Mac Desktop cannot see Western Digital HD

My Mac desktop with 10.9.4 cannot see Western Digital external hard drive when connected via Firewire 800 wire in any port.
If I use the USB 2.0 wire to connect both units, then WD works perfectly. I have tried repairing permissions,
rebooted, called WD for update, tried a brand new Firewire 800...and nothing has worked.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you.

Have you tried to zap your PRAM? Sometimes this will help when a port stops working.
Reset PRAM: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14222

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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?

Mac Min cannot see PC with either Airport Express on ethernet connections

I am trying to network a Mac Mini, G4 Power Book, a PC laptop and PC desktop so far I can get the Mini to see the G4 and PC laptop but not the PC desktop. I have an Airport express and all but the PC desktop work OK with it. The PC desktop can see the Airport, which I have called MitchBVI, but when I try and connect to it nothing happens. The wireless card in the PC is a Linksys WMP5G. I have not enabled security yet as I wanted to get the whole network operating first.
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Thanks
Mitch

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Cannot use Western Digital HDD with Pismo?

Good evening,
I am trying to use a Western Digital Passport 250GB external HDD USB with my Pismo, but it mounts the HDD, but says it is unreadable and then forwards me to the Disk Utility. It seems the HDD but I can't partition it or anything. So, I partitioned it on my G4 iMac, on which it works perfectly, and then removed it and tried to use it on the Pismo; again, no luck! Is this a fool's errand or am I doing something wrong? Please advise as I need more than the 20GB internal HDD.

spcmiller,
I am sorry the suggestion did not work but underpowered USB ports on Mac portables is an issue with external USB HDs. You have something else going on which I cannot answer.
I would suggest posting in the Powerbook G4 (15-inch Titanium):
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=129
The Titanium also has USB 1.1 ports, has issues with USB HDs, and the forum has more activity than the Older Powerbook Computers. Also, if you wish, perform a search in the Titanium forum for 'USB western digital' for many posts. I saw none that matched your experience. When you post, I would explain that you have a Pismo and were sent to this forum for the reasons I mentioned; you can even link to this thread if you wish.
Sorry I could not solve your issue.
Message was edited by: jpl

Other Mac users cannot see my shared public folder

Other users on my network cannot see my Public shared folder. I can see their public folders no problem. I can connect to my computer from another Mac and "connect as" myself and see folders.
I have File Sharing turned on. Permissions look copacetic. It says I'm the owner of the shared folder.
IT's has a profile on this same machine – its Public folder shows up for other users. When I set up a new account profile, its shared folder shows up no problem.
It may, just may, have to do with me changing my short login name after migrating to this machine. Problem is, I have no idea how to confirm that. Finder shows proper ownership and permissions in the info windows. I think there's something deeper down in the account system level that is wrong, but I don't know where to look.

squareman wrote:
It may, just may, have to do with me changing my short login name after migrating to this machine. Problem is, I have no idea how to confirm that. Finder shows proper ownership and permissions in the info windows. I think there's something deeper down in the account system level that is wrong, but I don't know where to look.
If you have admin rights, you can create a new account in System Preferences and see if that shared folder shows up on the network. If it does, then it could be related to changing short name (which I have heard you aren't suppose to do). If not, it may be something in the system. Give that a try and post back what happens.

Bootcamp: installer disk could not be found - but MAC desktop can see it

Hi,
I have an iMac intel - 17" 1.83 GHz that I put together from a box of junk. Mechanic friend took it all apart, don't ask. Installed a new hard drive of 1 terrabyte. The internal optical drive does not work so we got a new Iomega optical drive that works just great.
We want to run Windows XP Pro on this iMac - and after updating all of the software in Mac (OS 10.5.8), and running Bootcamp set up assistant, partitioned the drive to 500 GB MAC; 500 GB PC, got this error message saying that the Windows XP installer disk could not be found.
The disk appears on the desktop. I can click on it and see all of the pc files in it. I clicked on a couple of the files and got a simple text document of gibberish. But the set up assistant in Bootcamp still doesn't recognize the disk. So I have been unable to install Windows.
The disk itself is a burned copy from my university that gave me a full license for Windows XP Pro, SP 3. It's 32 bit. And it shows up as an install disk when I pop it into a PC.
I've run Disk Warrior and Disk Utilities to repair permissions and to check that the new hard drive is ok...and it's all set.
I wonder if this is because of the external dvd drive that I'm using. I can use my Macbook Pro and get the imac into target mode. But don't know if this will have me continue to bark up this tree.
Has anyone had success with the same kind of problem that I'm not facing? Thanks much in advance.
Sheila

