Osx sees usb hard drive as locked cd aften power out

after a power out my external hard drive now reads as a locked cd any ideas on how to retieve my files
Disk Description : DMI USB2.0 CD-ROM Media Total Capacity : 139.0 MB (145,711,104 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB Write Ability : Read Only (Unknown)
Connection Type : External Capabilities :
USB Serial Number : 020807001A69 Partition Scheme : CDpartitionscheme
this is what disk utility says..

I don't know what's going on either but I would like to offer some advice for the future. Consider getting a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) which will provide temporary battery backup and allow gracefull shutting down of your system if a power failure occurs.
Regards,
Steve M.

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Airport "sees" USB hard drives, but Finder can't find them!

Yesterday, my iMac's Finder could see my external USB hard drive connected to AIrport, but not today. Airport sees it right now--I've checked and updated it and restarted it. Finder still can't find the drive. I click on my Airport connection in the Finder sidebar, my usual route to the hard drive, but the connection window hangs. And hangs. I need access to the files on that hard drive. Problem is, another iMac using Tiger needs access, too, so I can't disconnect arbitrarily. With that iMac, Tiger's Finder sees the files, and can access them. But not this 20" 2.4G iMac with Leopard 10.5.3. What's going on?

floba,
the first solution, clearing the entire index and letting it rebuild, did not work.
But setting the drive in 'privacy' and then removing it did immediately work, my search window which was left open refreshed instantly to reveal my items. I'm curious however if it will stick..
i have another issue that may be completely unrelated, but maybe not..
i clear my spotlight shortcut key (command+spacebar) because it conflicts with common Adobe app commands i use. But i frequently will find that this shortcut key is RE-ENABLED. At the same time, my shortcut to use Spaces (command+f8, command+arrow keys, and command+numk keys) are CLEARED as if i had never set them. This happens consistently and is frustrating. I don't reboot very often, but i under 10.5.2 i often came home to find my computer has locked up, so it would seem these shortcuts all reset when i reboot, and i wonder if my external drive index is lost every time the drives are ejected.
Vista's completely useless search features were a main reason i gave my PC's away and bought macs. I'm obviously finding these failings frustrating on the mac. I'm even more disappointed at the news Snow Leopard is a bug fix and is selling as a separate OS. Installing additional programs is not an option, i want the OS to do what i tell it to do /rant

Installing OSX 10.5 On A USB Hard Drive?

Ok I am a complete newb to the mac world. I have never owned or operated a mac before this one. I have read several topics online about installing OSX on a external hard drive. My problem may be simple but I just cant figure it out. I have a western digital 300gb external usb hard drive. I have partitioned it to apm, went without a hitch. When I boot from my install media which is OSX 10.5, it sees my external as an option to install, but if selected it says that OSX can not be installed on that drive. Is there something that I am missing or doing wrong? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Ok great. Thanks for the reply's. It has been very helpful. And I do have the 700mhz cpu. I backed up my copy of retail OSX 10.5 DVD to a usb thumb drive and can boot successfully to the install dvd from the thumb drive. I used a program to fake the cpu speed to meet requirements of 10.5 and that worked fine. I just didnt know if I could make the iMac see the external hard drive as an internal. But I believe my question has been answered. Thank you all.

Backup a dual boot iMac with OSX + Vista to Time capsule and USB hard drive

I have just bought a Time Capsule which is now working as my WiFi Network base station and backs up an iMac and a Macbook. The iMac has both OSX and Vista (using Boot Camp) and I was using a USB Hard Drive that has 2 partitions (HFS+ for the Mac; NTFS for Vista) to back up the iMac. Rather than leave this attached to the iMac just to back up the Vista partition I would like to move it to the Time Capsule's USB port and use it as NAS. The idea being that it becomes a NAS with one partition used to back up the Windows data when I run the iMac with Vista and the other partition to archive the Time Machine backups from both the iMac and Macbook. I tried to connect it as it was but got an error and reading the forum it seems that it won't work unless both partitions are HFS+ or FAT. If I reformat the NTFS partition to HFS+ will I be able to use the built in backup function of Vista to back up the Vista partition to the USB hard drive? I read somewhere else that Time Capsule takes care of the formatting for an external NAS drive and Windows will be able to read and write to it even though it's not NTFS. Any ideas comments appreciated.

