Not mounting external hard drives

Hi all,
Amoungst a million other problems with my MacBook at the moment, as well as the infamous turning itself off problem, my MacBook Fails to recognise either my Iomega 100GB portable hard disk via USB or my LaCie 160GB external hard disk via firewire or USB. My iomega drive worked when I first got my cursed MacBook, the LaCie Drive is brand new and now mounts when i startup with the drive connected. Other peripherals work via my USB ports however I also have a problem with USB keys.
System profiler recognises both devices, however neither mount onto my desktop. I tried to reformat using disk utilities however the drives were not seen by the program. I therefore reformatted the iomega portable drive from FAT32 to Mac OS extended using a G4 iBook, and even after that it failed to mount.
Hope you guys can help.
Many thanks,
A frustrated MacLover

I've noticed the Firewire bus to be less stable under Intel chips, but I'm not positive. It may be that my devices are just getting tired.
Anyhow... troubleshooting (when was the last time you cleared the PRAM?)
1. Turn off your MacBook (not restart, power off)
2. Turn it back on, wait for it to fully startup
3. With the power connected and the drive turned on, connect the Firewire drive
If it still doesn't work, can you try a different Firewire cable? I'm guessing the cable probably works fine on your iBok G4, right? If it still doesn't work, it would seem that the Firewire port is not working properly. You can also try booting up with your install DVD and see if Disk Utility can read your Firewire drive. If it does then you might need to reinstall OS X.
USB portable drive
Repeat steps 1 and 2 above
3. Plug your MacBook into AC power (my USB drive will not mount unless I plug into AC power)
4. Connect your USB drive
Again, I'm guessing this drive too works fine with your iBook?
You could try accessing the drive while booting up from the install DVD too. This should rule out whether it is a software or hardware problem.
It's a hardware problem if you can't access either the Firewire or USB drive (on AC power) while booting up from your install DVD. It's a software problem if you can.
Good luck
Greg

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