power outlet and wait for 3 to 5 minutes.+
+4. Plug the computer back in and turn it on.+
+5. Reconnect the device(s) (one at a time if there is more than one) and test. Test with each port if you have more than one.+
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US

Hard Drive Speed Difference Between FireWire 800 and Internal Drive

Right now I have my entire 1.5 TB Lightroom photo library on an external drive connected to my new Mac Pro via FireWire 800. Will I experience dramatic or even noticeable speed improvements if I move this drive to one of the internal SATA hard drive bays in my Mac Pro?
I would likely buy a new drive and SuperDuper the external to this new drive I put in the Mac Pro.
Thanks,
Matt

SATA II 3Gb is only the controller bus and has almost nothing to do with actual individual drive speed. Confusing the bus interface with hard drive speeds is not a clear way to compare.
Just pull the drive out of the FW case is all you probably need to do. Actual FW800 is less than 80MB/sec and more like 72-75MB/sec - which is as slow as your hdd gets from slow inner tracks.
Other than green, most 1.5TB drives average minimum 75MB/sec to max 115 with average in mid-90s. And the first 1/2 of a drive is where best performance comes from.
The size of the data and media library, amont of free space, all play a role.
I think FW should be left to backups, an alternate boot volume, off line data.
If it was Aperture library, but otherwise SSD is not realistic or viable. Nobody uses RAM disks as they are inefficient.
I still find 10K VelociRaptor ($279 / 600GB) fast, smoother, more responsive, great for system and data drives, even if they are only 135MB/sec, or about what some of your 2TB drives can offer.
QUICK TAKES - A striped pair of Velociraptor 600G 10K HDDs matches the speed of one SSD. For less that the price of one 256G SSD, you can buy two 10K 600G Velociraptor HDDs. If you stripe them (RAID 0), you get the same sustained transfer speed as the SSD. http://www.barefeats.com/quick.html
If you are not already using all the internal drive bays, just nice to have them handy before going external. Also take a look at two other articles on Barefeats:
THINK INSIDE THE BOX: Internal Storage Innovations for the Mac ProOctober 6th, 2010
EXTERNAL STORAGE INNOVATIONS for Mac Pros -- (Added results for ATTO R680 SAS RAID adapter.)

External Drive Speed - Thunderbolt vs Firewire 800?

Hi Friends,
I'm looking to upgrade my external firewire 800 enclosure/drives to speed up editing/rendering in FCP 7/X. Currently this is the config I'm using with my MBP:
- Vantech Nexstar dual 3.5" sata external hard drive enclosure ( http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/277 )
- 2 x 1.5TB Seagate Barracudda 3.5" Sata 7200rpm hard drives (http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-7200RPM-Internal-ST31500341AS-Bare/dp/B0 0066IJPQ)
I'm interested in upgrading to an external thunderbolt enclosure like this:
- Pegasus J4 2.5" quad sata3 external thunderbolt hard drive enclosure ( http://www2.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?region=en-global&m=192&rsn1=40& rsn3=62 )
- 4 x Seagate Momentus XT 2.5" sata3 7200rpm hard drives ( http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/laptop-hard-drives/momentus-laptop/ )
I know I could get better drives, i.e. hybrid hdd/ssd, or just ssd, but that's not in the budget right now.
Can anyone tell me if the thunderbolt enclosure with 4 x 2.5" sata3 drives will read/write much faster than the firewire 800 enclosure with 2 x 3.5" drives?
Thanks in advance !
- Cindy

Hi Meg,
I may have given the wrong Vantech link, since the Vantech Nextstar I'm currently using has FW and USB, thanks!
Meantime I'm waiting to hear back AGAIN from the Pegasus manufacturer - ends up I've found a number of reviews stating the Pegasus J4 is plenty fast for FCP use!
- Cindy

LaCie 500GB External Firewire 800 causes crash every time its plugged in???

