WinXp on External USB HD with MBP C2D and rEfit

I'll try to make this short... I've been in the process of installing WinXP onto an external USB drive to be used on my MBP C2D without installing ANYTHING on my OSX internal drive or partitioning. I've come a long way with tools from some very slick, resourceful people on the net and my own personal obsession with this.
This is where I am right now:
- I've made a USB installable WinXP disk with this guide (http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176)
- I did install Boot Camp 1.1.2 to burn my driver disk, thats all.
- I've boot to the XP disc then been able to begin the first phase of installation of XP, but when I reboot I am unable to boot to the windows drive to continue installation. Hitting Option -- or Cmd-Option-Shift-Delete doesn't work, also going into the OSX's Startup Disk option in System prefs. and selected the Windows drive doesn't work, it just sits there on the reboot.
- So I came across rEFIt- great tool (http://refit.sourceforge.net/), I decided to install it to a spare USB thumb drive (a suggestion from the site). rEFIt comes up, I select the windows USB drive, the gray windows logo appears then... I get a Booting Legacy OS error concerning rEFIt not fiding the USB Device Path.
I've read people with other models have gotten this to work and other people with this model have reported similar problems. What I have gathered is that this could simply be an issue that rEFIt (despite being an awesome tool) is not up to date enough to work with the MBP C2D firmware, that is why we are having this problem with it not initializing the USB for boot up. I found a thread on another forum where someone was having issues with the MacPro firmware and rEFIt, the creator of had to come out with what is now version 0.8 to address the issue.
Wasn't sure if anyone had any other suggestions.... any help would greatly appreciated, like many, I've lost lots of sleep over this!
THANKS!
MacBook Pro C2D 2.33-PowerMac Dual 2.0 G5-PowerMac Dual 1.42 G4-Mac mini 1.42 G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Funny how I had exact same problem (Seagate 300Gb drive, works great with PB G4 1.67, worked fine with 1st Gen MBP 2.0Ghz, new c2d MBP 2.16 does something strange to this drive. After plugging the drive into my MBP, it will not work in any other computer until I power it down.) - I am sure you get errors in system log after plugging in the HDD (just open Terminal.app and type sudo dmesg to verify)
I called AppleCare, they had me take it to store to confirm the problem. Next Apple initiated return. Now I am sitting without a laptop since Nov 8 and replacement will come on Nov 17th at the worst and 15th at the best.
I would suggest you call Applecare and have them initiate a return. The USB controller has a problem. Let AppleCare know of the details of your problem.
Forgot to add - Since it also is a OS issue (I had kernel panic after plugging/unplugging the external USB drive) I filed a bug report with Apple.
You can also file a bug report with Apple - http://bugreport.apple.com) and remember to provide drive model, serial number and model number, and dmesg output with errors in the report
Message was edited by: Parag Warudkar

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External Hard Drive with MBP C2D

Greetings Everyone,
I just purchased a new C2D MBP. I have a Seagate 250 GB external (USB) hard drive that works great with my PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz, Dell Dimension, and MacBook 1.83. However, this drive does not work on either of the USB ports on my MBP.
My MBP does something strange to this drive. After plugging the drive into my MBP, it will not work in any other computer until I power it down. I thought this was a bit strange.
Is there anyone reading this forum with an external USB hard drive that does or does not work on your MBP?
I would like to hear of others' experiences with external drives. I would greatly appreciate any replies.
Sincerely,
Roger
MacBook Pro C2D 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HD Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Funny how I had exact same problem (Seagate 300Gb drive, works great with PB G4 1.67, worked fine with 1st Gen MBP 2.0Ghz, new c2d MBP 2.16 does something strange to this drive. After plugging the drive into my MBP, it will not work in any other computer until I power it down.) - I am sure you get errors in system log after plugging in the HDD (just open Terminal.app and type sudo dmesg to verify)
I called AppleCare, they had me take it to store to confirm the problem. Next Apple initiated return. Now I am sitting without a laptop since Nov 8 and replacement will come on Nov 17th at the worst and 15th at the best.
I would suggest you call Applecare and have them initiate a return. The USB controller has a problem. Let AppleCare know of the details of your problem.
Forgot to add - Since it also is a OS issue (I had kernel panic after plugging/unplugging the external USB drive) I filed a bug report with Apple.
You can also file a bug report with Apple - http://bugreport.apple.com) and remember to provide drive model, serial number and model number, and dmesg output with errors in the report
Message was edited by: Parag Warudkar

Issues with MBP C2D and networks with any PCs attached...

