External FireWire disk doesn't mount on Leopard, does on Tiger?

Hi All,
I have an external FireWire Hard Drive that mounts as it should on all our Tiger Macs, but is invisible on our Leopard Mac. If we swap the FW cable for a USB2 cable, it shows up.
Is this perhaps another Leopard 'thing' maybe? Like the one where Leopard couldn't erase a hard drive to FAT 32 like a Tiger could?
Cheers and thanks in ant...
Chris

"Methinks you're perpetuating a myth"
I'm too long in the tooth to either listen to or perpetuate myths of any kind! Not a myth unfortunately, a weakness in Leopard that was pointed out to me some time ago (when Harry Potter was a boy) by a sage far wiser and way older than you or I - and he was right, and more importantly brought to an end some hours of frustration with Leopard.
So there!
Thank you for your suggestions, which have made me think. It can't be the cable because it works with all the Tiger Macs. It might be the slot but if it is, I have two faulty slots which would be rare on a pretty new machine.

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Tiger doesn't install on external firewire disk (partition)

hi, i've got a Lacie Porche 250GB firewire drive, partitioned in two parts, and i want to install tiger on the first 50GB partition, but the installer give me an error about the destination: "You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. Mac OS X cannot start up from this volume."
i'm trying to do this with an ibook G4 and the standard Tiger DVD Install.
the external firewire disk is formatted in HFS+
please help me
iMac Intel\iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

A boot disk for the Intel Macs needs to have a GUID Partition Table, the G4 needs the "Apple Partition Map". If you formatted the drive on your Intel Mac, you may need to repartition for the G4. In the "Partition" tab in Disk Utility, use the "Options..." button to choose the partitioning. Backup any data on the drive that you need, first.

External FireWire Disk will not boot

Hi Forum,
after some installations (OS 10.4.9, latest security update and Qucktime 7.1.6 I canot boot from my external disk (Lacie) connected to FireWire 800 port. The Apple shows up but then nothing more happens. Does anyone have a hint?
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Oliver

Add me to the list also. I had an external firewire disk as a RAID mirror for my boot disk. After a system crash (and some problem with my internal disk) I couldn't boot from the firewire stripe. This used to work.
I've tried creating a single-disk "degraded RAID pair" on the external disk and cloning the internal disk to it (using Disk Utility "Restore"). The cloning works fine but I can't boot from the copy. This is how I originally set up the RAID pair (clone, boot from clone, add internal disk to RAID group). This used to work. I bought a new firewire disk and it has exactly the same problems.
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Install Solaris on External Firewire Disk

Hello All,
I have a laptop running windows 2000 and I have a External Firewire Hard Disk of 60 GB. Now my question is, " Is it possible to install Solaris 8 on this external Firewire Hard Disk". When I tried installing, It did not find the external Firewire Disk, the only partition information, which solaris was displaying was from my internal Hard Disk.
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Sanjay

First off, is any of your Macs an Intel Mac, that will complicate matters since they use a different hard drive formatting and need a different installation of Mac OS X.
Secondly, you can't directly install Mac OS X from an Intel Mac to an external hard drive, you have to do a clone with a software like Shirt-Pocket's Superduper for that.
If it isn't an Intel Mac, perhaps your Firewire hard drive isn't Mac OS X bootable? Not all are.
Here's a hint on making the Intel/PowerPC partition table:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006061610374449
Also note, different Macs which came out after Tiger will only boot off the install disk which came with them, and not the retail disk. So you are best off cloning that Mac to its own partition.

Since updating my Mac to 10.8.4 any external hard disk doesn't show on Finder sidebar (but shows on desktop). Anyone else have the same problem?

Since updating my Mac to 10.8.4 any external hard disk doesn't show on Finder sidebar (but shows on desktop). Anyone else have the same problem?
It's annoying because now I can't use Finder sidebar for drag and drop to thumb drive etc.
Thanks for your thoughts and help!

Hi Barney-15E,
Thanks for your reply and suggestions!
It is set to show on the sidebar in Finder prefs and I tried toggling the setting multiple times but it didn't fix anything.
I went into Preferences (I'm Administrator) but the strange thing is I don't see com.apple.sidebarlists.plist anywhere in the folder. Not sure what that means..