My LaCie 500GB Firewire External hard drive causes the computer to freeze every time I plug it in.
I just switched back to Mac from Win XP, where the LaCie was used for almost a year without a single problem. Supposedly, since it is formatted for XP use, it can simply be plugged in to my G5 (dual 2.3, 4BG RAM) and work just fine.
I've upgraded to 10.4.4 and still have issues. I've read this is a 'kernal panic' issue, etc.
What is the solution? I can't even plug it in and reformat it - as soon as it's plugged in the Mac collapses; the screen goes 'grey tinted' and an error message appears telling me to hold down the restart button and restart the computer. If I leave the drive plugged in, as soon as I've signed in on the restart, it crashes/freezes/collapses again, same error (i.e. it's circular).
There seems to be no solution. Any help MUCH appreciated!
Thanks,
Sarge

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
First find out if this is a Firewire 800 or 400 problem. Try connecting a Firewire 400 cable to the drive if it supports it. If it only has Firewire 800 ports, you may want to get a Firewire 400 drive to experiment to see if that's all the problem is.
After a forced reboot, it is also always wise to repair the directory if you are backed up:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
If it detects issues on your source drive that it can't repair, and you are backed up, then I would use Alsoft Disk Warrior.
If it detects no issues, then the problem probably resides in either the cable or the drive you are connecting to. Try a little process of elimination.

Problems with iomega External Hard Drive on MacBook Air

Hi community!
I'm experiencing some problems with my MacBook Air and an external hard drive and I'm wondering if anybody would be able to help me out.
I own a MacBook Air running Mac OS X 10.7.3. When I connect my iomega 500GB external hard drive, the Finder is able to pick it up, but when I click on the drive name, it spins forever without the Finder responding for a long time (it basically crashes the Finder with a spinning ball staying forever). The light on the external hard drive flashes intermittently when I first plug it in, but after that stays constantly lit. So I guess the disk has power, but something else is wrong with it.
It was working fine earlier today but I accidentally pulled the cable out while the disk was working. I'm hoping this hasn't permanently damaged my drive.
Any help on what I could do to fix this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
SV

You might try launching Disk Utility, and then select the drive in question to run a "Verify disk" on the drive. This may indicate any errors in the file system of the drive that might be preventing the successful reading of the disk.
If the disk is empty, you may want to re-partition and reformat, so as to start with a "clean slate".

I have a MacBook Air with Snow Leopard. I can read/write in both directions with 16 GB Fat32 drives but cannot with a 250GB NTFS drive.

I have a MacBook Air. I also have a 250GB NTFS external drive which the Mac sees. i can copy and paste from the external drive to the Mac but not from the Mac to the external drive. However, I can go in both directions with a Fat32 16 GB flashdrive. Can anyone explain this to me?

I've always recommented ext3 filesystem if you wanna use an external drive for both Windows and Mac OS as both can read and write to that filesystem.
But obviously you'd have to format the drive (you can use Mac disk utility)

Mac OS X Lion compatibility with Iomega external hard drives

iMac & MacBook Pro does not recognize external iomega hard drive anymore following upgrade to OS X Lion. Is there a software fix.

I am using Time Machine to back-up to the hard drive. At one point I started receiving error messages that the hard drive was drawing power from the iMac and it was ejected. The hard drive has its own power supply though, which is working fine. I am assuming that there is a software problem as these difficulties only started once I had upgraded to Lion.

Advice re LR2, laptop & desktop, with photos on ext drive

Please critique this setup. I've been considering this b/c I have had images stored to both computers but would prefer that one storage drive be known to contain all of my work; as it is, I can't recall if certain photos are on one or the other computer and don't want to mirror the collections on two computers.
I have LR2 on a MBP & iMac and have some photos already imported to their respective drives but have been considering to change my arrangement such that all photos are imported to one external drive which would be shared between the two computers (small portable drive). I also have a larger external drive always attached to the imac to be used as a backup copy location.
My idea was to have one, master repository of all my photos (the small port. drive) but work on them either on the MBP or iMac depending if I am home or not. My understanding is that LR can allow you to work on the images (a preview really) even though the drive containing the images isn't attached but then 'apply' the changes when the drive is next connected.
Does this sound reasonable or not? Please recommend variations, improvements etc or point me to other posts with similar arrangements.
thanks