So for a long time any time I go to anyone's home with a wireless network, I will jump on and the network will stop working for anyone but me. This happened recently when my girlfriend updated from a netgear that broke to a Linksys wrt54gs. Any time I connect my MBP C2D to it wirelessly I know out the rest of the house, 2 desktop PCs. I also have this problem at my store where it affects the people working around me, so that they cannot connect to the net, which is a BIG hinderance to them, obviously. I had this problem with my wrt54g and changed the firmware to one noted somewhere else (different forum) and it works fine, PS3, and everything connected works perfectly. I am almost to the point of buying a PC so I stop knocking out peoples networks, any thoughts on this, I don't want to have to go back to a PC
Oh and I am using a WEP 128bit hex and no other security on both networks.

I had similar problems with a WRT54G Linksys Router, and after a bunch of searching, I found that there is a problem with the latest firmware on the router. I downgraded the firmware as the post recommended (Linksys Forum) and now all my macs can connect.
Here's a link to the post I found on the Linksys site that solved my problems:
http://forums.linksys.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=Wireless_Routers&messag e.id=10007#M10007

Is it possible to format an external USB drive with XFS or EXT3 ?

Greetings all.
I am running a 2,8Ghz 8x core with 6Gb ram. I have a NAS, (Buffalo Pro Duo Linkstation) which has a built in linux which saves data using XFS (I think). It has a built in backup routine, but the drive it backs up to MUST be in XFS or EXT3 (Fat 32 works but it drops all files over 2GB ;( ... ) So - here's my question:
How can I format the external USB drive (A seagate freeagent) in XFS or EXT3 so that it can run on my Buffalo? My preference is to use a GUI mac program (does one exist?) or to use a command line UNIX command (FSK? - but then, how????). I could also use (GASP!) a windows utility on parallels, or even install a linux distro via parallels. But it should be easy I hope...
Looking forward to any ideas/thoughts, tips, etc.
thanks and best to all from Berlin,
Jason

Download a "Live CD" (one you can boot of into running copy of Linux without having to install anything; for example, [OpenSUSE Live CD|http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.0/iso/cd/openSUSE-11.0-GNOME-Li veCD-x86_64.iso]).
Use OS X' Disk Utility to burn it to a CD.
Insert the CD you just burned (if it ejected afterwards), and then restart your Mac.
Hold down the 'C' key on the keyboard as the Mac boots, and it should switch to booting off the CD. Once the CD starts loading, you can let go. It will take a couple of minutes, but it will eventually boot into Linux.
Attach your USB drive.
Run gparted (you need to search the menus for it, it's under system administration, I think -- or you can open up a terminal window and simply type 'gparted').
Find your disk (/dev/sdb or /dev/sda) and partition and format it using the filesystem you want.
When done, restart the computer. You'll boot back into Mac OS X and have an EXT2/EXT3/XFS formatted external drive (that OS X won't recognize, by the way).

Cannot mount external USB drive with FDisk_partition_scheme

Due to some recent mac issues in my lab, we updated one of the computers to Maverick 10.9.4 from Snow Leopard 10.6.8 yesterday. Anyhow, this seems to have erased the ability of the mac to read or mount several identical USB drives with the NTFS format (WD My Passport Ultra 500GB USB3.0). It could do it yesterday when it was OSX 10.6.8, but not today (OSX 10.9.4). The drives still work fine on other OSX 10.6.8, Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu 14.04 computers (this is appears to be a problem with the Maverick 10.9.4 operating system itself, rather than the flash drives which work flawlessly with every other computer I've tried). I want to remove data from the computer to create backups on the USB drives (no, I don't want to create an online backup or buy a new set of USB drives).
diskutil can see the drives, but cannot verify or repair them as they lack a GUID (GPT) partition scheme. I'm assuming this is the root of the problem. Manually mounting the drives does not work. Installing the ntfs-3g driver also did not work (I was using this to write to the NTFS drives until we upgraded OS's). Installing the WD Passport drivers for OSX also did not work. How do I get the mac to mount these drives?
I could reformat one USB drive and then copy to the others, but this would be extremely inconvenient and take days of copying files back and forth (and would prefer to fix the mac rather than go through this with every NTFS drive I own). If I did this, the FAT32 hard drive format would not be suitable, as format is unable to handle the extremely large sequencing datasets I need to transfer. I'm not super familiar with hard drive formats, but in the event we cannot get Maverick to actually work could someone possibly suggest a format able to handle large file sizes (the largest file I need to move is ~60GB) and be compatible with Windows 8.1 / OSX 10.9.4 / Ubuntu 14.04 as well?
Another workaround I thought of would be just to install an Ubuntu partition on the mac and get the files off through the Linux install. Which is also inconvenient, but would probably be faster than trying to reformat the drives and copy everything over onto them again given the amount of data I want to transfer.
Unrelated, but is there any way to view files and folders in the OSX root directory besides through Terminal? It seems like this functionality was also removed when we "upgraded" from Snow Leopard. (At this point, if it were up to me I would wipe all of the macs we own and replace them with Ubuntu... even the most minor of tasks always require some sort of workaround with them... at my wits end here ).