Can't open external Firewire disk after upgrade to Leopard

I recently upgraded a PowerBook G4 from 10.4.11(?) to 10.5.5. Now I cannot open its external disk, a LaCie 400 GB Firewire disk, model number 300925, like this: http://www.amazon.com/Lacie-400GB-7200Rpm-Firewire-300925/dp/B00066989Mreport
The disk's icon appears on the desktop after it is plugged in. After double clicking to open it, the pinwheel cursor spins for a while, then Finder appears to restart, redrawing the desktop. When I have the Activity Monitor open during this, I see a process called ReportCrash run for a while before the Finder reset.
Does anyone recognize this symptom? Is there a way to see what is being reported by ReportCrash?

The Genius was skeptical that this was a problem between Leopard and a given disk. Indeed his first test was to boot my laptop from a clean install of Leopard on his own external FireWire drive. Running this way I had no problem opening my external disk from my laptop, running his fresh copy of OSX 10.5.something.
His theory was that something leftover in my configuration files (in /Library/Preferences) from a previous OS was causing the Finder crash while opening a FireWire disk under Leopard. (Since this machine is four years old, there has been a lot of opportunities for kruft to collect.) His suggestion was do a backup (complicated by the fact that I can't open my backup disk, d'oh!) then to do a clean install of Leopard, and then copy back my user folder.
I wish there was a smaller hammer I could use, like setting aside some magic .plist file... Any hints?

Should I be able to boot from external firewire disk?

Yesterday, to prepare for upgrading to Leopard, I copied across my hard drive contents onto an external Firewire drive, by using drag & drop, folder by folder.
I was hoping that this would let me (after a reboot) select the external drive as my Startup Disk in System Prefs, or allow me to choose it if I rebooted holding down the alt key. However the external drive doesn't show up in either case.
Is there something else I need to do to allow booting via external Firewire? Is that even possible on my PB 1.5GHz (OSX 10.3.9)? Thanks.

Close, but no cigar! Copying by drag n drop misses invisible files necessary for a boot volume. The way to do this is to use one of the cloning programs like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything needed to make the FW drive bootable. You can even specify to NOT copy all your files if you wish.
I go to Versiontracker.com to get these programs.

External Hard drive won't mount with Leopard

I have a Beyond Micro Speedano 3.0 external hard drive that uses firewire. I have used it many times under Tiger to backup my Powerbook's hard drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. Now that I have Leopard, I find that I can no longer mount the external hard drive. It just will not show up on the desktop. I have tried using Disk Utility to mount it, but it does not show up with Disk Utility either. Does anyone have any suggestions of how to get it to mount?

Hello maccynicwhoalwayshasmacs,
Thanks for the question. After reviewing your post, it sounds like trouble with an external HD mounting. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you resolve or isolate the issue.
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Have a nice day,
Mario

Can't install OS 9 on external firewire disk

I am running Panther on an iMac G3 450. Some older software and games just don't run correctly in Classic mode, so I would like to install OS 9 on an external firewire drive. The original OS 9 disk from 2000 doesn't run with Panther. When booting from the OS 9 install disk, it can't read the firewire drive. How can I get the OS 9 boot disk to read the external drive for an install? Or - can I install OS 9 on my hard drive without affecting my OS X and all my software and files? Thanks.

