External Hard Drive Power Stays On

Hi -- I have an external hard drive (La Cie Little Disk) which is connected to my iMac via Firewire only, with no external power source. I noticed that the power on the disk stays on (as shown by a little blue light and by the warmth of the drive) AFTER the iMac is shut down for the night. It was still on in the morning. How is this possible? Also, could this cause any problems?

1. Because the computer was designed that way. Click here for more information.
2. No, as long as the drive has spun down.
(121537)

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Toshiba ph3100u-1exb External Hard Drive Will Not Stay On

Hello all.
I recently purchased a Toshiba ph3100u-1exb 1.0 TB external hard drive. It's working great, but the problem I am running into is that it will not stay powered on for more than a couple minutes. I'm sure that its some kind of power saving feature, but if there's a way to turn it off, I'd like to have the drive accessible at all times, as I use the information stored on it quite a bit.
When it powers down, I can always press the power button to bring it back up, but I would like to have it on all the time. Is there any way at all to do this? A setting on the drive, or possibly within Windows?
I have the drive hooked up via a USB cable, as this PC is a bit older and does not use the eSATA cables for hard drives.

Hi
In my opinion the HDD should be checked with different computers and different OS (Vista, Win 7, Win XP). If the external HDD will not functions using different systems and computers then its definitely an HDD issue.
Ive got 2 different external HDDs one HDD died and I had to replace it.
In my opinion, if an HDD begins to malfunction then its mostly an hardware related issue and there is nothing to do as to replace the faulty drive

External Hard Drive will not power up

I've had a Toshiba External HDD for 2 years now and it was working perfectly. It has a blue light which comes up when powered up. Now it has suddenly stopped working.
When I connect it to the AC Adapter, there is no light, no power. The AC Adapter is a DURA MICRO INC Adapter Model DM5127. The light on the Adapter itself comes on
when I plug it in to the power but the moment I plug in the other end to the HDD, even that light goes off. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this . Could it be
a problem with the Adapter itself?
Any tips will be gratefully received as how I could go about resolving this. Almost all my data is in the HDD.

Hello, I helped install several external hard drives which also use that same model of Dura Micro power supply.
Unfortunately for 2 of these power supplies, they didn't seem very dura-ble, for they each developed a similar problem. The status LED on the hard drive would light up and stay on as normal, but the hard drives themselves would no longer power up. I tried a new adapter of the same model and the drive came back to life.
My guess is it may be your power supply, if you purchase replacements I'd get more than one.

My songs have all been duplicated. All my music is on external hard drive and I want it to stay there. Am using a new computer and thought I'd done all the required things for my library to show on iTunes 11.

I'm using a new computer. All my music is on an external hard drive and I want it to stay there. Before installing iTunes on the new computer, I followed turingtest2's instructions as to the layout of all the iTunes folders (Itunes folder, Itunes Media, Music, etc...). I also followed his instructions as to get all my music in iTunes on the new computer (but keeping all the media on the external drive). Now my songs are all duplicated in my library (I normally have about 15,000 of them). They all play when I click onto them. Also, I've lost all my playlists, and all the songs in the library are now ticked. I've already spent hours trying to sort this out, but can't seem to find a solution. Help please!

Hi turingtest2,
Thank you for replying. I've been looking at your posts about setting up iTunes using an external drive. A bit of background info. My old computer broke down, so I got a new one from work. I've always kept my music files on my external drive (I have around 170GB of music). I didn't follow the suggestions in the "migrate iTunes library" post because my old computer died on me. However, I've looked at your posts about lay out of the iTunes folders. Before connecting to iTunes on the new computer, I had reorganized my iTunes folder on my E: external drive, and created an iTunes folder which contains an iTunes Media subfolder. The music files are in a Music folder, which is in the iTunes Media folder. I've also put the following files in my iTunes folder: iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Library Extras.itdb, iTunes Library Genius.itdb, iTunes Music Library.xml, as well as sentinel. I then followed the advice you gave bmw99 on 2 Nov 2013 at 9.58 (sorry, can't copy the exact answer).
Just to clarify: I'd like to keep all my music media on the E: external hard drive (the computer hard drive is too small), and I'm aware i might never have my playlists back, and that all the songs in my library might be ticked. However, I don't want my library to be duplicated.
I'm at work at the moment, but will be back home in about 10 hours, so I can be more specific about folders / files names.
I'm glad you picked up my message and greatly appreciate your help.
Patrice