This is crude but if you need a work around, just plug the USB drive directly into the iMac.. copy the files to it.. then plug it into the TC.
You also do not need to use the TC as an intermediary between your iMac and MBP.. just turn on sharing in the computer.. so you can directly copy files from one to the other.. Macs have public access directory preconfigured for each user account.
As far as mounting the TC..
In finder use Go, Connect to server.. and type.
AFP://TCname or TCipaddress
Where TCname is the actual name of the TC.. I strongly recommend you follow SMB network rules.. ie if your TC has a name like
Fred Blog's Time Capsule 2445566.
It is too long.. it has spaces and it has non-alphanumeric characters.
Shorten it to FredTC
No spaces no characters that are NOT alphanumeric.
TCIPaddress is simply the standard IP.
You can also use CIFS://TCname which according to the article forces the connection back to SMB1 rather than SMB2 which as usual is broken.
But I would definitely use AFP if possible. I cannot understand the decision to move to SMB as standard.

Is 250GB External USB Hard Drive compatible with Mac OSX on an iBook G4?

Hello,
I just bought a Toshiba 250GB External Usb Hard Drive because the seller recommended it to telling me that it works in my computer iBook G4 Mac OSX.
I prepared it and I see it on my desktop with a folder named System Volume Information and 2.32 GB available.
I tried to copy a file and I received a message telling that the disc can't be modified.
Where can I find the instructions to initialize it if it is compatible?
Thanks in advance,
Joan
Message was edited by: jinglada
Message was edited by: jinglada

I have a feeling this is a similar problem to my 400GB Usb2 drive. I reformatted it to the default Mac format in Disk Utility and it mounted!! Try this

How to restore machine using a TM backup on a usb hard drive from older imac to a brand new iMac?

My imac (the one that had a superdrive in it), had a broken superdrive and was sent for repair. Whilst being "repaired" the screen was broken. I now have a brand new imac albeit without a dvd drive. My question is how to I restore my the old TM back up which had been made to an external usb hard drive to the new imac. Help files say that I should not restore from a TM file to a different machine and that I should use migration assistant. Whilst I can see the external usb drive in TM it is not being recognised in Migration assistant when I click on back up from a TM backup on another machine or disk.
Any ideas?
Just noticed that this new machine is running OSX 10.8.4 the broken imac was on mavericks

This is very simple first run Software Update on the new machine and get your machine upgraded to the most recent version of Mountain Lion 10.8.5. Install all other software updates Apple recommends in Software Update. Then care fully read Pondini's guide on using Migration Assistant located at:
http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html
Your migrated data will be in a new account, to access it log into the new account.
Also DO NOT repeat DO NOTuse Wi-Fi to migrate data, if your TM backup drive uses USB, then connect it via USB and follow the on-screen instructions as described in Pondini's guide.

