Weird USB Hard Drive issue

So I recently purchased a c2d macbook.
For some reason my external usb hd wont spin down after x minutes like it did with my iMac.
Hard drives are set to spin down when not in use.
Anyone have any ideas?

I'm having a similar issue. I've ruled out bad ports and incompatibility...I've been trying everything! I've seen the same type of question in at least 5 different threads, yet there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. The problem alot of us seem to be facing is that the external drive connected via USB are not even showing up in disk utility or system profiler (except one post I saw!) so we're unable to even SELECT the drive to view it or format it, or whatever.
Can someone help with this? I have a ton of photos I'd like to access via external drive as opposed to storing on my Mac. The external drive worked beautifully on my PC, and now I've made the change to Mac. Like I said, I tried many USB ports, since I attached a USB hub to my AirPort. My printer is connected to my new hub and working perfectly. I can't get the external drive to show up in my Mac whether it's plugged directly into my laptop, directly into the AirPort, or into the hub. HELP PLEASE!
Many thanks!
SeagirlX
Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Similar Messages

MAC Mini & 2.5 USB Hard Drive Issue

Strange thing happening with a new MAC Mini:
For Christmas, I bought my wife a brand new MAC mini. Everything has been working fine. So, for our anniversary, I bought her a 120 gig USB hard drive (I know, I'm such a romantic
Anyway, ever since I hooked up the hard drive (USB Drive) to her system, it seems that when I first turn the MINI on, the keyboard and mouse completely stop working. once, I had to hold the power button in to hard boot it, then, when it restarted, everything was working fine again.
Tonight, when I turned the MINI on, it did the same thing. No keyboard or mouse. Then, after I hard booted it, the mini never booted up. Black screen. USB hard drive light was on, but, no MAC power light and screen was black.
Now, I just unplugged the USB drive and all is working fine again.
It seems that the USB hard drive being plugged in while powering the MINI up is giving me some grief.
Does anyone have any ideas as to what can be happening here? It is a brand new MINI with Leopard installed. I highly doubt I have a defective MAC because everything was fine until I plugged a USB HDD into it. With the drive unplugged, it seems that it works fine.
No Operating System(s) are on the USB drive. Just pictures and movie files.
Here is the drive I got her:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8110750
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Gary

I'm sorry. I should have been more detailed in my description. It is a Toshiba drive. here are the specs:
The Toshiba HDDR120E02X 120GB Hard Drive is USB-powered and includes an internal shock sensor and ramp loading technology. Ready to go out of the box and certified to work with Windows XP and Vista as well as Mac OS 10.3.9 or later.
Technical Information
Storage Capacity
120GB
Drive Performance
Data Transfer Rate
480Mbps External Maximum USB 2.0
Interfaces/Ports
Interfaces/Ports
USB 2.0 USB
Physical Characteristics
Form Factor
External Hot-swappable Portable
Miscellaneous
Compatibility
USB 1.1
Plug n Play
I didnt have it hooked to the keyboard though. I have had some trouble trying that in the past, so, other than my mouse, nothing else is plugged into the keyboard.
Thanks again for your help.

Weird USB Hard Drive probem -HELP

Just upgraded from a macbook to a brand new macbook pro. My USB 2.0 hard drive would work fine on the macbook. Now, on my MBP, I plug it in and nothing shows up on the computer... HOWEVER... If I plug it into my Apple external keyboard, which has 2 USB ports on it, it does work (only USB 1.1 though)...
ANY IDEAS? Thanks!

I'm having a similar issue. I've ruled out bad ports and incompatibility...I've been trying everything! I've seen the same type of question in at least 5 different threads, yet there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. The problem alot of us seem to be facing is that the external drive connected via USB are not even showing up in disk utility or system profiler (except one post I saw!) so we're unable to even SELECT the drive to view it or format it, or whatever.
Can someone help with this? I have a ton of photos I'd like to access via external drive as opposed to storing on my Mac. The external drive worked beautifully on my PC, and now I've made the change to Mac. Like I said, I tried many USB ports, since I attached a USB hub to my AirPort. My printer is connected to my new hub and working perfectly. I can't get the external drive to show up in my Mac whether it's plugged directly into my laptop, directly into the AirPort, or into the hub. HELP PLEASE!
Many thanks!
SeagirlX
Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.9)

AEBS USB hard drive issue.