I have all my music on my external hard drive when I try to add it to iTunes it is automatically added to my MacBook Pro's hard drive. How do I stop this from happening? I just want the music to stay on the external hard drive. Thanks!

I have all my music on my external hard drive when I try to add it to iTunes it is automatically added to my MacBook Pro's hard drive. How do I stop this from happening? I just want the music to stay on the external hard drive. Thanks!

This is true of course, but doesn't cover the situation where some files are in the iTunes Media folder and others are on an external drive. In my case I keep my music in the Media folder and all my films on an external drive (there are too many to have on the internal drive). In iTunes 11, and before, it was easy to add those external files by holding down the alt/opt key while dragging to the sidebar. In iTunes 12 this is no longer possible. There are several workarounds: use TuneSpan to move the file after it's been added; delete the file from the Media folder and empty the trash then use iTunes Get Info which will report the file is missing and allow you to locate it; constantly switch the Add to iTunes toggle on and off as required. All of these require a lot more work than just holding down the alt/opt key while adding.
It constantly gets harder.

Problem with Time Capsule used with an External Hard Drive (with it's own power supply)

I have a mid 2012 Macbook Pro with Mavericks installed. I have the latest Time Capsule (802.11 ac) with an external hard drive hooked up via the USB port. The external hard drive was taken from an older Mac desktop machine and is formatted correctly (Mac OS Extended Journaled). The external hard drive has it's own power supply and shows up fine when connected directly to my laptop.
For whatever reason I CAN see the hard (LAN Storage) when in AirPort utility but I CANNOT find or access the drive from anywhere within the Finder.
My finder settings are set this way:
My FInder appears this way, with the Time Capsule selected:
As you can see, the "Data" drive isn't displayed (it's not on the TIme Machine mounted drive either). The external drive "LAN Storage" isn't availailable anywhere either.
I've tried unplugging and restarting my Time Capsule and the External Drive with no luck.
Any advice?
Thanks.

Welcome to Mavericks.. and its new concept of network drives not just being hard to find like in Mountain Lion but totally invisible.
Apple changed over Mavericks to using SMB2 by default.. broken and flawed SMB2.
Change over to AFP by manually mounting the TC drives.
I strongly recommend the first thing you do is change the TC names to SMB standard.. that just helps.
Short, no spaces and pure alphanumeric.
So rather than the very Generic THE Airport Time Capsule.. you make it even more Generic with TC1 (each subsequent TC increment the number. )
LAN Storage is not a good name either for USB drive.. especially now that it is WAN Storage.. WStore for example.. but whatever makes sense to you.
The name itself doesn't matter. .following the rules, short no spaces and pure alphanumeric does. Everything, conforms.
Now in Finder.. Go, Connect to Server.
AFP://TC1 or AFP://10.0.1.1 (you can use either the name (now that it is proper network name) or the IP address .. replace with your actual name or IP).
The computer will find the resources and then ask you for a password.. this is required, even if default,, which is public.. so type in your password or public if you did not change it.
Store the password in your keychain.
The TC should now mount and all the resources on it be made available or visible.

WD External Hard Drive - Not Enough USB Power?