I too got a version of Windows 7 64 Professional from the the Microsoft Software Distribution Network through Uni. I burnt the iso file on a PC to a DVD with power ISO and then tried to use it as the install disk. After some umming and arrhhing Mac OS X recognised it, the installer started, allowed to select language etc, then suddenly a box appears announcing that a required cd/dvd drive device driver is missing.
I have rang up apple support and they are pretty much saying it is a disc quality issue, but I have checked all the disc drive regimes and permissions and they all seem to be fine. I have also done it with multiple brands and a number of times, everytime the same message returned. All the latest firmware has been downloaded. One thing that was briefly mentioned by the guy at Apple support was that there was the possibility that it may be the "logic board". So the previous poster may be right. They said this was unlikely, but everything is possible. The drive works for everything in the OS X side though, so has pretty much stumped me and the Apple support people. I think the only option is to take it to an Apple shop and let them see it for themselves, not really an option for me as I need the Mac Book to write my dissertation, due in about three weeks so can't afford to lose it.
Sorry if I have slightly "jacked" the thread, but the issue sounded pretty close to mine. Any resolution or insight into what might be the issue would be amazing.
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Duncan

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I have a western digital hard disk that I am using with time machine and I wanted to do a recovery of my operating system but when I do it i'm not able to see my time machine savings because it needs a password to be activated what can I do ?

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Western digital hard drive worked fine on my pc. I connected it to my macbook and it began time capsule, but now I cannot see any of my files on either my mac or pc?

My Western digital hard drive worked fine on my pc. I connected it to my macbook and it began time capsule, but now I cannot see any of my files on either my mac or pc? Please help

Hi there,
Thanks for the reply.
I plugged my usb hard drive in and what looked like time capsule started automatically on my mac. The same hard drive worked perfectly on my laptop pc before, now it connects but isn't visible in my computer.
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Files not deleting on Western Digital My Book Mac

Hello,
I recently deleted some time machine backups on my western digital my book mac. Unfortunately these files was not been deleted from the drive (the remaining disk space has not gone up circa 300GB). I have looked online and the issues seems to be the afp connection rather than using the smb connection.
I have reconnected using this type, but I am still unable to see the files to delete. I have tried to connect using terminal, but to be honest I have no idea what I am doing. The file path is smb://WubberTimeCapsule.smb.tcp.local/My%20Book...
Has anybody else seem this problem also, does anybody know of a way of deleting these files?

leedern wrote:
Thanks, it is an external hdd (Western Digital My Book Mac) connected to my old time machine (too small to fit everything on way) via the usb cable. The time machine is connected wirelessly to my network. Unfortunately I can not see the sparse bundle files anymore.
Just for the sake of clarification, that's a +Time Capsule,+ Apple hardware combining a wireless router and hard drive. +Time Machine+ is the Apple software that does backups, to various destinations, including +Time Capsules.+
This originated because I originally created the time machine backup with the external hdd connected directly to the mac. When I transferred the disk to the old time machine, it did not reuse the previous backup but created a new one. Hence in my ignorance I deleted the old files.
Ah, yes, that's a different critter. Time Machine stores backups differently when they're done directly vs. over a network. The backups done directly were stored in a Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of the drive; the ones done over your network have that folder placed inside an odd container called a +sparse bundle.+ You cannot switch back and forth.
Which ones did you delete, and how?
It sounds like you deleted the Backups.backupdb folder, and didn't empty the trash, so they're still in the (hidden) trash folder on that drive. If so, disconnect it from your TC via +Airport Utility > Disks,+ connect it to your Mac, and empty the trash. That will take a very long time, as there are at least a few hundred thousand files there, perhaps many more.
A quick alternative would be to simply erase the drive, via Disk Utility, while it's connected to your Mac. That will erase all the new and old backups. If you just started the new set, that might be easiest.
If you decide to do that, see the green box in #Q2 of [Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule|http://web.me.com/pondini/TimeMachine/TimeCapsule.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Capsule+ forum), for a way to speed up the first full backup.