I have all apple products at home and all of them see the hard drive attached to my AEBS. How do I gain access to the same hard drive from work running a windows computer? I have the MobileMe account, but now I don't know where to go from here.

Unfortunately, even though you have a MobileMe account, what you will want to be doing is use the Back-to-My-Mac (BTMM) feature that allows you to access the shared drive off of your AEBS ... and BTMM is only available from Macs running either Leopard or Snow Leopard.
The other option is to bypass MobileMe/BTMM all together and connect directly to the shared drive by doing what BTMM does "manually"
Is your AEBS the only router? That is, is it connected directly to the Internet modem or is it connected to another router between the modem and the AEBS itself?

Cypress USB hard drive issues

Hi, my computer language is very poor, so bear with me:
I have a 60GB USB 2.0 storage device (Cypress #26672) that sometimes will work but most times will not. the blue light just blinks away but doesn't seem to be "talking" to the computer. However, it works every time I plug it into my daughter's old blueberry IMac using the same cord. My system profiler shows it plugged into the USB port, but the device doesn't register on my desktop or on the list of things to verify on disk utility. Any ideas?
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I thought about that, but no, it doesn't seem to make a difference. I almost always have my laptop plugged into the power at my desk and that is when I want to use the darn external drive!

Airport Extreme usb hard drive connection loss after closing finder window

I just did a software update on my MacBook Pro and now I am experiencing a weird Airport Extreme usb hard drive issue. I can see the name of my airport extreme in the Shared section of my finder window. However when I click on it, the finder indicates the it's connecting, but it stops immediately and displays the 'Not Connected' message. When I click on the 'Connect As' button, I am prompted to enter my password and if I click 'Connect', it just spins out endlessly. However, when I re-enter the password and press Connect, my usb drive mounts. I can view, access and use the drive's contents, but if I close the finder window, the connection drops and I have to re-connect. What else is weird, is that once I see my drives, the finder indicates that I am connected as another user(not a user native to this computer). This issue did not exist before my software update.
My software log update indicates that the following items have been installed:
Canon Printer Software Update 2.3 and Security Update 2010-003.
I suspect it has something to do with the Security Update. Is there a way I can revert to the previous security version? Or is there any other solution that could help me avoid re-connecting to my airport extreme usb hard drives?
I will really appreciate any feedback.

Free Solution:
Sure there's a »fix« with Apple software. You'll need to install the Developer Tools (Xcode) from the Snow Leopard Install DVD, though.
After you've done that, you can use "SetFile" to clear the Alias bit from the misbehaving Volume:
/usr/bin/SetFile -a a /Volumes/<YourExternalDriveName>
Please keep in mind that using this command might be dangerous, so don't try this solution unless you feel confident on the command line. (See http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/m an1/SetFile.1.html or invoke /usr/bin/SetFile without arguments for more info on the SetFile command.)
...a similar discussion and answer can be found at: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2131824&start=45&tstart=0

USB Hard drive, permission issue on one partition

Hi,
I have an issue with my USB hard drive, when I pluged it the 3 partitions are mounted, and 2 of them grant access to the users group:
mount
/dev/sdc6 on /media/usbhd-sdc6 type ext2 (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/usbhd-sdc1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
/dev/sdc5 on /media/usbhd-sdc5 type vfat (rw,relatime,utf8,gid=100,umask=002)
ls -l /media/
drwxrwxr-x 1 root users 4096 Jun 29 22:21 usbhd-sdc1
drwxrwxr-x 18 root users 16384 Dec 31 1969 usbhd-sdc5
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun 29 22:21 usbhd-sdc6
I read the wiki page about udev, but I can not solve this issue.
PS : HAL is removed from my daemons list.

