Leopard/external HDD issue.

Being that my paltry 80GB hard drive in my Powerbook cannot hold even my music collection, I run my iTunes library from my external HDD. Since externals are notoriously unreliable, I have it stop spinning after a time without usage.
However, since getting Leopard, this is becoming horribly irritating. Even with no use at all—maybe I won't even be at the computer—my external will start spinning. Then, soon, it will shut off again. After a while, it'll start spinning, and so forth.
This is annoying in its own right. Then, just as annoying, is that it will start up even with such little actions as waking my display from sleep. The hard drive shouldn't be used in that instance, so why does it start up?
Is this just an irrevocable issue with Leopard, or is there something I can do?

Pat Francis wrote:
I run my iTunes library from my external HDD. Since externals are notoriously unreliable, I have it stop spinning after a time without usage.
I'm not sure where you get your information that external disks are unreliable. IMO they are no more or less reliable than internal disks.
As far as spinning up, that's happened to me in every system I've used. Usually it will spin up just when I'm about to enter a name in the "Save As" field
Also, the choices to "put the disks to sleep" in System Preferences >> Energy Saver do not work on external drives. Any drive will spin down after 10-20 minutes of inactivity and spin up again when called upon.
So the short answer is there's nothing you can do about it, except to unmount the external.
-mj

Similar Messages

External HDD Issues with Snow Leopard and Time Machine

Hello,
I have a 1TB WD 10EADS External HDD, and it had some files on it. I connected it the other day to an iMac I recently upgraded to 10.6, and wanted to do a complete time machine backup of the computer to it (250GB HDD). I copied the files off the external HDD I needed and then Time Machine needed to format it as it was a FAT32 drive. This went successfully, and I started the Time Machine backup. This went quite slowly and failed after ~2.5GB or so. I restarted and tried again to no avail upon which Time Machine told me I should reformat it in Disk Utility. So I did, and to no avail.
I tried this a number of times and sometimes when doing a reformat I was told that the drive could not be unmounted. I tried manually copying files to the disk which started to work but then failed promptly with error (-36) and the message "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in “ [Program/File Name]” can't be read or written." I upgraded to 10.6.1 also to no avail. I even repaired permissions and the disk, and booted Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard disc and formatted that to no avail.
I have read this is an I/O error and can be associated with bad drives, but as I stated before, the drive worked perfectly until Time Machine formatted it. I took the HDD to another Mac running 10.6, and it told me it had a POSIX error. I did some googling and found that if I format it under a Windows machine, and then reformat under the mac it might work.
What I want to know is, is this a 10.6 error or has the HDD decided to go kaput after Time Machine formatting it?
Thanks for your help

Thomas Huxley wrote:
Time Machine backup failed. I think it's a glitch with the computer, not the HDD. Going to zero out the drive now.
Any other suggestions on how I might bypass this error to get data onto the Disk eg. transfer over to another computer, so I can reformat the computer and install Snow Leopard from scratch? The whole purpose of doing this time Machine backup was to get all the files off the computer to perform a clean install of Snow Leopard.
I assume you're positive the TM disk has both the correct *Partition Map Scheme* (GUID) and Format (Mac OS Extended (journaled), but not case-sensitive)? One of them being wrong is the most common cause of a first TM backup failing.
Did you do either a +*Verify Disk+* (not permissions) or a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your internal HD, or only your TM drive? The message you got could be a result of a problem on either one.
Other options are to make a "bootable clone" via CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. CCC is donationware, SD has a free version that will do it. If you do that, boot from it, and be sure everything works before erasing your internal HD. Google them.
Note that there are many, many reports of problems here with WD drives, and that some of them are not bootable.
I would not upgrade without backups (Murphy was an optimist!), but is there a reason you want to erase your HD? It's not required, and rarely does any good. The normal install will simply install Snow Leopard and remove Leopard. Your apps, data, etc., won't be touched.