Your proposal will work just fine. I use a Windows desktop and a Mac laptop and much the same set up as you. If you propose on using the images off line and also want the speed benefits of having the actual catlog and preview files on an internal drive, then it does mean maintaining two catalogs. One on the desktop and one on the laptop, both linked to the images on the external drive. In order to keep the two catalogs in sync in relation to the development settings you need to connect the external drive and write the data to file and then sync this when connecting to the other computer...which is how I do it usually. This means that each catalog can have different collections but the same process settings for all the files. If you use smart collections (as I do) these can be exported and then loaded so these remain in sync, but for ordinary collections you have to create these on both catalogs.
Alternatively you can have a single catalog on the external drive. This can slow things down a bit and means you must always have the external drive connected.
You can also export as catlog to the external drive from the desktop.

Western Digital ext drive

Dear Gurus : I have a WD 250GB ext drive (USB). Trying to format it for MAC powerbook G4 running OS 10.5.2... As is now the MAC does NOT even see the drive. I have already re-formatted the ext drive back to NTFS using Sony VAIO. please please help

The following suggestions are assuming that you cannot get the ext drive to mount on the Mac, the Mac just does not know it's there.
First I'd suggest resetting the PMU:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431
If that does not work then try the following.
If the ext drive comes with an ext poser supply then make sure that you are using that while plugged into the PB.
If the ext drive does not come with its own power supply then make sure that you try the other USB ports on the PB. If this still does not work then you may need to get a "y" cable which allows you to utilize two USB ports to gain the required amount of voltage.
You might also try formatting to Fat 16 or 32 with the Sony VIO, then attach it to the Mac and see if it mounts. Then if it mounts format it with the Mac to what ever you want.
Even though Mac OSX can read NTFS it is not a native file system for Mac so it may be causing problems. Make a note though that these are just suggestions and
Mac normally has no problems reading partitions formatted with NTFS.

Ext Drive Crashed after 10.5.8 Update

Hi all. I'm wondering if anyone else has had problems with external drives after the 10.5.8 update (I saw the Drobo thread)? I have a 750GB drive in an external Firewire 800 enclosure that was running fine before the update but immediately after it won't mount. The console reports the Journal Magic is bad. Unfortunately this drive has all of my iTunes and iPhoto data on it. Here's what the console spits out when running First Aid on it:
8/9/09 10:30:54 PM Disk Utility[481] Disk Utility started.
8/9/09 10:31:05 PM kernel jnl: disk1s2: open: journal magic is bad (0x0 != 0x4a4e4c78)
8/9/09 10:31:05 PM kernel hfs: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0).
8/9/09 10:31:05 PM Disk Utility[481] Mount of “TopStack” failed
8/9/09 10:31:05 PM Disk Utility[481] Mount of “TopStack” failed
8/9/09 10:31:28 PM Disk Utility[481] Verify and Repair volume “TopStack”
8/9/09 10:31:28 PM Disk Utility[481] Starting repair tool:
8/9/09 10:31:28 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
8/9/09 10:31:28 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking Extents Overflow file.
8/9/09 10:31:28 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking Catalog file.
8/9/09 10:31:28 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking Catalog file.
8/9/09 10:31:32 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking multi-linked files.
8/9/09 10:31:32 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking Catalog hierarchy.
8/9/09 10:31:32 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking Catalog hierarchy.
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking Extended Attributes file.
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking volume bitmap.
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM Disk Utility[481] Checking volume information.
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM Disk Utility[481] The volume TopStack appears to be OK.
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM kernel jnl: disk1s2: open: journal magic is bad (0x0 != 0x4a4e4c78)
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM kernel hfs: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0).
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM Disk Utility[481] Repair tool completed:
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM Disk Utility[481]
8/9/09 10:31:38 PM Disk Utility[481]
I did some googling, but there's nothing recent, the only person I found who was able to recover their data used Mac OS 9, but I don't have any hardware that will boot that. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks,
Digitac

