My new 24in imac doesn't recognize my usb external hard drive- snow leopard

i was attempting to do a new time machine back up on my new mac but it won't recognize the usb external hard drive (kaser 250gb). i used it frequently on my old g5 imac, no problems. i plugged the hard drive into my g4 ibook and it recognized it right away. i followed the apple tip of pulling the power plug out of the wall power socket and pulled all the usb cables out as well (i have the wireless keyboard). i let it rest for over 5 minutes and only plugged in my wacom stylus and usb external hard drive. still nothing. and it doesn't show either in disk utility. i also downloaded as per another thread the 3g ntfs system preference but to no avail. the only thing i can of doing is erase and reformat my external on my ibook, but i don't want to risk loosing the data without a back up.
anything else i can try? (before i buy time capsule) thanks

i just checked again by plugging the external into my ibook g4 and checked how it was formatted - mac os extended (journaled).
Then the 3GFS software is not required at all.
i have an idea, not sure if it will work and it will have to wait a couple days until i get my firewire back from a friend, but this is what i'm thinking: my intel imac has a 1tb hard drive. could i use target mode between my imac and ibook? with my ibook i'd attach the external hard drive, then using the firewire and target mode start it up. hoping that the ibook hard drive and the attached external hard drive would show on my intel mac for which i could copy over the external back ups onto my imac. once completed, i could erase and reformat the external on my ibook and then try again on my imac to see if it appears on my desktop. do you think this might work (even though it is correctly formatted already?)
I use Target mode on a regular basis for mounting the internal drive on a Mac to transfer or salvage data. I don't know if you will be able to connect to an external drive on the Target computer. There's not usually any reason for this and I don't know if the Target Mode will enable the Logic board to deal with the USB ports and transfer data. I kinda doubt it, but other more experienced users can jump in here.
I don't think the problem with your external drive is the format, since you've already checked it and it is already formatted for a Mac. Intel Mac's will mount drives formatted by a PPC Mac with no problems, unless your OS doesn't support the chipset in the USB case that connects to the drive. There are some USB drives that are known to not work well with SL but worked fine with Leopard.
You can buy a cheap USB case (about $30) and move the drive from the old case to the new case, or buy a USB to IDE adaptor cable (about $20), or you can buy a larger external drive that will work on the iMac and use the G4 to transfer the date from the old drive to a new one. Or you can take both drives to a friend with a Mac and use Disk Utility to restore the USB drive to a partition on the Firewire drive. That doesn't fix the USB drive to work with your new Mac, but unless the vendor comes out with a firmware fix, I think that's a lost cause anyway.
other than the above, i may just go buy a 1tb time capsule,
I would not be getting a Time Capsule to back up a single computer. Wireless backups are a lot slower than FireWire or USB (of course, it's the initial backup that takes so much time). If you do have several Mac's that need a TM backup volume, then the Capsule can help you out. It is supported by Apple (and there are a lot of users here in the forums). I'm using a ReadyNAS device for network backups, but it is not supported by Apple, and I have to rely on NetGear for fixes if an OS update breaks my backup system.
BTW, it's a good chance that a TC device will be able to see and mount your USB drive. The incompatible chipset problem with some drives seems to be limited to the USB drivers in SL which the TC is not running. That's why I said that a USB hub may also let you see your drive, the problem is there's no guarantee's...

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3. Tried to remove all other USB's in use and still no joy
4. Tried to turn computer off and remove power for 10 mins and still no joy.
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Thanks BDAqua I tried your solution as I mentioned in point 4 or my initial discussion but this did not work.
I only have a USB do you think I should buy a firewire cable and try that?
My USB works for everything I've tried apart from portable hard discs.
The firewire bug link you sent is obviously for firewire issues so I assume I don't need to read this until I have tried a firewire cable?
What do you mean by this statement "If so, I suspect the AC PSU if it has one."?
I'm not technical so couldn't understand the acronyms or how this statment tied in with the previous instructions.
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Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
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Hello Everyone....
So I have a 17" Macbook Pro, that was recently repaired under Future Shop's PSP that I purchased. They wiped it completely clean, so I essentially have a brand new computer again.
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I am new to using a mac. I have had an iphone for almost a year so I am catching on quickly to my macbook but this problem has stumped me and all my mac using friends.
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Can an intel iMac run OSX Tiger from an external hard drive?

Hi can anyone please tell me if it is possible to run OSX Tiger from an external hard drive on an Intel iMac running OSX 10.5 Leopard or later?
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At the moment I am running Tiger on a partitioned hard drive shared with OSX Leopard and wish to upgrade to an intel Mac. I need tiger to run some software not compatible with newer Macs and also to access OS9 Classic. Thanx for your help.

IF you upgraded from Panther as you know you do not have an Intel based iMac. I beleive the limit of your upgrades on your current machine is going to be Leopard. The system requirements for Snow Leopard are:
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My new 24in imac doesn't recognize my usb external hard drive- snow leopard

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