External HD not recognized when moved internally

[Doc69]

I just upgraded one of my data HDs in my Mac pro 5,1 from 3TB to 4TB. I formatted the new 4TB via FW800 and copied all the data to it. But now when I have moved it to one of the internal drive bays, to replace the 3TB drive, the Mac doesn't recognize it. It asks if I want to initialize it. So it shows up in Disk Utility but the partition is not there.

Anyone know if this is normal or not? As far as I know, this should be possible. It would be strange if you had to format the drive when it's in the internal drive bay for it to work there.

 

[g4cube]

Does your Mac support 4TB drives internally or require a special SATA driver?

Your FireWire bridge in the external drive may take care of the 512-4K translation that these larger drives employ. Some USB and FireWire bridges do this for 4TB drives.

 

[Doc69]

Yes, my Mac Pro supports 4TB drives. However, I think I figured it out, because when I took an internal drive an put it in the same FW800 dock (Seagate GoFlex), it didn't mount either.

When I think of it, in the past, when I have moved internal drives externally, and vice versa, I have always used eSATA. So it's probably different when you use FW800. Anyway, I just bit the bullet and reformatted the 4TB inside the Mac Pro. So now I just have to copy the 3TB of data again, which was what I had hoped to avoid.

 

[costabunny]

However, I think I figured it out, because when I took an internal drive an put it in the same FW800 dock (Seagate GoFlex), it didn't mount either.

Yep some external controllers are weird like that - The western digital MyBooks are the same. Annoying, but I guess thats how they intend to keep you buying their bespoke hardware for your drives