Digitac,
Your data is all there and can be recovered in its entirety. I have personally used DiskWarrior to recover drives with the exact problem you're having. After the repair, the disk mounts as if nothing had ever happened with all data intact. From the log you posted I can tell that you'll have the same result.
While I respect and do business with Tekserve I cannot disagree more with their recommendation. Using a non-repairing recovery tool as was suggested by TekserveNYC will require hours of reorganizing your recovered data. While most repairing disk utilities can "do more harm than good," that just isn't the case with DiskWarrior which lets you review and approve of any changes it'll make to your disk. Tekserve's own FAQ he links to admits that DiskWarrior is different if you finally get all the way to the end of it. But the title of the FAQ makes you think that DiskWarrior is no exception. I'm forwarding that link to Alsoft tech support to see if they can't get Tekserve to reword the title because it's otherwise fairly accurate.
You can get more info on DiskWarrior at http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index.html and you can even buy it from Tekserve if you're in NYC (a great company to buy from in my experience).

IMac with SSD and Hard drive very slow startup time

I have a new mid 2011 iMac with a 250gb SSD drive and a 2TB drive. All are from Apple as BTO options. When I first used the iMac my typical startup time from the hardware check chime to desktop was typically 12 seconds. Something, somehow has been changed because now it takes over one minute to boot up from the SSD. After the chime I hear the fans running and also the 2tb drive. After about 20 seconds I hear the hard drive spin down and then after another 20 seconds it starts up again. Once it starts up the boot up sequences contiunes and returns to the desktop. After this the iMac perfprms as normal. I have tried running disk utility from the recovery partition. I have also reinstalled Lion as well from the recovery partition and neither of these change the outcome.
When I first got the iMac I used time machine to restore from a previous machine into the 2tb partition and then went into advanced options in System preferences>Users&Groups to point to my home folder on the 2Tb drive rather than the default one on the SSD. That was working fine until I discovered software problems with both Preview and Textedit where they would not start up with this arangement. I then repointed my home folder to the default one on the SSD which cured this issue with these programmes leaving my data remaining on the 2Tb drive. Since doing this I have had the one minute boot up problem.
Can anyone offer any advice as to how I may overcome this problem and get my iMac back to starting up in twelve seconds from the SSD as it did before. Any help would be appreciated on this topic.
Thanks.

Where do you maintain your Home folder - on the SSD or on the HDD?
If you want to do a clean install (from scratch) then do the following:
Install or Reinstall Lion from Scratch
If possible backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
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 Erase tab in the DU main window.
Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.
Before you go to the extreme of the above would you do this:
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time, then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Just in case your system slowness is due to something eating up CPU time. Oh, and if your system is brand new check the upper right corner of the menubar for a "dot" inside the Spotlight glass. This means Spotlight is indexing the drive. Until it finishes your system will be quite sluggish.

Mac Mini conflict with Western Digital External Drive

My Mac Mini used to work fine with my 2 TB Western Digital external drive, but now when I plug it in my desktop goes blank and the drive won't mount. I have tried it both USB and Firewire. The drive DOES work with my Powerbook G4.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Hi-
Please clarify.
What mini are you using? One of the new 2009 models?
As for the drive, is this a Firewire 800 drive or a Firewire 400 connection?
If it is a firewire connection, are you daisy chained to another firewire device? If so, in what order is the hard disk?
If it is a firewire 400 connection, what adaptor/cable are you using?
For a USB 2.0 connection, are you connected to a hub, or directly to the mini? Is the hub powered or not? Have you tried a different USB port? Same results?
Did you plug in both the USB and Firewire cables at the same time?
What is the model of your WD ext drive?
When you say that your desktop goes "blank" what exactly do you mean? The computer is still on, but there is no image on the screen?
You mention that the drive works with your Powerbook G4. By Firewire? USB?

Experience with Iomega 250GB Ext Drive & Lacie PCMCIA to Firewire 800?

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