Hi, sageimac -
The original OS 9 disk from 2000 doesn't run with Panther.
Correct. The installer on any stand-alone OS 9 Install CD, retail or original model-specific, will not run in OSX - it will run only when the Mac is booted to OS 9, such as to the OS on the CD.
When booting from the OS 9 install disk, it can't read the firewire drive.
The OS on OS 9 Install CDs contain the necessary software to 'see' a firewire drive connected to a native firewire port while booted to the CD, provided the drive does not need any additional software. If the firwire port was added via an upgrade card, OS 9 may not be able to see it without additional software.
When you added the firewire drive, did you reformat it using Disk Utility under OSX? If so, if the option to install OS 9 drivers was not selected, then that drive can not be mounted whenever the machine is booted to OS 9, such as to an OS 9 Install CD.
Article #106849 - Disk Is Available in Mac OS X But Not in Mac OS 9
Unfortunately, since in that case the drive probably did not have OS 9 drivers on it previously, there may be no solution but to re-initialize that drive - but it won't hurt to try re-installing OS 9 drivers while booted to the OS 9 Install CD, using Drive Setup's Update Driver function.
If it is necessary to re-initialize the drive, it can be done using Drive Setup while booted to the OS 9 Install CD, or by using Disk Utility while booted to OSX (be sure to select the option to install OS 9 drivers in this second case. This will erase it, so be sure to first back up your data. In either case select Mac OS Extended as the format.
Or - can I install OS 9 on my hard drive without affecting my OS X and all my software and files?
Yes - OS 9 and OSX are designed to co-exist on the same volume.
You should have no problem doing that, provided there is sufficient space on the hard drive. I do not consider my OS 9 to be overly fat; however, the System Folder still occupies about 0.4 to 0.5GB. OSX runs best when 5GB or so is left free on the drive. So, if you have 6GB or more free space on the internal drive, there should be no problem doing that.
Use the Clean Install method to install OS 9 from your original Software Install CD (not the Software Restore CD), or from a retail OS 9 Install CD of adequate version.
Note that a Clean Install of OS 9 removes nothing. It installs a brand new, 'clean' System Folder, renames any already existing one to Previous System Folder, installs a new set of standard OS 9 utilities if they're not already present, and little else.
Article #58176 - Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9: Performing a Clean Installation

FireWire devices doesn't mount nor are recognized by OSX

A known issue but with several solucions posted but nothing seems to help me out...
Something is wrong with the FireWire of my Powerbook G4 667 MHz. External harddrives as soundcards as iPods as anything with a FireWire interface won't mount. However, it seems that the devices are getting electricity, Ipods charge for example. But doesn't appear on the desktop. Nor in the System Profiler. Disk Utility doesn't "see" the drives either. I have been trying with reseting the computer, the VRAM and the VPRAM. Also taken out the battery and left the computer alone for a while. No results. And of course, I have been searching the forums and diskussions like crazy but haven't found a solution.
Anyone who can give me some leads about what I can do next? A clue in this mystery is that I used a Pocketdrive to move files in between the Mac and a PC. I worked fine for 10 times or so, but then suddenly the Mac didn't mount it. First I thought that it was just that harddrive that had some problems (from the PC, I might haven't emptied the trashbin the last time I disconnected it from the PC) but then I realized that no FireWire deviced worked any longer.
Thanks in advance

Hi, jorgengun. Try running the Apple Hardware Test CD that came with your Powerbook, and see whether it reports any problem with your FireWire controller or port. It's possible that your port has gone bad, in which case the timing was probably just coincidental — it's unlikely that anything that happened on the PC could have caused your Powerbook's port to be damaged.
If you don't have Apple Hardware Test, a TechTool Pro or TechTool Deluxe CD has similar hardware testing abilities. (TTD was supplied by Apple to the purchasers of AppleCare Extended Protection plans, and is not available otherwise as far as I know. TTP is a commercial product.)
If you don't have any of the above, and all of the devices that no longer work when connected to the port did indeed work in the past, take the Powerbook to the Genius Bar at an Apple Store, or to a local Apple dealership, and have the port tested.
A bad port would necessitate one of two things: a logic board replacement, or the purchase of a CardBus-slot Firewire card.

External Firewire HD won't mount after Connecting to B&W w/ bad Firewire

I've tried and tried to find the answer, so finally I post...
I've had two external Firewire Laptop HD enclosures become unmountable after hooking them up to a 400 Mhz powermac G3. This has been 6 months apart. I used to use the Powermac B&W ... I know the Firewire worked at one time, but cant remember if it was before or after I added a Belkin USB 2.0 PCI card.
After clean installing... 10.3.2 .... no Classic... I hoped it would wake up the Firewire, did not. So hooked up the external HD to the USB.... it worked. Then, went to the eMac and via Firewire hooke up the same external HD.... it worked.... for 2 hours. Disconecceted, reconnected and like the other one...... no more mount. Not in classic, not on any comuter. If I daisy chain it to another Firewire external, the About this Mac no longer recognizes info on either. Once removed, the computer recognized the info the good one. Disk Utilities does not recognize harddrives in the enclosure... I put a different HD inthe enclosure.. still not mounting
It spins and receives power.... but no mount. Is this firmware? The hard drive is not corrupted... I put it into a mac mini and was able to extract the info... but what has caused this B&W's fire wire to go, and caused 2 of my externals to go as well....
Help.
Mixolidean