USB Hard Drives Keep Disconnecting or Not Responding

Hi,
This is a long post - but one that I hope someone can offer advice on.
The Hardware
Mac Pro running OSX 10.8 (but this has happened on all versions of the OS i.e. 10.6/.7 etc)
3 x Internal SATA Hard Drives - All working perfectly.
External Drives:
2 x Western Digital My Book 1TB USB Hard Drives
1 x Seagate 750GB Hard Drive with USB2 connectivity
2 x IcyBox Dual Bay USB2 hard Drive enclosures using JMicron Chipsets - these enclosures have 2 x 1TB Western Digital Green in each (totaling 4 TB across the 2 enclosures).
D-Link 7 Port USB2 Hub
The Problem
- USB Hard Drives connected to the Mac are ejected from the system without notice and at random times AND/OR
- The external hard drive remains mounted, but when trying to write to the drive/partitions, Finder throws an error message up saying the operation cannot be completed - error code -50.
- Time Machine: TM will back up successfully several times, before eventually throwing an error up that it cannot create the folders required on the drive.
- The only way to be able to use the drives again is either remount the drive, or in some case, it is required to completely power the drive down and then reconnect.
Re-creating the problem
I have honestly not found a sure-fire way of replicating the problem. It seems completely random. It happens when I am actually sat at the computer, but it also happens when I am away from the computer.
In the past - my Time Machine hard drive has been one of the Western Digital MyBook drives. I also used the second MyBook for SuperDuper backups (extra redundancy). The 4TB drives in the IcyBox enclosures have been used to backup my ripped movie collection.
Recently however - I decided to have 2 of the 1TB drives in the IcyBox enclosures to be TM and SuperDuper backups. I have however reverted TM back to one of the Western Digital drives, purely for testing purposes. SuperDuper is backing up to one of the 1TB drives in the IcyBox.
I am trying various things to see if I can find the issue, but it is such a random event that it is taking ages to even come close to find a problem. Sometimes the drives will stay active for a few days, sometimes only a few hours, even minutes.
Theories
I have several theories as to why my USB drives continually disconnect.
1. The D-Link USB Hub.
Could connecting the drives through the hub be causing the problem? I don't really see how, unless it is a documented case that D-Link USB hubs do not play nice with OSX? To try and rule this out I have connected the current Time Machine back up drive (Western Digital MyBook) directly to the USB port on the back of the computer. The SuperDuper (IcyBox enclosure) drive is currently connected through the D-Link hub. I have removed all the other drives from the enclosures - so at present I have only 2 external drives connected (1 x 1TB Western Digital MyBook, 1 x 1TB Western Digital Green inside one of the IcyBox dual-bay enclosures - connected through D-Link Hub).
2. JMicron Chipset
I have done a bit of research on the internet and there are a few indications that perhaps JMicron SATA-to-USB controller chipsets found in a lot of external hard drive enclosures (including the dual bay IcyBox external enclosures that I have) do not play nice with OSX. If the JMicron chipsets in the 2 IcyBox enclosures is a problem - would that cause issues with other USB devices on the USB bus off the Mac? (i.e. can the JMicron chipset in the enclosures cause devices such as the WD MyBook drives which I assume use a non-JMicron chipset, to experience similar failures?)
3. Green Hard Drives
As I have said, I have 4 Western Digital Green 1TB hard drives inside the IcyBox Dual Bay Enclosures. Could the fact that these drives are 'Green' be causing a problem? They do go to sleep after x number of minutes, but they do wake up when required. But could on the occasion when I have problems, could this be caused by the 'Green' feature interrupting OSX in waking the drives? Coupled with JMicron chipset, could this be compounding the issue?
Possible Solutions
I am prepared to spend money on replacement drives and/or enclosures etc - but I would hate to spend x amount of money and have the same problem. So I am hoping to get some advice on what drives/enclosures are more than likely to work flawlessly with OSX.
Thanks for reading!

FYI - re: the SuperDuper drive that is in one of the IcyBox enclosures.
I just opened this drive up in Finder. I heard the drive wake up, but when I came to copy a file over (tried various file sizes) - I got the error -50 message.
Here is the info from Console.
31/07/2012 23:35:52.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:52.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.000 kernel[0]: disk4s2: 0xe000c2e4 (UNDEFINED).
31/07/2012 23:35:53.320 fseventsd[55]: disk logger: failed to open output file /Volumes/Data 1/.fseventsd/0000000002478a7f (No such file or directory). mount point /Volumes/Data 1/.fseventsd
31/07/2012 23:35:53.320 fseventsd[55]: disk logger: failed to open output file /Volumes/Data 1/.fseventsd/0000000002478a7f (No such file or directory). mount point /Volumes/Data 1/.fseventsd
Also, while the drive was inaccessible, I tried 'Verify Disk' in Disk Utility - here are the results
Verifying volume “SuperDuper”
Checking file systemPerforming live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Invalid leaf record count
(It should be 2 instead of 1)
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume SuperDuper was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Please also note that the all my external hard drives have recently been reformated using GUID part. map and HFS Journaled.