> You can write on "usb" because the right are : drwxrwxrwx
They appear only when I use 'sudo mount -o rw,noauto,async,user,umask=1000' instead of plain 'sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb2'.
I use vfat for that USB stick, so maybe that's why it works for me. The first two listings in your first post show the drives in different order, but of course the mountpoints show that the offending drive is ext2 not vfat, my bad.
Edit: This is how my ext3 USB stick behaves like:
[karol@black test]$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb
[karol@black test]$ mount | grep sdb1
/dev/sdb1 on /mnt/usb type ext3 (rw)
[karol@black test]$ ls -l /mnt
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 karol users 4096 07-03 01:08 usb
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-09-14 usb2
This time /mnt/usb is an ext3. As you can see, there's no root, I (karol) an the owner, so I can rw to my heart's content. Maybe you should change the ownership - 'chown' (man chown if you're not familiar w/ that command).
Last edited by karol (2010-07-02 23:05:52)

USB Hard Drive Permissions Issue

Hi,
I just attached a new USB hard drive to my iMac. I would like to make it so only I can have write access to the drive; I want my kids to be able to see the files but not modify or delete.
I tried by unchecking 'Ignore permissions', and setting permissions where I have read/write, and others have read, but when I switch to one of my kids' accounts, they have full control, and in fact they are shown as owner.
Thanks for any help you can provide,
Andy

Hello Asopos,
I have difficulty in reading the screenshots, you can post in the corresponding forum or add some comments.
Set your Country/Region and Language Preferences
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/SelectLocale?fromPage=http%253a%252f%252ftechnet.microsoft.com%252fen-us%252f
If my understanding is right, in the USB-hard-drive(NTFS), all folders in the USB drive have the unknown account and the root of the drive don’t have the account.
It is a SID. Possible that this account was removed and permission has not been removed.
Please take ownership of the folder and check if we can normally deleted the account.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753659.aspx
Best regards,
Fangzhou CHEN
Fangzhou CHEN
TechNet Community Support

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.

Win7 can't boot in USB hard drive blue screen 7b error,but can boot when use PD8

Install Win7 64bit in a USB hard drive through some tools,when start windows the microsoft logo appear,get blue screen.
***stop:0x0000007B(0x80786B58,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)
problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.If this is the first you've seen this stop error screen restart your computer .If this screen appears again.follow these steps:Check for viruses on your computer.Remove any newly hard drives or hard drive controllers.Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly.Configured and terminated.Run DCHKDSK/F to check for hard drive corrption,and then restart your computer.
Technical:
***stop:0x0000007B(0x80786B58,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)
But when use Parallels Desktop 8 My boot camp ,the win7 can boot normally.
Any solution?
Thank you.

Hi,
If this issue is related with firmare, then it's recommend to contact the vender\manufacture, if you got any update of this issue, we'd be appreciate that you could share your experience with us.
Regards
Yolanda Zhu
TechNet Community Support

AirPort Extreme and shared USB Hard Drive

I received an AirPort Extreme for Christmas with the intent of using it to share a network Hard Drive and Printer between the multiple machines on our home network. I've finally gotten it set up with Bonjour on the PC's, and the AirPort Utility on all machines. It's connected via ethernet cable to a Dell PC, and wirelessly to an iMac, a Dell Laptop, my iPhone and a PS3. Internet functionality is great for all devices.
My next step was to connect a Seagate 750GB External USB Hard Drive to the APE. This drive was previously connected to the Dell PC, and was formatted as NTFS. I went through the hassle of converting it to FAT32, I connected it to the router, and both Dell's and the iMac can see the drive. I haven't checked if the PS3 can see it yet, but since I haven't found Bonjour for the PS3, I'm not holding my breath. The iPhone - well, mine isn't jailbroken at the moment.
A few quick hints I learned from doing a lot of web surfing and trial-and-error. These could save people a LOT of time...
+ Don't format a external drive as either an Apple Drive (HFS+) or as a Windows Drive (NTFS) if you plan on using data off it on both a Mac and a PC. Windows won't read HFS+ without a converter, APE won't accept NTFS. It needs to be FAT32 as this is nearly universal.
+ Windows will only format a maximum of 32GB as FAT32. It's a stupid limit, and you have to jump hoops to get it to do a larger drive size.
+ Use the Disk Utility on the Mac to erase the drive and reformat it as an MS-DOS partition. It will work up to a drive of about 2TB according to what I've read. On the Mac, MS-DOS partition = FAT32, and it formatted my 750GB drive as a single 750GB partition.
Now, I've begun the task of copying all our media to the drive. Copied a few pictures, no problem. Copied a few MP3's, no problem. Where the problems start is in trying to copy movies to the drive. We have ripped most of our DVD's to DivX / H.264, to keep the kids from destroying the DVD's (trust me, DVD's scratch EASY in the hands of a 5-year old). So I have about 50 movies to transfer, each around 1GB in size.
Each time I try to transfer a movie to the drive, I get an error "*Error Copying File or Folder*" which displays the message "*Cannot copy BlahBlahBlah: The specified network name is no longer available.*" This also results in the HDD becoming unavailable to the other machines on the network. I've had to un-plug and then re-plug the APE a few times to get the HDD to work again. Sometimes, the copy actually does work, even though I get this message. I know the easy work-around is to connect the HDD directly to the PC with the files on it and transfer them that way, but I shouldn't have to do that - it should just work.
I'm wondering if anyone else has any kind of a similar experience? It appears that I can stream music and video from the drive easily enough, it's the writing to the drive that seems to be the issue. Thanks in advance...
Best Regards,
Jeff