Hello, I have a Western Digital External Hard Drive that I've had for about 5 years. It plugs in/loads through the USB port. However, it hasn't worked when I plug it in to my MAC anymore. The red light comes on like it is getting power, but the blue light that typically comes on as well blinks a few times, then you hear the external hard drive shutting back down. Needless to say, it isn't loading anymore, and I can't access my files on the drive. I'm thinking/hoping that maybe (for some odd reason) it isn't getting enough power through my MAC's USB port anymore. Is this possible? If so, what can I do to solve this problem. Thanks for any help!

Depends on whether the drive's motor is functional and the drive can be mounted. In that case you could use recovery software if the drive isn't otherwise accessible. If it's dead and inaccessible then you would need to send it to an expensive data recovery service.
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
You could consider getting a power supply for it. They usually aren't very expensive. Or you could try a different enclosure that supported Firewire (if your MB has a FW port.) You could also try it on a different computer.

External hard drive won't power back up when iMac wakes from sleep

I have the external hard drive connected via USB. I always put my iMac to sleep before going to bed and I wake it up when I come home from work. Except that when I do, the external hard drive doesn't power up. It still shows in Finder, but clicking on it's folders just opens them up as if they were empty. There's no access noise and the drive can't be ejected.I have to switch it's power off and turn it back on for it to spin back up.
At first I thought it was because I had Energy Saver set to power down the drives whenever possible, which works just fine when it's on, the drive powers on and off as needed just as long as the iMac doesn't go to sleep. I turned it off just to make sure and it made no difference. As soon as the iMac goes to sleep and the drives powers down, it will not come back on without a power cycle once the iMac wakes.
I've used this drive in an old Macbook for years without having this problem. The only difference is that the Macbook was on 10.6.8. I was thinking about buying a 4 bay USB enclosure and filling it up with hard drives, but I'm not about to do that if every time I put the iMac to sleep, the whole thing will not power back on without a power cycle.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Not sure if you managed to get this issue resolved yet Marcus, but I too have a similar problem:
Currently I'm upgrading from Leopard to Lion (via Snow Leopard) on both an iMac and MacBook Pro (both Intel), but before I proceed with the OSX upgrade I wanted to back everything up. Thus far I have partitioned an external firewire drive (G Drive - one that is bootable), and cloned each machine using Carbon Copy Cloner to it's own partition (both GUID). There is plenty of space left over on each partition.
The issue - I can boot the OS X from the external drive on the MacBook Pro but not on the iMac.
When I restart and hold down Option on the iMac the only drive that appears is the HDD, not the other two selectable drives that are visible if I boot up on the MacBook Pro. On the iMac in System Prefs > Startup Disc I can see all 3 drives but when I select it and restart, the machine freezes on the grey loading screen and goes no further.
Not that it should make a difference, but there is a 3rd partition on the external drive that is currently empty (for extra storage).
Any help is greatly appreciated - I can't find any relevant answers elsewhere. Thanks,
Dan

My external hard drive stays on even after I turn off my iMac. Why?

New 24” iMac (see below)
I have connected my 800 Firewire LaCie 500 Gigabyte external hard drive and it works fine. However, it doesn't turn off after I have turned off my iMac! I used Tiger before this and the very same LaCie external drive always turned off (its blue light would go off).
I am sure that my iMac is Off and is not actually still On.
Please advise, because I am not sure what could happen to my LaCie hard drive if it stays on constantly.
As for the iMac, since the instructions mention turning if off, I figure that turning it off is not harmful. Various people at the Apple Store have told me that keeping the iMac on 24 hours a day is not detrimental to the machine but I am old fashioned, I guess...... with that old fashioned paranoia about letting machines stay on all day. If I am wrong, please tell me.
~ Lorna in Southern California