Yeah this definitely appears to be a problem specifically with this mac. It's been having all sorts of weird problems lately, and we figured that upgrading to Maverick might fix them (but instead we got new problems).
To give an update on this, I ended up reformatting one of the drives to HFS+ and disabled journaling. It now recognizes the drive again, and I'm pulling the files off that way. I looked at exFAT, but it looks like HFS+ has much better Linux support (Windows is read-only but that's only a minor annoyance, as the algorithms to process the data only run on UNIX machines anyways). It's a shame I couldn't keep using NTFS (had to copy over literally EVERYTHING again...) but whatever. Again, no solution for the issue (where this mac can't read NTFS drives).
@rkaufmann87 - To give a bit more explanation, we recently had to disable online backups because apparently the sheer amount of data causes Time Machine to freeze the computer and fail every time it has a scheduled backup (original issue we thought that upgrading to Maverick would solve... didn't work). The hard drive has been having a lot of issues when it begins to reach max capacity as well. So I am pulling off all of my files to external hard drives and deleting the local copy before we attempt to back up online again. And the data would probably take me a year and a lot of money to recreate (for the curious, it's high throughput sequencing data). I'm choosing not to take any chances as a result.

MBP replaced with MBP C2D?

I have a MBP which I purchased back in Feb. Since then I've had to get it replaced twice for different reasons. I know that now Apple is doing something about the "whine" on the MBP. If I take it in to my local Apple store do you think that they would
1) replace it with a MBP C2D
2) replace it with a refurbished MBP
3) send it in for repairs
Any of those situations would be fine, but I was wondering if someone had a similar situation and what the outcome was.
Thanks
Andy

I had the same "whine" issue, and if they have not addressed it yet, they will take it and send it in to have the Main Logic Board replaced. That should cure the whine. If it does not cure it, they may try to send it back again for repairs, and if it gets to be "unfixable" they will replace it with a C2D since they no longer make the CD.

External VGA Monitor with MBP

I'm contemplating buying a MBP 15" and was wondering if I could attach an external monitor (older model - Samsung SyncMaster 175V) for use in my home office and get good results.

Well, it's hard to say. Factors such as resolution, refresh rate, even size can make it look a little different than what you have on your screen. Since it's not DVI, the colors may be a little different, probably not as rich as your MBP screen. If your resolution is lower than your MBP, it might have a smaller screen area, and make your icons look a little bigger than normal.
There really shouldn't be any driver issue at all. Just plug it in, and tell your MBP to go to your external monitor, it should show almost right away. You have the adaptor right? There's only one way to find out if you'll like using your external monitor on your MBP, and that's to try it out. You have nothing to lose..

Using Seagate External Hard Drive with both PC and Mac

So I bought this hard drive knowing that it can be used back and forth between Macs and PCs. I currently have a PC, but it's pretty old and I figure I will be getting a Mac after it dies. But currently I want to use it to get files from a Mac computer and when I connect it, it says "read only". How do I configure it to be able to transfer files with a Mac?
Seagate - FreeAgent GoFlex 1.5TB External USB 2.0/3.0 Portable Hard Drive - Black

Here you go:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090913140023382
If you find my post useful or informative, please click the icon below with the plus sign and star to give kudos. Thank you!

Using an external hard-disk with both mac and XP

I would like to use an external USB hard-drive to use with both my XP desktop and Macbook. This is mainly to store photo's and music. Am I right in believing this is possible so long as I format the disk in FAT32 first. Is there a file size limitation?