I would think you would have better luck formatting it as HFS+ (Macintosh Extended File System). You'll still be able to see it from your non-Mac PCs.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6370006#6370006

USB hard drive not detected on reboot

I am running Windows 7 Ulitmate 64-bit on my 2011 15" Macbook Pro. I have a USB Hard Drive (WD My Passport SE - USB 3.0/2.0 - 1 TB).
The hard drive is formatted for HFS+ and I am running Mac Drive 8 to detect it in Windows.
For some reason when I reboot (in Windows), the hard drive won't be there until I unplug it and plug it back in.
This is really annoying! Can anybody help me? I'm pretty good with things like this but I can't think of any reason this shouldn't be working right.
HELP =T
Message was edited by: PTHEOFYL
Message was edited by: PTHEOFYL

I am having the exact same problem. WD 1TB Passport. USB 3.0 drive. Running on Windows 7 Pro 64 via Bootcamp.
My 1TB Passport is formatted with FAT32 and works with Windows and Mac OS.
I was getting the same problem when I was running Windows XP Pro on the same MacBook Pro. I was hoping the upgrade to Windows 7 would remidy the issue but it did not.
The drive light is on in a steady state when I boot and I have the same symptoms as reported by everyone else above.
In my research, I am leaning towards thinking that it is a power issue related to the cable used to connect the USB 3.0 Drive or something to do with the USB driver for Bootcamp, but researching the WD site suggests it's a power issue, not a faulty or failing drive.
I have a 500GB WD Passport USB 2.0 also attached to my computer, also running FAT32 and it starts up no problem. It's just the USB 3.0 drive that is having this issue.
Also worth noting; the drive is detected properly when I boot in Mac OS X. It's only the Windows side I have to unplug and plug back in to access the drive.

Incredibly slow MacBook, Internal Hard Drive issues...