2.5" external USB hard drive not recognized by my iMac

I have a small 2.5" external USB hard drive that my intel iMac will not mount or see. My 12" G4 Powerbook sees it fine and it is formatted in Mac OS Extended. My iMac is bootcamped and XP on my iMac sees the drive but not OS X Tiger on the iMac, (wierd) I have Tiger on both my Macs too.
Why does the intel based OS X refuse to see this external 2.5 HD. It sees a 3.5" USB one I have but not the small one. I know it is software.

Hey coby,
Well thanks for the star. Not sure I deserve it.
i then tried connecting the drive to each USB port again, and voila! i have found one it works in. I guess my computer's ports must be a little worn.
Hmm well try looking inside and see if there's some smutz in there, if the contacts are dirty or bent or worn.
i was starting to think i would have to go out and get a USB hub to give it some more power.
Is it powered off the USB? If so that actually might be a good idea since that puts a lot of strain on the connectors. Even if it's self powered it might be a good idea since it would take the strain off an obviously flakey USB.
richard

[SOLVED] Kernel panic when using external USB hard drive

I have a desktop PC with a 64 bit arch install, on a Core2 Duo 6320 CPU. I have been using (and continue using right now) a 500 GB "Iomega Desktop Hard Drive" external USB hard disk without problems. But I have just bought a 3 TB "Seagate Expansion" external USB hard drive and I'm unable to use it from my Arch install. Each time I try to format it or to copy data from the PC, Arch freezes with a kernel panic. Sometimes it freezes faster and I cannot see anything, but others I am able to see the following kernel messages, repeating several times:
[11701.205071] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdf] uas_eh_abort_handler ffff880014e13380 tag 29, inflight: CMD
[11701.221297] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdf] abort completed
[11701.221313] scsi host3: uas_eh_task_mgmt: ABORT TASK failed (wrong tag 0/256)
[11701.221323] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdf] uas_eh_abort_handler ffff880014e13500 tag 30, inflight: CMD
[11701.237550] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdf] abort completed
[11701.237567] scsi host3: uas_eh_task_mgmt: ABORT TASK failed (wrong tag 0/256)
[11701.237576] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdf] uas_eh_abort_handler ffff880014e13680 tag 31, inflight: CMD
[11701.253922] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdf] abort completed
[11701.253936] scsi host3: uas_eh_task_mgmt: ABORT TASK failed (wrong tag 0/256)
[11701.253956] sd 3:0:0:0: uas_eh_device_reset_handler
[11704.252182] scsi host3: uas_eh_task_mgmt: LOGICAL UNIT RESET timed out
[11704.252196] scsi host3: uas_eh_bus_reset_handler start
[11704.252443] usb 5-6: stat urb: killed, stream 0
[11704.358882] usb 5-6: reset high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci-pci
[11704.483206] scsi host3: uas_eh_bus_reset_handler success
Strange enough, the drive is listed by lsusb command as a 2TB but I don't think this is related to the problem (as the OS sees the 3 TB). This is the lsusb output:
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bc2:3312 Seagate RSS LLC SRD00F2 [Expansion Desktop Drive 2TB]
I have tried the drive on other PCs and it works flawlessly. Also tried booting Windows 8 on the same PC I have Arch installed in, and in Windows it also works perfect. I have tried using ext2 and NTFS filesystems. Tried also changing the USB cable without success. And right now I'm out of ideas. Any suggestions?
Last edited by doragasu (2014-07-03 11:06:25)

looks like it could be the UAS module , check https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=183190

USB Hard Drive

Hi,
I just bought my iBook G3 running OS X 10.3.2, I am new to Mac aniway. I tried to plug in my 40GB USB Hard Drive (2.5" formated using Win XP) but It was nothing happened. Can anyone help me?