2TB Western Digital Drive won't mount in my Mac Pro. Please Help

Hello, everyone. I have a Mac Pro (MacPro1,1) with an internal drive that won't mount. I bought it used last year with 12GB RAM and 1TB hard drive and SuperDrive. I have since upgraded storage with an internal 2TB drive from Seagate (no problem), and a 500GB drive (no problem) from Western Digital, and installed a second optical drive from an old Power Mac G5. I had an additional newer 2TB drive from WD that I bought as an external. I took it out of its case and put it in a carrier and then in Bay 4 of my Mac Pro. It's the only drive I've had problems with, and I don't know why. The drive is immediately rejected by OS X upon startup. The options include "Eject" and "Initialize..." but I've clicked initialize every time. Disk Utility opens and I can see the drive but for whatever reason, it will not mount. There is one partition on it, and I think when I bought it, I formatted it with GUID and Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I haven't used it as a Time Machine drive, but I've backed up some files on it. I've restarted several times, and I'm not sure if I can hear it spinning inside my computer.
Should I pull it out and see if the partition is still on the disk? Wha

When DU launches or launch it yourself, that is the most useless "eject, ignore" and there is no real initialize command anyway anymore.... Click on raw drive WDxxxx and goto Partition tab, change the number of partitions to anything (another silly item) so you can go to the Advanced Options finally
WD MyBook drives are often not standard SATA drives with power and data connectors.
Does it look like one?
It should be GUID but make sure, you can also tell from the status below.
Might even change it to something else, erase, then set it back to GUID.
Apply. And only then does it matter what user partitions you create.
Jump through hoops for no reason.
If you have Windows or a PC, use WD Lifebuard. Great at testing any SATA drive.
Quick format with zeroes. Then Extended Test. Maybe even Full Format with zeroes to insure no bad sectors.
When and where, at what point in time, did you use it and write files to it?
By "carrier" I assume you mean the drive sled to go inside the Mac Pro.
Did you ever use it in an SATA external other than WD? some of their MyBooks are moled into and drive and case cannot be used separated.

Can i use exfat format for my external western digital harddrive so that i can use in both windows and mac?

can i use exfat format for my external western digital harddrive so that i can use in both windows and mac?
thanks in advance.
<Email Edited by Host>

Yes you can. OS X version 10.6.6 and later can read/write exFAT. Windows XP SP3 and later can read/write exFAT. As posted by Radiation Mac, you can do it from Windows or from OS X.
However, I've noticed Windows to be somewhat picky about drives formatted on a Mac. So, if Windows can't read it, try formatting it on the Windows machine, and see how it works on the Mac.
Posting your email on a public forum isn't a very good idea. It will likely be harvested by spambots and used as the reply-to address for spam it sends out.
Also, most people are not going to send an email to you for similar reasons. Nobody knows who you are, so sending an email to you could be giving a spammer a valid email address.
The forum is set up to automatically notify you when there are responses to your questions. When you get one, you would log back into this forum and check to see what the answer was.

Cannot see my external hard drive on the desktop

Hi,
I am at the tail end of a large documentary project on FCP. Suddenly, this evening my external hard drive (Maxtor One Touch III, Turbo Edition, 1.5TB) becomes sluggish. I shut down (all properly) and restart and the external hard drive is no longer on the desktop (does not mount and cannot be seen anywhere).
I change ports (from one FW400 to another), try connecting to a different Mac (was running on an iMac, try connecting onto a G5) and still cannot see the hard drive. I try connecting using USB2 and still cannot see it on the desktop. I run disk utility and the hard drive shows up in menu on the left, I am able to run "verify disk" as well as "repair disk" - hard drive is fine, no errors no problems. However, I still am not able to access the drive - just does not show up on the desktop or anywhere else where I can get into it. I run the install disk that came with the hard drive (Maxtor) and a backup utility can detect the drive and shows that 1.37 TB of data is safe (so no data loss) but I can still not detect the Hard drive. I also noticed that the light on the hard drive is active indicating that the drive is being accessed.
Problem is simply that both my Macs do not show the drive regardless of how I connect them to the drive (FW400, FW800, USB2 and every port has been tried).
Need help here...please....
I realize this might be more suited for a general OSX or Hard drive issue, but since I have always got great answers from FCP users that I am posting this question here.