Hi,
I was planning to buy the Western Digital 'My Passport Essential 160GB USB Portable Hard Drive'. If I formatted that as FAT32 - would that be ok. Also can I use it as my ITunes 'base'?
Yes and yes.
But be aware that you can encounter difficulties with USB-powered external HDs, since such drives generally need more power from the USB port than a Mac and/or PC usually can deliver.
My personal choice would be to get a power supply for the external HD.
Regards
Stefan

External HDD Issues with Snow Leopard and Time Machine

Hello,
I have a 1TB WD 10EADS External HDD, and it had some files on it. I connected it the other day to an iMac I recently upgraded to 10.6, and wanted to do a complete time machine backup of the computer to it (250GB HDD). I copied the files off the external HDD I needed and then Time Machine needed to format it as it was a FAT32 drive. This went successfully, and I started the Time Machine backup. This went quite slowly and failed after ~2.5GB or so. I restarted and tried again to no avail upon which Time Machine told me I should reformat it in Disk Utility. So I did, and to no avail.
I tried this a number of times and sometimes when doing a reformat I was told that the drive could not be unmounted. I tried manually copying files to the disk which started to work but then failed promptly with error (-36) and the message "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in “ [Program/File Name]” can't be read or written." I upgraded to 10.6.1 also to no avail. I even repaired permissions and the disk, and booted Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard disc and formatted that to no avail.
I have read this is an I/O error and can be associated with bad drives, but as I stated before, the drive worked perfectly until Time Machine formatted it. I took the HDD to another Mac running 10.6, and it told me it had a POSIX error. I did some googling and found that if I format it under a Windows machine, and then reformat under the mac it might work.
What I want to know is, is this a 10.6 error or has the HDD decided to go kaput after Time Machine formatting it?
Thanks for your help

Thomas Huxley wrote:
Time Machine backup failed. I think it's a glitch with the computer, not the HDD. Going to zero out the drive now.
Any other suggestions on how I might bypass this error to get data onto the Disk eg. transfer over to another computer, so I can reformat the computer and install Snow Leopard from scratch? The whole purpose of doing this time Machine backup was to get all the files off the computer to perform a clean install of Snow Leopard.
I assume you're positive the TM disk has both the correct *Partition Map Scheme* (GUID) and Format (Mac OS Extended (journaled), but not case-sensitive)? One of them being wrong is the most common cause of a first TM backup failing.
Did you do either a +*Verify Disk+* (not permissions) or a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your internal HD, or only your TM drive? The message you got could be a result of a problem on either one.
Other options are to make a "bootable clone" via CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. CCC is donationware, SD has a free version that will do it. If you do that, boot from it, and be sure everything works before erasing your internal HD. Google them.
Note that there are many, many reports of problems here with WD drives, and that some of them are not bootable.
I would not upgrade without backups (Murphy was an optimist!), but is there a reason you want to erase your HD? It's not required, and rarely does any good. The normal install will simply install Snow Leopard and remove Leopard. Your apps, data, etc., won't be touched.

USB compatible with Windows 7 and Mac OS X

Hi everyone.
I bought myself today a Datatraveler 32GB usb stick from Kingston. I do some computer fixing in my spare time.
I want to put my personal tools on this stick. So when I go to people who have Windows I take the usb stick with me and I have all my tools on it. On the other side, when I go to people with a Mac, the usb stick has to be compatible with that too. So I thought, when I make 2 partitions on it and I format the first one with Mac OS X extented and the second with NTFS, then I got a usb stick that is compatible with both OSes. But when I format this in Disk Utility my Windows PC doesn't recognize the stick as compatible.

Hi Joel,
just as an idea: why not use FAT32 as file system ?
It's compatible with both Windows 7 and Mac OSX.
For your immenent problem:
You have to use MBR (Master Boot Record) as partition scheme on the stick, then Windows 7 can format its partition with NTFS and OSX can format with MacOS Extended (Journaled) on its designated partition.
Be aware of some stories that using MacOS Extended file system on an MBR partitioned drive/stick might lead to 'deteriorating' problems later on.
Personally I use FAT32 for my USB-Sticks without any problems going back and forth between Windows and Mac OSX.
Regards
Stefan

ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint (55Y9053) and Keyboard Customizer Utility

Hi:
I have a ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint (55Y9053),
I install the driver 1.0.7 and Keyboard Customizer Utility 1.0.01 for it.
But, Browser Back/Forward Key of my ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint (55Y9053) can't control by Keyboard Customizer Utility.
Keyboard Customizer Utility only work for my keyboard of R61.
Somebody can help me, plz?
My ThinkPad is R61, os is win vista business.