LaCie External HDD issue

I have a LaCie Porche external HDD (the SAMSUNG HD753LJ model) connected to my iMac. When I unmount the HDD it stops spinning. But when I turn off the computer, it still keeps spinning and make noise unless I turn the HDD off as well.
Any ideas if this behavior can be fixed or not? I searched the LaCie website but couldn't find a patch or something for fixing this issue.
Is possible to fix this using OS X tools and utilities?
Thanks in advance,
Behrang

This is an "old" one - I think. I tried to find the last thread but failed. Anyway, here goes - there is a slight difference in what you have said your problem is and the problem I had (have). I have two La Cie Porsche drives. The first a firewire 250GB. This has worked fine from the first day and whether connected to the iMac or the MBP shuts down after a period of inactivity or when the computer goes to sleep. It stays permanently plugged into the mains and the iMac.
The second drive is a 500GB USB 2.0. This is where the problem starts. If it is plugged into the mains and switched on it will spin. It does not matter if the computer is asleep or not. It does not matter whether it is connected to the computer or not - if it is powered up it will spin. The only way to stop it is to unmount it and switch it off. I only switch mine on when I need it.
I contacted La Cie about this. Initially they said it should spin down but later contacted me to say the early ones did but there was a design change in the driver and now they do not. So there you have it - not sure if these are Samsung drives or not. Your observation that it spins down when you unmount it does not match the above so they may have changed something else again.
Hope it might help.
TY

Quicktime/Snow Leopard/External HDD Sleeping

Hello,
I recently bought a Mac Mini - very happy with it so far, however i have now got one small problem...
I previously had a PC with WinXP on it, and i stored loads of college and work related odds and sods on my WD 500Gb External HDD. So i connected it to my brand new mac, and it works beautifully....except for when i go to play a video in the Macs built-in Quicktime. The video is being loaded from my External HDD will get about 5-10 mins in then the HDD will go to sleep...like it's not being used....This then crashes Quicktime and Finder comes up with an error message "You should not eject a disk while it is being used...ect"
Cheeky Mac! I didn't eject it, it feel asleep and thus disconnected itself to save power or somethink....
I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem, or if there is something really obvious i'm doing wrong.... Can anyone help?

You may want to check with WD and tell them you are using it with a mac. I think it's firmware may not know it's on a mac and puts it to sleep. I know seagate for windows drives on a mac can do this.

WRT610N external hdd issue

Hi,
I have bought wrt610n and connected to him WD 1TB hdd. When I save files to hdd when it is connected to router is everything ok. But when i disconnect it from router and connect to pc and write files to external hdd, then connect back to router, I cannot see files written, when hdd was connected to pc. Maybe there are ideas how to solve this problem?

When you connect the hdd to the computer and write files on hdd probably you are not able to see those files in the hdd when you connect it to the router due to different file format.
So, it's better to leave the hdd connected to the router and write the files through the computer and then check.

USB external HDD issues

Hi,
I was wondering whether anyone can give me some clue as to how to get my Astone 320G portable HDD to work under Leopard? It works perfectly under the other Windows mchines I have in the house - 1 Dell laptop and the other a no-brand PC workstation.
The Macbook Pro doesn't see it at all in Finder or Disk Utility. A USB Probe does see it and the output is pasted below. Any help would be great as it's now in hair pulling phase
Cheers
Martin
High Speed device @ 4 (0xFA200000): ............................................. Composite device: "USB4500 FW1.04"
Device Descriptor
Descriptor Version Number: 0x0200
Device Class: 0 (Composite)
Device Subclass: 0
Device Protocol: 0
Device MaxPacketSize: 64
Device VendorID/ProductID: 0xED06/0x4500 (unknown vendor)
Device Version Number: 0x0001
Number of Configurations: 1
Manufacturer String: 16 "DATAST0R Technology Corp"
Product String: 32 "USB4500 FW1.04"
Serial Number String: 48 "1966051022645658"
Configuration Descriptor: ....................................... "1966051022645658"
Length (and contents): 32
Raw Descriptor (hex) 0000: 09 02 20 00 01 01 30 C0 31 09 04 00 00 02 08 06
Raw Descriptor (hex) 0010: 50 40 07 05 81 02 00 02 00 07 05 02 02 00 02 00
Unknown Descriptor 0020:
Number of Interfaces: 1
Configuration Value: 1
Attributes: 0xC0 (self-powered)
MaxPower: 98 ma
Interface #0 - Mass Storage/SCSI
Alternate Setting 0
Number of Endpoints 2
Interface Class: 8 (Mass Storage)
Interface Subclass; 6 (SCSI)
Interface Protocol: 80
Endpoint 0x81 - Bulk Input
Address: 0x81 (IN)
Attributes: 0x02 (Bulk no synchronization data endpoint)
Max Packet Size: 512
Polling Interval: 0 ( Endpoint never NAKs)
Endpoint 0x02 - Bulk Output
Address: 0x02 (OUT)
Attributes: 0x02 (Bulk no synchronization data endpoint)
Max Packet Size: 512
Polling Interval: 0 ( Endpoint never NAKs)
Device Qualifier Descriptor
Descriptor Version Number: 0x0200
Device Class 0 (Composite)
Device Subclass 0
Device Protocol 0
Device MaxPacketSize: 64
Number of Configurations: 1
bReserved: 0
Other Speed Configuration Descriptor: ....................................... "1966051022645658"
Length (and contents): 32
Raw Descriptor (hex) 0000: 09 07 20 00 01 01 30 C0 31 09 04 00 00 02 08 06
Raw Descriptor (hex) 0010: 50 40 07 05 81 02 40 00 00 07 05 02 02 40 00 00
Unknown Descriptor 0020:
Number of Interfaces: 1
Configuration Value: 1
Attributes: 0xC0 (self-powered)
MaxPower: 98 ma
Interface #0 - Mass Storage/SCSI
Alternate Setting 0
Number of Endpoints 2
Interface Class: 8 (Mass Storage)
Interface Subclass; 6 (SCSI)
Interface Protocol: 80
Endpoint 0x81 - Bulk Input
Address: 0x81 (IN)
Attributes: 0x02 (Bulk no synchronization data endpoint)
Max Packet Size: 64
Polling Interval: 0 ms
Endpoint 0x02 - Bulk Output
Address: 0x02 (OUT)
Attributes: 0x02 (Bulk no synchronization data endpoint)
Max Packet Size: 64
Polling Interval: 0 ms

