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External drive won't mount OSX 10.6

M

misty34

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 7, 2009
6
0
Hi Guys, Newbie here :),

Wondered if someone can help me?. I am trying to use my old hard drive as an external drive. It's a 250gb drive which came with the powermac G4. It worked okay when it was in my G4 a while back but the G4 has now gone and been replaced with a G5 which is the hub of the house.

I also have a MacBook Pro this is my usual work horse as it's intel.

I have now got an external case for the G4's hard drive. I connected it via firewire and it won't mount so this is what i've done so far.

1) swapped cables from firewire and tried USB
2) openned up Disk utility to see if it could be seen in there.
3) went into finder>pref>made sure all things were checked ie hard drisk, external disks, cd.
4) tried in on the G5 but it couldn't see it also.
5) downloaded disk drill to see if that could see it but again no joy.

I am running OSX 10.5 on the G5 and OSX 10.6 on the macbook Pro. The G4 was running OSX 10.4 when the disk was last used. It still holds OSX 10.4 as I couldn't remove it before the G4 went.

I have switched the disk to slave hoping I could just plug it in and see it but it's not playing ball. Is it just a case of OSX 10.6 can't see OSX 10.4 even if it's in slave mode?. . Or am I doing something completely wrong?. Thank you for your help in advance.

Any suggestions please would be appreciated right now :)
 
What are you trying to connect the ext drive to - G5 or MBP?


EDIT: never mind, I see that 10.6 (MBP) won't see the drive. Since your G5 won't see it, either, it looks as though the drive is kaput.
 
Last edited:
It was tested prior to being removed from an apple dealer. so it should be seen in theory. Thank you for your help.

OLDCODGER said:
What are you trying to connect the ext drive to - G5 or MBP?


EDIT: never mind, I see that 10.6 (MBP) won't see the drive. Since your G5 won't see it, either, it looks as though the drive is kaput.
Click to expand...
 
You do have the external enclosure powered on right? :)

You may have a bad enclosure, some of these fail pretty quick.

Can you tell/hear if the drive spins up when you turn the enclosure on?

Look for bent pins.
 
Hi there, It's an old IDE (AKA) drive and the new case came in the post yesterday. I can hear the spinning and the green light is on. I have opened it twice to make sure I've put it in correctly and there's seems only one way it can go with the four wires being held with the yellow one to the outer edge. As it is a slave I have moved the white plasic bit in the correct place. The drive information facing upwards the power light secure. It's in a 5.25" case to give the fan some room to cool instead of a 3.5 case. Thank you guys. :)

----------
misty34 said:
Hi there, It's an old IDE (AKA) drive and the new case came in the post yesterday. I can hear the spinning and the green light is on. I have opened it twice to make sure I've put it in correctly and there's seems only one way it can go with the four wires being held with the yellow one to the outer edge. As it is a slave I have moved the white plasic bit in the correct place. The drive information facing upwards the power light secure. It's in a 5.25" case to give the fan some room to cool instead of a 3.5 case. Thank you guys. :)
Click to expand...

If it had Tiger running on it would that stop snow leopard from seeing it?.
 
Hello,

Your ATA drive is very old, and old hard drives are not the most reliable things in the world.

Small hard drives are very cheap these days, and if you want (have) to keep using ATA drives, get yourself a new one with a warranty.

Loa
 
Hi there, I have now got the case in bits, drive still connected and I can hear it spinning, the green power light is on. I have re connected the pins and tired to move them up a bit but there is only one place it can go as the master/slave pin would be in the way. I have also pulled the white case holding the four wire off and re connected them. The case is still off and i'm running disk utility on the hard drive on to see if for some strange reason it won't it.

I know I could get another drive that isn't an issue I just need to get important pictures I have lost back off of this one.
Thank you for all the help. :)


Loa said:
Hello,

Your ATA drive is very old, and old hard drives are not the most reliable things in the world.

Small hard drives are very cheap these days, and if you want (have) to keep using ATA drives, get yourself a new one with a warranty.

Loa
Click to expand...
 
What enclosure are you using? Can you link to it?

Your G5 uses an ATA connection in the optical bay. You can try disconnecting your optical drive and plugging your HDD in instead. If the drive still isn't recognized after doing that, then it's probably kaput.
 
Perhaps it needs to be strapped for master, since its the only drive in the box. Its been awhile since I've done much IDE, lots of rugged and automotive drives are still using IDE.

From one of the on line PC guides:

"When using only a single drive on a channel, there are some considerations to be aware of. Some hard disks have only a jumper for master or slave; when the drive is being used solo on a channel it should be set to master. Other manufacturers, notably Western Digital, actually have three settings for their drives: master, slave, and single. The last setting is intended for use when the drive is alone on the channel. This type of disk should be set to single, and not master, when being used alone.

Also, a single device on an IDE channel "officially" should not be jumpered as a slave. In practice, this will often work despite being formally "illegal" . "

Your enclose may want the drive set to cable select (CS).
 
Last edited:
Big Thank you guys for all your help! ; ) . . . I took the hard drive to be tested and yes it was okay all data could be seen. However the new external portable enclosure was faulty and when powered up smells of electric burning. The guys told me to let ebay know as I purchased it from a known supplier so that's what I am going to do. Again Thank you so much for your help. :)


ColdCase said:
Perhaps it needs to be strapped for master, since its the only drive in the box. Its been awhile since I've done much IDE, lots of rugged and automotive drives are still using IDE.

From one of the on line PC guides:

"When using only a single drive on a channel, there are some considerations to be aware of. Some hard disks have only a jumper for master or slave; when the drive is being used solo on a channel it should be set to master. Other manufacturers, notably Western Digital, actually have three settings for their drives: master, slave, and single. The last setting is intended for use when the drive is alone on the channel. This type of disk should be set to single, and not master, when being used alone.

Also, a single device on an IDE channel "officially" should not be jumpered as a slave. In practice, this will often work despite being formally "illegal" . "

Your enclose may want the drive set to cable select (CS).
Click to expand...
 
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