It sounds like a laptop size HD. My HD enclosure is firewire and usb. If I plug it in via USB, I must plug in two usb cords -- one for power and one for data. The only way to do this is to use a powered USB hub (i.e., the hub has to be plugged in to a wall outlet) because the color ibook only has one port. Does yours require the use of two USB ports? If so you will have to use a powered hub. In fact, you might have to anyway -- even if you only need one USB cord, if the drive can't draw enough power from your computer, it won't spin up.
The second thing I'd try would be to reformat the drive to use HFS+ (mac's filesystem). But Mac should have no problem reading a FAT32 -- it's a very common format used all over place (even in flash cards and such). I'm betting on the drive not getting enough actual power.
If it is formatted as NTFS, that may be an issue. I'm more familiar with the linux world -- I know that linux is able to reliably read from NTFS, but writing at present is very unreliable. Of course, MS won't help out by releasing specs so people have to figure this out through trial and error. From a 30 second google session, it looks like OSX likewise can read but not write to NTFS. Could be wrong though as I didn't put much effort into it. Here are the results though.
--edit -- read the last comment just now. You will be fine with FAT32 to exchange files back and forth between a windows box and a mac. I'm going to wager $3 on there being an insufficient power issue. Try a powered hub.

Changing external USB hard drive into a FireWire Drive???

I have been reading in some of the other discussions about how it is possible to change a USB external hard drive into a FireWire external hard drive. Is this true ??? I recently pruchased an external USB hard drive only to now find out that I cannot use it to boot from. Apparently OSX will only boot from a FireWire drive ??? Is there some way to change my current external USB hard drive into a FireWire compatible drive or do I have to purchase a FireWire drive ??? Thanks.

All I can remember was an internal USB/firewire hub (for PCs, by the way), I haven't seen external adapters like cables; but you may simply ask in your local computer store about.
Yes, you can boot only from firewire drives. I was told that it is possible the new Intel Macs are able to boot from USB drives, but haven't had the time to verify this so far.
A possible solution may be to remove the harddisk from the USB enclosure and put it into a firewire case. This should work and you just need to buy the firewire case without the need for another harddisk. Just ensure that the case is able to take your harddrive (2.5" / 3.5" drives, connection interface).

Lost write privileges to external USB hard drive- please help!

Hi,
I've got an external Western Digital 250GB USB hard drive that has been chugging along just fine until about a month ago, when somehow I seemed to have lost write privileges to the top level directory. I"m not sure if this happened when I installed an Mac OS update, or what, as I use the drive as backup and didn't notice it for a while.
The drive appears in the sidebar with a tiny lock icon, and when I try to copy a file from my internal HD to the external (top level directory, or drag the items right onto the icon), the following things happen:
Dialog box says "The item "foo" cannot be moved because "External HD" cannot be modified", with an authenticate button, which I then click.
After I authenticate, I get the error msg "The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for some of the items."
But I *CAN** copy files directly into a folder that already exists on the external drive, but I cannot create new folders in the top level directory.
I have tried the following, to no avail:
1) "get info" on the external drive, checkign the permissions. In the Ownership and Permissions section, it says "You can Read & Write", and under details:
Owner: my account (dimmed) and access level is "read & write".
Group: my account (dimmed) Access: Read only
Others: No access
Ignore ownership on this volume (unchecked).
The fact that my account was named both as owner and group seemed odd, since in Group the access was "read only". I clicked on the little lock icon next to Owner, authenticated, and was allowed to change the Group settings. I changed the Group access to "read & Write", but it's not "sticking" -- when I close teh details field and reopen it, or close the get info window and reopen, the Group access settings go back to "read only".
2) I've also, of course, tried repairing permissions on my internal startup drive, which did not help the matter. Also in Disk Utility, I verified/repaired the offendin external USB drive (no problems), Verify/Repair permissions were dimmed for this drive (I assume becuase it doesn't have MacOS X installed on it?)
3) Searched the forums, Western Digital support, etc. and I cannot seem to figure out what has gone wrong.
4) When I connect the drive to another computer (my iBook) the situation is the same. Also, when I create a new admin user account and try to access the drive from that account, I still cannot write to the drive.
Thanks, I appreciate any tips or pointers.