try the following to reset the ports:
1) zap PRAM - reboot holding down Cmd-Opt-P-R and left the machine boot cycle 3-4 times
2) reset Open Firmware
reboot holding down Cmd-Opt-O-F
at the screen type <reset-nvram</i>
press Return
type reset-all
press Return
3) disconnect ALL devices from the computer
unplug the computer from the wall
let it sit for 10-15 minutes
plug back in and reboot

60 GB external Firewire Drive Won't Mount

I have a 60GB external Firewire Drive that I have been using for a long time. I just turned on the computer and it won;t mount. I opened up the Disk Utility and I see that on the left side it says "57.3 GB Maxtor." I repaired permissions and verify disk. It still won't mount.
I don't want to have to erase it if possible. There are files I need on that drive. How can I get it to mount so I can grab some files off of it and move it to another drive?
Thanks in advance

Hi Edwurd,
What the message is telling you is that Disk Utility and the "underlying task," the Unix utility fsck, can't repair the volume.
Time for stronger medicine if the data is critical. There are commercial products that work differently and can recover disks when fsck can't. Look at Disk Warrior or Drive Genius. BUT... given that Disk Utility thinks it's a "non HFS volume," I wouldn't be optimistic.
If the external drive's data is unimportant - e.g., a backup you could rewrite - then see if Disk Utility can repartition and erase the drive. If only the catalog or partition map is bad, this will get you a working drive. But if you can't repartition with Disk Utility, suspect a hardware malfunction and check your warranty.
Good luck,
John

External Firewire Drives Don't Mount.... i need a guru.

Warning!!!!!
i'm going to ramble....
2 much sake .. heh heh
i just got a brand butt spanking new iBook G4 14" 1.42 GHz
Tiger pre-installed.
I ran Software Update. As you can tell by my info, i'm at 10.4.2 now.
In a minute i'll tell ya how i got BACK to 10.4.2 from 10.4.5
When i got my iBook I didn't plug my external firewire drives in until (about 2 days) after my update. So when i did get around to building my iTunes library, well, no luck.
My firewire drives would and do NOT mount!
By the way these particular peripherals are Western Digital firewire
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?p_faqid=694&pcreated=1036793224
and AcomData Combo USB 2.0/Firewire
http://www.acomdata.com/hdp/fs.html
drives.
With a little exploration you'll find (at least i did) that they do not have firmware or driver updates for Mac. ( if you find them i'll give ya praise!)
The AcomData drive mounts with USB but not with firewire. The thing that
creeps me out is that my 3rd Gen firewire enabled iPod mounts right up no prob!
Another thing that ties me in knots is that these drives WILL MOUNT on my iBook12" running 10.3.9, as well as my old 5cH00L iMac DV 10.3.9!!!!
I thought it might be the Update so i did a clean install with the dvd provided by Apple and now i'm back to 10.4.2 but still no luck.
I've tried repairing permissions, starting, restarting, rebooting, plugging, unplugging, Updating, Downgrading, standing on my bloody head, looking all over the dotcom.
i swear i did all this with my peripherals unplugged.
i caught wind that though these companies may not provide updates for Mac, if i were to find out the companies that make the "chipsets?" within these drives that i might have luck.
i can't figure out what kind of "chipsets" (Oxford?) are in these drives or what to do if i knew anyway!
exhale
i still believe i have the best machine on the planet right now but .......
i need a guru.
help.
much obliged,
Clive
 G4 iBooks. iMac DV (graphite). gen 2,3,5 iPods Linux on the Pod too! Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Hi, Clive.
Here is some general troubleshooting advice that may help:
(1) Review the AppleCare Knowledge Base document "What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire device".
(2) If this problem occurred after installing a recent Mac OS X Update, and you are also unable to mount CDs, DVDs, or disk images perform the steps in this Mac OS X Hints article.
(3) The following additional steps will often help resolve problems with FireWire devices, particularly hard drives:(a) Power-on the FireWire drive before starting up (booting) your Mac.
(b) Reset PRAM and NVRAM.
(c) Reset the PMU or SMU: In the case of your iBook, I believe the article you want is "Resetting PowerBook and iBook Power Management Unit (PMU)." You can also check the manual that came with your new iBook.
(d) Try a different FireWire port. James Wiebe, CEO of WiebeTech, has published FireWire Port Failures in Host Computers and Peripheral Devices, a white paper providing backgroud information and technical analysis concerning the causes of failure for FireWire ports. This may provide additional diagnostic information.Note that some of the information above is from the "FireWire Problems" chapter of my book, Troubleshooting Mac® OS X.
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

