i have a fantom 250g usb2.0 ext harddrive that contains my music library. it has worked fine on my ibook g4 for well over 6 months. now all of a sudden my mac no longer recognizes the drive. my mac's usb ports work fine, and the ext. drive works on my windows xp pc.the mac just no longer reads the FAT32 formatted drive. any advice?
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ibook no longer recognizes ext harddrive
- Thread starter nappyjohnson
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thanks for the reply, yes i have repaired permissions, restarted, logged out and back in, and i can't get my mac to recognize the harddrive.
Does it show up in System Profiler?
Does this USB HD have a power source, or is it supposed to be powered by the USBus?
Does this USB HD have a power source, or is it supposed to be powered by the USBus?
no, it doesn't show up in sys profiler. i can't find a trace of it on my computer.
the ext. drive does have an external power source.
the ext. drive does have an external power source.
All I can suggest is that you 1) try a new USB cable, and 2) try it logged in as a different user.
Unfortunately, you've appeared to have ruled out the likely culprits in this case (the HD case may have failed, or the USB ports on your Mac are toast).
Unfortunately, you've appeared to have ruled out the likely culprits in this case (the HD case may have failed, or the USB ports on your Mac are toast).
thanks for your help, unfortunately i've tried a new usb cable, and logging in as a different user. my other pc has no problem reading the ext. drive. in the past i've been able to switch between my mac and my windows pc with no problem. is there maybe a driver that i need. it could've gotten erased or something...i'm not sure, running out of ideas...
I have a USB2 ext. drive that works great using XP or linux but OSX on my iBook seldom seems to see it. I have the best luck after using fdisk (linux disk utility) on it. I purchased a 3.5" firewire case and a Seagate and haven't looked back.
thanks, it's really wierd. my digital camera shows up in system profiler in the usb section, but still no sign of the ext drive when i connect it and turn the power on. i just can't figure out what has changed on my mac osx to make it stop reading the drive.
i've found this message in system log:
Jun 6 00:07:38 Macintosh kernel[0]: USBF: 406.686 AppleUSBEHCI[0x15e4800]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 91, timing out!
i think that this is my computer failing to read the usb port with the ext drive.
Jun 6 00:07:38 Macintosh kernel[0]: USBF: 406.686 AppleUSBEHCI[0x15e4800]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 91, timing out!
i think that this is my computer failing to read the usb port with the ext drive.
nappyjohnson said:
yes, this is most probably the reason... now, I googled your error message and didn't find anything useful, just couple of more guys with the same problem. You should probably ask apple support, they should know what this means.
I had a lot of problems with my ext hd also, but I always thought it's because of my iBook's crappy fw... My first big disappointment with apple hardware, hopefully the last.
yaay!! problem fixed
i bought a powered usb 2.0 4-port hub and ran my ext drive through it to my mac. everything is working now
i bought a powered usb 2.0 4-port hub and ran my ext drive through it to my mac. everything is working now