Rastarr,
The problem here seems to be that you have an external hard drive that can be compatible with either the Mac or the PC. The problem as I see it is that it was formatted for the PC which means of course when you plug it into the Mac that the Mac isn't going to see it. The second problem is erasing it and reformatting it for the Mac. Sounds like you are pretty tired of fiddling with it here. Your best bet might be to call or email the drive manufacturer's support desk and ask them.
I'm not sure but I don't think that Leopard will recognize the FAT32 format.
I know you probably have tried this but try erasing the disk and then try mounting it to your Mac and then run disk utility. It sounds like a pure formatting issue and you have to get it into a format that the Mac will recognize.

External HDD Issue

Okay to start off I really wasnt sure where I should post this but I need help with it and figured the Mac community is usually very helpful so I thought I'd give it a try. My friend bought a notebook on IBUYPOWER.com and along with it he bought a 100GB external usb disk. The hard drive keeps giving us issues. Im not sure what it does on windows but on OS X the hard drive will mount up and you can open it but if you try to put anything on it it will give me a blank error message and then cause the finder the crash more or less. I tried opening Disk Utility to mess with it hoping it would work but it doesnt because when i do so much as verify the disk it tells me error: disk could not be unmounted. I tried taking out the 100GB disk and replaced it with a Hitachi Travelstar 15GB hard drive pulled from a Dell Jukebox mp3 player and it did that same thing leading me to believe its the USB bridge in the external case. What should I do. i tried contacting Masscool but havent heard a response and it's been quite a few days and I just emailed IBUYPOWER. Your thoughts?
iBook 1.33 GHz 512 RAM Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Give it back and get yourself a firewire hard drive.

External hdd and usb issue

Hey there... May sound like a silly question but I am having a problem with an external hdd.
I recently bought a brand-spanking new macbook pro w. retina and can't find my external hdd when I plug it in.
Theoretically, there should be no problem between the old hdd's usb 2 and the new macbook's usb 3, and the new computer is only a week old, so what I was wondering was whether anyone knew if there might be any interface issue between the old hdd (can't remember exactly what the os was - it was either leopard or snow leopard...10.6.something as i recall) and the new one (10.8.3)?
Or should I just go ahead and weep over the old lost hdd?
Appreciate any help

Unreliable wireless performance may occur when USB 3.0 external devices are close

Itunes and all my movies have disappeared,i can no longer add to library from my external hdd which ive always used and can only add from the laptops own hard drive,any ideas what the issue could be?