24" Core Duo iMacs and external Firewire disks

Hi guys,
I'm having a bit of an issue with the new iMac that I picked up yesterday. There seems to be an issue with mounting disk devices connected to the Firewire 400 port. Disk devices mount fine off the Firewire 800 port. The bizarre thing is that I plugged an old iSight camera into the Firewire 400 port and it works fine. This seems to eliminate both the possibility that the Firewire controller is faulty and that the FW 400 port is dead.
Just to remove the possibility that it could be a crappy driver, I installed XP via bootcamp but I get exactly the same issue. (although windows is a little more specific. It actually detects the name of the disk device but says it cannot be started)
I've zapped the PRAM and left the machine dormant and unplugged for 30 mins to no avail. Could someone plug a disk device into their FW400 port and see if they get the same issue i.e. nothing happens? (card reader, laptop in FW target mode, external HDD)
I'll take the machine back if I have to but I really loathe the though of lugging this thing back to the Apple store.
Thanks.
Danny

I also am having trouble.
I cannot mount my eMac in target disk mode. The only way I could get the eMac drive to mount was if I put a firewire disk in line with the eMac. i.e. a firewire cable from the eMac to the disk and another cable from the disk to the iMac. (Same model 24" 2.4GHz aluminum).
I thought the issue was with my eMac, but when I went to connect my Canon CanoScan 9950F scanner the iMac would not see it unless I also went through the firewire drive.
I have since learned that the drive does not have to be on and spun up, but it has to bridge the connection. The drive I'm using is model PHR-100AF Macally 3.5" enclosure.
I have been able to mount this drive without having to chain it through anything else. I've also been able to mount a Macally PHR-250CC 2.5" enclusure and a el cheapo 3.5" enclosure that uses the Prolific PL-3507 chip. Also, my 3rd generation iPod mounts just fine.
I don't have anything for the FW800 port so all my experiences are with the FW400 port.
My question is:
Is there something wrong with my iMac that it cannot mount my eMac in target disk mode without being chained to another external drive?
Is there something wrong with my beautiful, new 24" aluminum 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo imac that it cannot connect to my Canon CanoScan 9950F scanned?
I expect more from Apple. I expect that it should at least work with their own hardware (the eMac).
Should I go back to the Apple Store and complain?
Thanks,
Chris
p.s. I guess I should ask my own question huh?
Message was edited by: ctopher

External Lacie disk doesn't shutdown

I have an external Lacie disk with an auto function. It works perfectly if connected to USB 2.0, but it doesn't power off with the Imac when connected through Firewire 800.
Lacie replied that it depends on the mac leaving the power on the bus.
Infact if I take the power cord off the Imac, the disk will power off.
Do you think this is something that apple can solve with a firmware update?
Thanks,
S.

Hi Srugoglo,
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
The power doesn't switch off on firewire 400/800 and is part of the standard. To change this would cause chaos with the firmware/software for lots of audio interfaces just for a start. Is you LaCie set to use the button on the front for anything in particular? I leave mine as a power button, to switch my LaCie drive off after the iMac has shut down. I have a d2 drive a few years old.
Karn.

External FireWire disk doesn't mount on Leopard, does on Tiger?

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