Dear Dennis at LaCie support: Thank you so much for your reply. I did what you said and did indeed discover that when I unplug the LaCie 500 gig hard drive from my iMac, the hard drive turns off, which proves that there is powering still sent through the FireWire bus. It did not turn off with Tiger on my older iMac (the round white semi-circular base iMac).
BTW: I also have a LaCie 125 gig external hard drive bought several years ago. I am assuming that it has a FireWire which is rated at that 400 rather than the 800 that my 500 gig hd has. Am I right? If yes, then I will look for the cord that matches that hd. I hope that LaCie prints the number on the cord because if not, I will have a hard time.
I do see that on the new 24“ Intel iMac, the 800 port is the one farthest to the right in the back of the iMac, and the 400 port is to the left of it.
Wish me luck. I still have to figure out how I will use the 125 gig. I am now using the 500 gig for the Time Machine backups and the .Mac Backup. Also, other of the usual.
Thank you again,, Dennis. Makes me glad I bought La Cie hard drives.
I hope that the smaller one doesn't fritz up on me, since I bought it several years ago.
~ Lorna in Southern California

When ever the power goes out or I restart my iMac the external hard drive that is used by Time Machine for backups is dismounted ?

When ever the power goes out or I restart my iMac the external hard drive that is used for backups by Time Machine is dismounted and all backups are gone. I can reselect it and it will start working again, but I am worried if the iMac hard drive should fail will I be left without a backup ?

fzgy wrote:
"Mac OS X can't repair the disk. You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."
It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app can fix it, but they're expensive (DiskWarrior is about $100), and there's no guarantee it can do it.
Am prompted to reformat but I don't have a good understanding of what this means and how to do it.
That will erase it. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #5.
It sounds very much like the disk is beginning to fail, although it's possible there's a bad port, cable, connection or power supply (if it has its own).
I'd suggest getting a new one, and using it for your Time Machine backups; once you have a good backup there, reformat the old one (and select Security Options to write zeros to the whole drive -- if that fails, you know the drive is toast). Use it for secondary backups, per FAQ #27. If it has failed, get a second new one for secondary backups.

External hard drive not recognized after power outage

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External hard drive will not power up on my macbook pro

I have a 120GB external hard drive that uses a USB port and it use to power up and work but now it just makes a clicking noise and nothing is recognized. the hard drive works on every other computer even pc's. the light on the hard drive is on but does not power up. Can someone help? thanks

hello. thanks for the help. It did come with a usb cable that had two plugs on one end. I never used both because the cord was not long enough to attach to both. I didnt have this problem at first. It would start right up but now it will not start at all. It does have an option for external power supply. Do you think I messed up the usb ports in the computer? thanks again for your help.

When i click on my external hard drive the screen goes dark and a msg pops up saying i have to shut down my computer by holding the power button and then restart it. when i do that i get the same result every time. it worked perfectly last night..

when i click on my external hard drive the screen goes dark and a msg pops up saying i have to shut down my computer by holding the power button and then restart it. when i do that i get the same result every time. it worked perfectly last night..

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Ifou don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a panic, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the Console window, select
DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ System Diagnostic Reports
(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of reports. A panic report has a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".panic". Select the most recent one. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a panic, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report.
I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.

After installing Mountain Lion doesn't external hard drives mount or stay mounted. Anybody else with this major problem?

After installing Mountain Lion doesn't external hard drives mount or stay mounted.
I have tried resetting my Mac's PRAM but the problem still remains.
Even USB memory sticks are unmounted efter a few seconds.
Anybody else with this major problem?

I have the same problem, although mine has not been solved by ESET update, finder settings, PRAM & SMC resets or anything else.
Don't get it, my external hard drive still works on both my housemates computers - one macbook pro (with snow leopard) and one dell, just not on mine with mountain lion.
Any ideas for me guys?

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I have a Mac Power PC G4, OS 10.4.11, and have recently bought my first external hard drive, a LaCie Starck.
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*Firefox 4 versions and later do not run on a PowerPC Mac.
*Firefox 4 and later require at least OS X 10.5 and an Intel Mac.
* http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/5.0/system-requirements/
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* http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

External Hard Drive Power Stays On

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