ive recently updated, itunes and all my movies have disappeared,i can no longer add to library from my external hdd which ive always used and can only add from the laptops own hard drive,any ideas what the issue could be?if i transfer the movies from the external to the laptop they will add to the library without any problem so theres no issue with the laptop but when i go to add file in itunes i can path to the external but as soon as i select the file nothing happens, just goes back to itunes

This happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes .
tt2

Installed OS X Snow Leopard on external HDD, now won't allow me to delete files from Mac internal drive

Hi,
I am stuck! My 1 TB iMac 27" decided to stop booting up and would only stay at the grey screen with the apple, gear turning and progress bar. When it got to a certain point on the progress bar it would shut down. Thanks to so many helpful people and their experiences I was able to try many different things including (Command + S, typing /sbin/mount -uw / enter , chmod 775 / enter, logout enter, then rebooting holding down Command + V) and (Reinstalling OS X and using Disk Utility to repair - came up with Disk can't be fixed).
Nothing worked until I read a couple of very wise answers who said "Your hard drive is not dead, but too full...keep at least 10% free at all times". I was down to about 1% (ooops!) Thankfully hubby had bought me an external HDD for Christmas, onto which I installed OS X and being connected to my iMac, it recognized my internal Macintosh HD and all my files are there. Phewww! But I don't want to use my external HDD as my startup disk, I wan't to keep my Macintosh HD for startup but it is too full to repair and select as startup.
My problem is that I cannot delete files from Macintosh HD, and I've tried to unlock files/folders but they don't seem to be locked. But when I drag them to the trash can it says "The item ... can't be moved to the Trash because it can't be deleted." Again, many helpful answers online, but nothing is working. I have 2 Finder windows open, one with external HDD (new startup disk), and old HDD (Macintosh HD) but all items in Macintosh HD can't be altered or deleted (right click doesn't highlight to change the name). So if I can't delete my files, I can't reinstall OS X and repair disk and select it as my startup disk. I'd be so thrilled if someone can help me. I have tried unlocking folders, and I downloaded 'Trashit'. Neither worked, so I figure because it has the little pencil crossed out on the menu bar that it is protected somehow...I just don't know how/what to do. Thanks

Ok, so I'll try set it out a bit clearer than my first post,
This is what I've done, and the results:
1. My son unplugged working iMac Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.2, 1TB with only 11GB available space
2. Turned it on and got the white screen, apple, turning gear and load-up bar
3. Turned Mac off and waited 1/2 a minute.
4. Turned Mac back on...(same as 3.), tried again many times
5. Began searching internet for answers (see original post)
6. Found answers and did the following:
               1.     Put OS X installation disk into drive
               2.     Attached External Hard Drive
               3.     Installed OS X onto External Hard Drive (With a different name & password to original HDD)
               4.     Found Macintosh HD still worked so tried to delete files only to get message saying                                           files couldn't be deleted (see original post)
I've tried changing the permissions in 'Get Info' and this is what happens:
1.Right click Macintosh HD - says "You can only read"
                                                  Name: System - Read & Write
                                                             Admin -   Read & Write
                                                             Everyone - Read only
2.Click on padlock to unlock - doesn't turn black to be able to change anything
3.Check the box "Ignore ownership on this volume" (someone else advised to do this)
4.Name changes to 'mydrive (Me)'
5.Lock padlock and Name still says mydrive (Me) but still 'You can only read'
I don't know what is wrong or what to do, but perhaps you are right LowLuster, that because I named them different names it is protected in some way.
My thought now is to copy all my files to the external HDD and then erase and install again on my internal HD, but I really need my calendar, emails etc from my old HD and not sure they can be found on the old HD to copy over.
Still stuck!

Upgrading to Snow Leopard when startup disk is already an external HDD

Hi All,
Am just in the process of upgrading to Snow Leopard (currently running Leopard) on my Mac Mini. When originally setting up the Mini, I created an external HDD as the "startup" disk.
Now when attempting to upgrade, I only have the option to upgrade on to the Macintosh HDD as the upgrade disk tells me that the external HDD can't be used because it doesn't use the GUID Partition Table scheme.
I know I can use the Disk Utility to change the partition scheme on the external HDD, however will doing this erase the existing data on the HDD and potentially leave me with a Macintosh HDD that isn't the startup disk and an external HDD without an operating system?
Any advice on how to properly partition the external HDD and effectively upgrade to Snow Leopard when I'm already running Leopard OS X from an external HDD would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Lee

leemathers wrote:
I know I can use the Disk Utility to change the partition scheme on the external HDD, however will doing this erase the existing data on the HDD and potentially leave me with a Macintosh HDD that isn't the startup disk and an external HDD without an operating system?
Any advice on how to properly partition the external HDD and effectively upgrade to Snow Leopard when I'm already running Leopard OS X from an external HDD would be greatly appreciated.
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
I don't see any alternative other than making a complete backup of that external drive, redeclaring the partition scheme, then restoring the backed-up data to it. A side benefit is that you'll now have a backup of everything in case something goes wrong with the upgrade, which is an excellent idea anyway.