Good morning everybody! I'm apologize if this post is extremely wordy...
I am extremely baffled by a particular issue with a MacBook 2.0GHz C2D which belongs to a friend of mine. The warranty is expired.
_Brief history:_
Several months ago, this MacBook could not find a bootable volume. The drive would not mount when booting from an external FireWire hard drive. It would not mount when the MacBook was put in Target Disk Mode and connected to another Mac. When booting from an external USB hard drive or with my MacBook Pro connected to the MacBook via Target Disk Mode, the MacBook booted up quickly. I came to the conclusion that the internal hard drive must have failed and needed to be replaced. Ultimately, the data was not recoverable from this drive.
I then proceeded to swap out the defective Apple OEM Seagate hard drive with a known working Apple OEM Fujitsu hard drive. When booting from the Leopard Install DVD, the MacBook would boot incredibly slow, but would finally reach the Installer Language screen. When proceeding to install Leopard, the drive would take a very long time to have data written to it, and ultimately the install failed. I removed the new hard drive from the MacBook and placed it in an external USB enclosure, attached it to the MacBook and booted from the Leopard Install DVD. Leopard would install successfully. I removed the hard drive from the enclosure and reinstalled it the MacBook. When booting from the freshly installed OS, the MacBook would take a very long time to boot. The MacBook is extremely slow!!!
I checked the Activity Monitor to ensure CPU & System Memory Usage was not going crazy. All Processes where normal with adequate CPU & Memory headroom.
I took the MacBook apart thinking that the SATA Controller Cable might be loose. No, it was firmly in place. I reassembled the MacBook and booted it up again. Still incredibly slow!
Finally, after several reboot attempts, the MacBook would book up quickly and operation was perfect. I applied all updates and continued testing the MacBook with great success. Gave my friend his MacBook back and he was grateful.
_Now for the kicker..._
My friend brought me his MacBook a week ago complaining that the MacBook was operating extremely slow (much like when I was initially testing it before). I verified the MacBook was slow when I tried using it. I tried several reboots and then it would get stuck on the gray Apple with spinning gear.
I tried booting into Single User Mode, but it gets stuck on "Waiting for root device"
I put the MacBook in Target Disk Mode and connected it to my G5 2.0GHz Dual Core. The hard drive would mount quickly on the G5 and I used Disk Utility to create a Restore Image. The disk operation would perform normally and the image would be created successfully.
I then partitioned the MacBook's hard drive when connected to the G5, ejected and proceeded to attempt OS reinstall. No dice! The hard drive is not even detected by the Disk Utility on the Leopard Install DVD.
Finally after several reattempts, the hard drive is recognized, but is extremely slow when trying to reinstall...and again, ultimately install fails. Using Disk Utility from Leopard Install DVD, the hard drive fails to unmount when I try formatting.
I don't have Apple Hardware Test disc for the MacBook or Apple Service Diagnostics disc for this model. Running TechTool Pro shows hardware to be okay, disk controller onboard the Fujitsu drive is okay, but running SMART & Surface Scan takes a long, long time (which I'm certain will ultimately error out). Running Drive Genius takes a long, long time as well.
Conclusion:
I think the SATA Controller Cable is defective. I can't think of anything else that would cause disk errors or performance issues like this. Your input is truly appreciated!

Even though no one responded to my post, I thought I'd share the resolution with the entire Apple community. I hope this information will be helpful to some of you with MacBooks or MacBook Pros that may be running painfully slow or may be exhibiting hard drive issues because your machine won't recognize the boot drive or fails to properly boot on a perfectly healthy S.M.A.R.T. verified hard drive. It just might be the hard drive connector/cable. Here it goes...
I visited my local Apple Retail Store and asked a "Genius" at the Genius Bar about this issue and told him my thoughts about a possible failed hard drive connector/cable. First, he didn't even know what a hard drive connector was! Then, he arrogantly stated that he never heard of such a thing and that these cables never fail. Finally, he blatantly dispelled this as a possibility.
On the contrary with my experience, I have had many failed PATA controller cables that required replacement when supporting the desktop PC's at work. I have personally owned and supported many Apple manufactured laptops and desktops and have never encountered this issue on a Mac...until this MacBook!
So, after looking at the Service Manual for the MacBook, I went over to my local Apple Authorized Service Provider and purchased the Hard Drive Connector Apple Part #922-7579. I replaced the original cable, reassembled and proceeded to boot the MacBook with the Leopard DVD installer. The Fujitsu drive was immediately recognized and was able to be formatted and Leopard installed without incident. The MacBook boots off the internal hard drive as normal again and works nice and fast again.
Thank you all for your time!
:D

External USB Hard Drive not showing up on Time Capsule

Hi all,
I have a 500 Gb Time Capsule that used to be able to detect my external USB hard drives. I had to store my things for a while and have just started using the Time Capsule again. The TC works fine, however, the same USB external hard drives I used to connect to the TC are not showing up anymore :s They show up on the desktop when I connect them directly to my MacBook via USB. I have been through most of the file sharing options in Airport Utility and System Preferences but have not been able to solve this. I can't think of any settings that would have changed from when they were showing up in the past. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thx

yosemite won't work with ntfs drives for some reason, i've had the same issue with my toshiba. i thought ok lemme buy another one, and transfer it over maybe it's a driver issue which i've tried over and over, apple support can't figure it out.
here's a simple fix, but the problem is i have an external where all my photography and video files are stored, so i can't access them right now and it's making my life ****.
http://guides.macrumors.com/Formatting_an_External_Device
that does work and make the drive mountable now, but problem being i can't obviously reformat the old drive and lose everything. once the new drive is formatted for mac i can't plug it into a pc to transfer the files from. which is the only problem now. but formatting the drive for mac only DOES work. but you're just screwed and not able to use it ntfs. hope the link helps SOME people.

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

Weird USB Hard Drive issue

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