Hello all,
Thank you for all your comments and suggestions. I downloaded Disk Warrior 4 from Alsoft - paid $108, followed the instructions to the letter (after reading and rereading sevral times) and ran the utility...it detected the Maxtor HD, pointed out several errors, repaired the errors, and then gave me the option to preview the new and compare to the old HD...this is where things went wrong. There was no HD to be seen - new or old...same problem. HD is not visible on my Finder, on the Disk Warrior Preview or on the desktop. I went ahead and rebuilt the HD...all errors fixed, Disk Warrior states that all is fine and dandy and that my hard drive should be perfect and I can access it...BUT its still not there, I cannot see it on the desktop nor anywhere else.
It shows up in Disk Utility as a page icon - but I cannot access it.
So, unfortunately for me...my problem still remains and I am now out a hundred bucks!
Please, anybody out there - who can give me some direction - I would greatly appreciate it.
BTW, the data is still all there and the light on the front of the drive keeps flashing indicating something is going on...but drive is not mounted, invisible.
I read on the Maxtor packaging something about a built in Maxtor DriveLock - a password protected security measure against theft and loss...could I have inadvertently activated that and that is causing the problem...please advise.

Cannot boot from 750GB Western Digital Scorpio Black

I just installed a new 750GB 7200rpm Western Digital Scorpio Black in my early 2008 15" MacBook Pro (last pre-unibody). I can boot the computer from the Scorpio Black when it's in an external enclosure, I can boot another computer, a MacBook, from the Scorpio Black via firewire while that's installed in my MacBook Pro, but what I cannot do is get the MacBook Pro to boot off the Scorpio Black as the internal drive. It will recognize it and show the main and recovery partititions, but it won't boot the OS (10.7.1.).
Here's a rundown of the installation and troubleshooting steps I've taken:
1.) Installed the drive in an external USB enclosure, formatted GUID partition table (GPT), file system HFS+ extended journaled.
1.b) Downloaded and installed Lion (10.7.1) from the App Store, used migration assistant to transfer accounts from my (now former) internal drive, and then booted from the Scorpio Black in the external enclosure to ensure everything worked fine.
2.) Installed the drive via iFixit instructions. Everything fit properly and I double checked the SATA connector was seated correctly.
3.) Booted computer for the first time with the Scorpio Black. It stuck at a spinning wheel on a grey screen.
4.) Held down option key at startup -- the computer showed the main partition and the recovery partition on the Scorpio Black as the startup drive options.
5.) Tried the recovery partition -- spinning wheel on a grey screen.
6.) Tried safe verbose boot (command - shift - v) -- it interleaves "still waiting for root device" with "SATA WARNING: Enable Drive PHY PM failed" and "SATA WARNING: auto-activate failed".
7.) Reset PRAM & NVRAM -- no joy.
8.) Connected the MacBook Pro via firewire to a Core 2 Duo white MacBook also running 10.7.1. The MacBook recognized the drive and in Disk Utility, I could see all the partitions on it.
9.) Ran repair volume (for the drive) and repair partition (for my main partition) from disk utility on the MacBook -- it said everything's fine with both.
10.) In system preferences, set the Scorpio Black as the startup drive for the MacBook.
11.) Astonishingly, the MacBook booted up just fine off the Scorpio Black in the MacBook Pro. I logged in, opened a few photos and played a video. Everything worked just peachy.
12.) Booted the MacBook Pro off my old internal hard drive, now in an external enclosure.
13.) Disk utility sees the internal Scorpio Black, and reports everything is fine with the volume and the partition.
14.) System profiler says everything is fine when I check under SATA. SMART status is verified.
Which brings me to step 15: admit defeat and ask for help. Any suggestions? The exact model number of the drive is WD7500BKPT. I purchased it from Other World Computing.
Thanks for any help.
Cheers.

I actually first replaced the stock hard drive with a Western Digital 500 GB Scorpio Blue (i.e., a 5400 rpm drive). Here's what I can tell you about all three.
First, I didn't notice any difference in noise, vibration or power consumption between any of the drives. The computer felt stock with both of the Western Digital drives.
In terms of speed, my understanding is, all other things being equal, a larger drive is always faster than a lower capacity drive (I believe that's because more of the data is on the faster rotating outer areas). That being said, the step up to the 750GB 7200 rpm Scorpio Black was a bigger one than to the 500 GB 5400 rpm Scorpio Blue -- it gave a noticeable bump in performance. Opening my Aperture library and browsing photos went from sluggish and borderline unusuable to acceptable, or even good.
Bottom line, it's not a solid state drive, so don't expect MacBook Air levels of responsiveness, but I can wholeheartedly recommend the Scorpio Black.

Mac Desktop cannot see Western Digital HD

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