Can't use my mac since mavericks update but I didn't backup when I had snow leopard because I had no external hdd until I recently bought one. Can I revert back to SL?

So, here's the thing I just upgraded to Mac OS X Mavericks from SL but since upgrading my mac shuts off immediately by itself so I use it in safe boot. When I was running SL I didn't backup my stuff because I had external hdd, but I just bought one and I want revert back to snow leopard. How do I go back to snow leopard while also taking all my saved stuff even though I didn't backup it back then when I using SL?

Hei [email protected]
PROBLEM
=========
After upgrading to maverick 10.9.2 my camera stopped working on my iMac and on my MacBookPro.
First I suspected that it was the maverick upgrade, which was the problem.
After spending several days with searching on the internet and trying all the different suggestions.
Which included re-format hard disk, re-install Maverick again, safe boot, removing old *.kext files, repair disk, check disk with permissions etc. etc. (waste of time)
I phoned apple support, but supporter said that it was a non apple App which caused the problem.
Then I say somebody saying that the AirDisplay was the problem.
SOLUTION
==========
I finally found out that:
By uninstalling the AirDisplay solved the problem, and now the camera works again.
Here is the link how to uninstall AirDisplay:
http://www.avatron.com/support/faq-air-display/#toggle-id-24
PLEASE Avatron
==============
When do Avatron have a fix for this particular problem. No update was available today when I tried.
Are Avatron working on the problem?
A lot of people have this problem with AirDisplay and Maverick Update 10.9.2 !!!!!
search google
maverick 10.9.2 facetime camera air display not working
Regards
Finn Rosenkilde Rasmussen / (+45) 48 24 60 30
http://www.linkedin.com/in/hvepseeksperten
HvepseEksperten.dk ApS
Kongens Vænge 79
3400 Hillerød
Denmark

Tiger's external HDD not showing up in leopard

Hi, I just got myself a new MacBook Pro and it has Leopard on it. I also have my mac mini running tiger. The mac mini has an external harddrive which I need to access from the laptop.
I can see all normal mounted drives from leopard, but the external hard drive will not show up. I desperately need files off it and I have no idea how to solve this.
Thanks
-Rob

Okay -- some kind of progress.
If i share the external hdd using sharepoints i can access it through smb://{compname}/hdd
yet it refuses to show up automatically under the shared folder in leopard's finder.
I have a feeling its something minute and silly -- but I just can't figure it out, any help would be appreciated

Install snow leopard on external hdd using windows

My laptop logic board broke. So I wasn't able to erase the hdd. So I took it out put it into my external hdd enclosure. Now I'm stuck on how I would reinstall a fresh copy on the hdd when I only have a windows computer available. I could get a Mac one but that would be a little harder to do, since I have one and I have to go outta my friends. Anyone have a way for me??

Ummm, this is posted in the forum for help with iTunes on Mac.
Fresh copy of what? You're trying to install Snow Leopard on a Windows computer?? Or you are trying to install iTunes on a Snow Leopard drive in an external enclosure to run on a Windows computer? Need some clarity here please.

Preview issue with external HDD

Hi,
I have a problem with Preview and external HDD. Preview doesn't recognize my external HDD, at least the pictures on it. When I try to open any image on External HDD, Preview says, that the file doesn't exist. But when I open the picture with Safari or Pixelmator or Firefox, it opens. What could be the problem?
Sorry for my bad English.

It didn't help. When I tried to add it on the privacy list, it says, that it couldn't be added because of unknown error. And i noticed, that when I open something in TextEdit or Pixelmator, they wont save it on the External HDD, but when I choose Save As... and from there choose my External HDD, theres no problems.
Messy text but I hope You understand.

Leopard/external HDD issue.

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