The drive appears in the sidebar with a tiny lock icon, and when I try to copy a file from my internal HD to the external (top level directory, or drag the items right onto the icon), the following things happen:
Open the Terminal in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder and enter the following:
chflags nouchg
followed by a space; next, drag the disk into the Terminal window and press Enter. The lock should now be gone.
The fact that my account was named both as owner and group seemed odd, since in Group the access was "read only".
Recent versions of Mac OS X create a group with the same name whenever you create an account from the Setup Assistant or System Preferences. The Group permissions don't apply in this case.
I changed the Group access to "read & Write", but it's not "sticking" -- when I close teh details field and reopen it, or close the get info window and reopen, the Group access settings go back to "read only".
Did you get an error message after doing this?
Verify/Repair permissions were dimmed for this drive (I assume becuase it doesn't have MacOS X installed on it?)
That is correct. The Repair Permissions mechanism uses data from the /Library/Receipts/ folder on a disk to function, and this data is only present on disks which have Mac OS X installed.
(12377)

Lion won't run from usb hard drive

I downloaded Lion yesterday. Took 7 hours, from 5:30pm to 12:30am. I bought a new 500GB USB hard drive to load it on. I had previously upgraded the SL OSX per instructions. The Lion install went fine. It told me to reformat the drive, which I did (to get rid of MS-DOS formatting). The Lion installer recognized the drive and went through a 20 minute install.
Upon restart, it defaulted to SL on my internal drive. I went to Preferences/Startup Disk and clicked on the "Mac OSX 10.7 on 500G HD" and clicked Restart. Again, it defaulted to my internal SL drive.
I restarted the computer and held down the Option key to pick a boot drive. When the window appeared, the external drive was not in the list, only the internal SL drive and the Windows partition for Parallels.
Repeating the above gets the same results.
I understand that the Lion installer is now gone and I can't install it again.
What do I do now?

The new hard drive is a Hitachi Lifestudio and it has one of those annoying "disks" that pop up on the screen wanting you to install some "Lifestudio" app. Erasing the disk and reformatting does not stop that message, so it must be in hardware.
It is. Return it for a refund and get the below.
I ALWAYS build my own drive (takes 5 mins). More storage and less money.
Use FireWire not USB.
USB is packet oriented and data transfer is managed by the CPU, Firewire is a streaming protocol and data transfer is managed by the CPU only to initiate transfer, after that, Firewire handles the rest dropping CPU load to nearly 0%.
Put the drive below, in the enclosure at the bottom. Note how the enclosure has a cooling fan, and that the drive is mounted on vibration mounts. I know of no other hard drive enclosure with those features.
A hard drive has three enemies 1) Heat, 2) Vibration, 3) A Windows 7 installation.
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD20EADS/dp/B001RB1TI S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258862242&sr=8-1
http://www.cooldrives.com/ox93saiihadr.html

USB Hard Drive corrupted - twice!