Hi Jochem,
I have an SK-8845 that I like a lot and I've been running driver version 1.06. I didn't even know that 1.08 was out. I'm not an employee, so I don't have any insight on future driver releases. I've had some scrolling issues myself in some programs, but after I did this, I haven't had any issues.
I just installed your driver, (1.08) and everything seems to be working okay. I haven't tested it fully yet. I saved my old driver though, just in case.
Dave
T430u, x301, x200T, x61T, x61, x32, x41T, x40, U160, ThinkPad Tablet 1838-22R, Z500 touch, Yoga Tab 2 Windows 8.1, Yoga Tablet 3 Pro
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I cannot print anymore and get the message /usr/libexec/cups/backend/usb failed", with both imac and my mac book pro

Today, after printing normally, wanted tp print another page with oki ES3640a3 and epson 7900 too.
received the message that the printer stopped, and than
"client-error-not-possible"
and
"/usr/libexec/cups/backend/usb failed"
can anyone help, I am a professional photographer and cannot miss the epson 7900.
I received the messages on my imac OSx 10.5.8
and my mac book pro OS Lion
thanks

Hi, did you restart the printers?
Is there a stuck job in them?
Mac OS X: About the Reset Printing System feature ...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1341?viewlocale=en_US
10.5/10.6/10.7 instructions...
In System Preferences>Fax & Print, Right click or Control+click on the Printers list Sidebar, choose Reset Printing System.
if you hold option and click the "-" tab it resets the printing system.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031215144430486
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions.
Any devices that previously appeared in your Printer List and Fax List will need to be added again after resetting the printing system.
Resetting the printing system in Mac OS X 10.5.x+++
To use the Reset Printing System feature in Mac OS X 10.5.x, follow these steps:
Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
Choose Print & Fax from the View menu.
Control-click on list of printers on the left side of the window, then choose "Reset printing system" from the contextual menu. If you don't see a list of printers, Control-click on the text "Click + to add a printer or fax" and select "Reset printing system..."
As an alternative, if you currently have one or more printers listed, you can Option-click the "-" (Remove printer) button.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1341
Reboot.

External USB drive with 3000 N100

Hi,
Good to be here - first post!
Needing more capacity I bought a Seagate FreeAgent Go 2.5 inch 120GB drive that draws its power from the computer using two USB ports.
I could not get this to work at all - it seemed be a hardware issue with the drive: it made a bleeping sound and was not detected by the computer. It also seriously upset the Lenovo and I had to do a hard reboot by disconnecting the battery, after which it ran normally (but the Seagate still didn't work at all).
I then connected the Seagate to my desktop PC with the same (negative) result.
So, was the Seagate dead from the word go? Or was there a power issue with the Lenovo that killed it?
I've checked that my Lenovo has the latest BIOS, and all its WinXP Pro updates are up to date. What success, or otherwise, have others had with portable external drives with the 3000 N100?
Best wishes

Thanks to all for their suggestions. The final outcome was a bit of a surprise - it works! Depending upon which USB ports you plug into (this drive, like many other portable ones) uses two USB ports to supply extra power). It would appear that the Lenovo uses "some" power from the USB for internal devices - the built-in webcam being one. Examining the USB ports in Device Manager shows which ports are "used", although I confess the information is not easy to interpret. It looks like this drive needs the full 1 amp (2 x 500mA) from the two ports. On the 3000 N100, using the two ports on the right, nearest the front of the PC, seems do do the trick.
The same applied to my desktop - the two ports I plugged into originally shared a common 500mA supply and that's why the drive didn't work. Again, finding two "independent" ports did the trick.
So it might mean that the Lenovo is a bit marginal in regard to supplying power from the USB ports

Using an External USB soundcard with Airport Extreme Base Station

Hello, I own a macbook, an airport extreme base station and a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 USB 2.0 external sound card that works like a charm with my macbook. I have a printer and a hard drive connected to the USB from the Airport base station through a hub, and I was wondering if there is any way I could make my macbook recognize the external sound card when connected to the base station's USB port. I would like to be able to play music wirelessly through the base station but the application/driver from Native Instruments does not recognize the sound card plugged to the router.
Thank you

if there is any way I could make my macbook recognize the external sound card when connected to the base station's USB port
First welcome the the Apple Discussions Forum!
To your question - it's highly unlikely, sorry!

WinXp on External USB HD with MBP C2D and rEfit

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