Mac Mini won't recognize my external every cold boot

[Nanasaki]

i have a 500GB external HDD attached on my Mac Mini as download drive (USB 3.0). The drive works fine I am sure of. Now here is the problem: every time after cold boot, Mac Mini just won't see my attached external HDD. Open Disk Utility, see nothing. Unplug and plug into the SAME usb port, still won't see. I HAVE to plug into different USB port, then the Mac Mini will see the drive. The Mac Mini is 2011 model running Mountain Lion 10.8.4.

 

[philipma1957]

i have a 500GB external HDD attached on my Mac Mini as download drive (USB 3.0). The drive works fine I am sure of. Now here is the problem: every time after cold boot, Mac Mini just won't see my attached external HDD. Open Disk Utility, see nothing. Unplug and plug into the SAME usb port, still won't see. I HAVE to plug into different USB port, then the Mac Mini will see the drive. The Mac Mini is 2011 model running Mountain Lion 10.8.4.

you realize that your 2011 mini is usb2 not usb3?

try a fw800 drive or a t-bolt drive.

while the usb3 hdd should be backwards compatible it will be very slow to boot or may not boot at all.

 

[opinio]

i have a 500GB external HDD attached on my Mac Mini as download drive (USB 3.0). The drive works fine I am sure of. Now here is the problem: every time after cold boot, Mac Mini just won't see my attached external HDD. Open Disk Utility, see nothing. Unplug and plug into the SAME usb port, still won't see. I HAVE to plug into different USB port, then the Mac Mini will see the drive. The Mac Mini is 2011 model running Mountain Lion 10.8.4.

I had a similar problem once with an external. Tried everything. I eventually fixed it by reformatting the drive.

 

[Nanasaki]

I had a similar problem once with an external. Tried everything. I eventually fixed it by reformatting the drive.

So did you formatted your drive to HFS+ or FAT? Could it be problem with exFAT... I want to keep as exFAT, because I might need transfer files from/to Windows PC as well.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

Mac Mini won't recognize my external every cold boot

Alzheimer disease?

 

[opinio]

So did you formatted your drive to HFS+ or FAT? Could it be problem with exFAT... I want to keep as exFAT, because I might need transfer files from/to Windows PC as well.

I never use exFAT because I have Parallels and Linux (and rarely use windows). So yeah it was HFS+.

 

[Fishrrman]

"So did you formatted your drive to HFS+ or FAT? Could it be problem with exFAT... I want to keep as exFAT, because I might need transfer files from/to Windows PC as well."

My advice, others may disagree.

If you want the drive to be reliable, re-initialize it into "Mac" format, NOT a PC format.

It's my opinion (and mine only) that you should NEVER trust important Mac data on a "cross-formatted" drive.

Use some other drive for cross-platform transfers -- a flash drive, another hard drive, etc.

 

[Nanasaki]

"So did you formatted your drive to HFS+ or FAT? Could it be problem with exFAT... I want to keep as exFAT, because I might need transfer files from/to Windows PC as well."

My advice, others may disagree.

If you want the drive to be reliable, re-initialize it into "Mac" format, NOT a PC format.

It's my opinion (and mine only) that you should NEVER trust important Mac data on a "cross-formatted" drive.

Use some other drive for cross-platform transfers -- a flash drive, another hard drive, etc.

Ok, will format to HFS+.... Thank you for the advice