ever since my recent (and otherwise very happy) transition to macs i've had trouble with an external USB hard drive which i use to store my music collection and back up. first there were issues with not recognising the drive for ages but these were fixed by a new case and then, more recently my drive has been corrupted - twice.
first time i immediately assumed it was because the drive was two years old and had travelled quite a bit with me so i replaced it with a brand new spanking one. however, two weeks later the exact same problem occurred. all data lost. osx recognises that the drive is there, and it's name but the folder structure is gone and replaced by some garbled charachters that start 'USB£@$@%£$%' or similar.
first time this occurred i was in the middle of some file transfers and the drive itself started making a few strange noises. second time was during the nightly back up i have running with superduper! at the same time as downloading stuff. i have the drive partitioned - 100GB osx extended format for the back up and 200GB fat32 for my music colleection. in the recent manifestation it doesn't mount the back up partition, but mounts the music one. i can see the back up partition in disk utility greyed out and it agrees that there is a fault, but it can't find any problems with my music partition - which now has no data on it.
i am completely at a loss here and my last few hour's research on the net have yeilded no results so if anyone can help i'd be very very grateful. i connect the drive through usb hub and to the left usb port if that makes a difference. i had absolutely no problems with a similar set up on my windows laptop for years. is it something to do with how os x handles external drives? or should i get a new case/usb 2.0 hub? all tips appreciated

i do use unmount - but what if finder crashes in the middle of an operation, which may have been what happened first time, and even the second time (but i wasn't around to see what happened), would that garble the folder structure entirely?
i live in the heart of a big city in the UK in a (relatively) modern building and haven't seen any power failures at all (resent alarm clocks etc) or are you talking about some level of super-quick fluctuation i've never noticed before? or did you mean something internal to the drive casing or something?
no error messages related to the usb hub so far. all other devices connected though it work just fine - ipod, printer etc.
the first drive was a hitachi, the second a western digital. the casing was bought from maplin and seems pretty generic - though both problems have occurred since i got the new casing which was about a month before i got my MBP.
it's a serial drive and i have no idea about the jumpers. first time i put everything together, but the second time the drive failed, i bought the replacement drive from the IT guys who were doing the data recovery (which didn't work) and they put it all together for me.
this doesn't have a fan, which the old one did, though it does have a metal casing - do you think heat build up after prolonged heavy use could cause problems?

Multiple USB hard drives

I have three 500GB USB hard drives connected to an AirPort Extreme with a Belkin USB hub.
The AirPort Extreme crashes when trying to access the drives.
I've bought new USB cables and hub, with no success.
Is this setup actually supposed to work? Shall I switch to FireWire instead?
Thanks,
C4

Hi, I've had this same problem now for more than 1 year, and nothing had solved it, until recently. I think I know what the problem is.
It turns out that not all USB 2.0 hard drive enclosures are the same. I had been using "Metalgear Substance II" enclosures for my 500-GB drives, and I had assumed all along that these were fine... I had assumed that one USB 2.0 enclosure was as good as the next USB 2.0 enclosure. WRONG!!!
By accident, I noticed that the drive-to-drive copy times from MetalGear USB 2.0 boxes was about 22 hours for a full 450-GByte transfer of information, while placing the SAME drive into a MacAlley enclosure reduced the copy time down from 22 hours to 6 hours... About 3.5 times faster!!! This means that the piece of crud Metalgear boxes I had been using for my network drives were ssssllllooowwww.
A big bright light blinked on in my head regarding my issues and problems with the Apple Airport Extreme Base-station and all of the problems I'd had with multiple drives, the AEBS locking up etc.. All of my issues had been associated with using the el-cheapo Metalgear enclosures.
As soon as I replaced the Metalgear USB boxes with MacAlley boxes, everything started to work great. No more issues with my Airport locking up. None. Problem fixed. Problem solved.
I can only assume that NOT ALL USB 2.0 BOXES ARE THE SAME. USB 2.0 does not mean that the transfer rates will actually be at 480-mbps. Quality matters. DO NOT USE METALGEAR BOXES WITH APPLE EXTREME. There may be other brands with suck just as much. I can vouch for the MacAlley boxes. They work great... and there may be other boxes that work too. There must be some issue with Apple Airport Base Station timing out on slower USB 2.0 crapola equipment... something that causes it to hang.
Anyway, I hope this helps. My problems are solved since going to the MacAlley enclosures.

Osx sees usb hard drive as locked cd aften power out

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