USB Drive Trouble on iMac 20" Intel

[GilGrissom]

Hi guys,

Not posted for a while, but once again I need your collective diagnostic skills!

I've had this 250Gb Buffalo hard drive for a while, its USB2 only and has that auto-power feature so when the computer turns on or off, so does the drive.

It's been fine for me for some years now, but has recently started to not work on my new 20" iMac C2D. It did previously, but I've been on holiday and not been using it much. I've upgraded to 10.4.10, but I believe the problem was there before, and the update hasn't helped.

Basically I plug it in, it powers up, but does not mount, despite what port or USB hub I plug it into. It has worked before in the past and my other USB devices haven't changed.

The funny thing is my old 12" PB still detects it and mounts it instantly fine, no problems, so it's just the iMac at the minute. Other USB devices work fine, and I've tried plugging it in with no other USB devices attached, still nothing.

The auto-power on feature doesn't work correctly most of the time either, i.e.: it won't power up when the Mac does. Even when I flick it to manual, it still will not mount.

I'm lead to believe it's my iMac. Any way to diagnose and solve the problem, guys?

Many thanks

Gil

 

[theBB]

A few other people posted USB hard-drive problems after 10.4.10 update. I wonder if yours is related as well.

 

[GilGrissom]

A few other people posted USB hard-drive problems after 10.4.10 update. I wonder if yours is related as well.

Maybe.

As I said, I'm honestly not sure if the problem was there before 10.4.10. (But sure is there after regardless!)

My PowerBook (which it works on) was on 10.4.9. It has since been put to 10.4.10 today. I'll try it again on the PowerBook tomorrow when I get in from work to see if it still works...if it doesn't it must be 10.4.10. If it does work, hmmm...what tests can I do on my USB ports? Is there a special boot up option, if I recall, which can run a hardware test or something?

Thanks

 

[bashx001]

EXACT same problem!

Incredibly, I noticed this exact same problem this morning, when I tried to mount my 250GB Buffalo hard drive to my 20in iMac!? What is going on? I am running 10.4.10 too.
Please let me know if anyone gets this resolved.
Thanks.

 

[GilGrissom]

Really strange.

If it matters, I noticed that the actual physical hard drive in my Buffalo USB external seems to be identical to my iMac internal drive, both 250Gb, both (did) come up as "WDC WD2500JS" in system profiler. Is that a possible reason?

Either way...it worked...now it doesn't! Makes my shiny new iMac seem a little dull now!

I've posted on Apple's support site, still nothing back.

 

[bashx001]

any word

Man, this problem is driving me crazy! Is there any other help suggestions out there? Can Mac solve this seemingly small problem!?

 

[bcnme70@gmail.c]

Mac OS X 10.4.10 update & USB Powered Drives

Ok after pulling my hair out I found this post and wanted to let you know that I have called Apple and they have their techs working on the issue. We had 10.4.9 running on all our macs and like good techs when the next one came out(10.4.10) we installed it on all our mac and all of the sudden none of our USB Powered Drives would mount. so we found a mac that still had 10.4.9 and the drive mounted with no issues and then updated it to 10.4.10 and it broke. Not sure what to tell ya other than how did something like this get missed by apple?? I hope to hear from them today or tomorrow at the latest. I will post again tomorrow!! if any of you out there has figured how to correct this please update or email me. I have several execs that are pissed because the "Apple Computers shouldn't have these kinds of errors".

 

[GilGrissom]

... I have several execs that are pissed because the "Apple Computers shouldn't have these kinds of errors".

I bet you do!

Something like this is pretty huge...what confuses me more is why hasn't it come up sooner?...why isn't it plastered all over the Apple sites like past glitches have been?...until it gets publicity Apple might not realise.

If you've managed to speak to Apple technicians direct then that is something...hopefully the cogs are working now (if, that is, anyone is left on Tiger support and not moved over to iPhone support!!)

Thanks for your efforts so far...I've got nowhere new on the issue, but will post back if I do.

Are all those machines you spoke of iMacs?

 

[bcnme70@gmail.c]

I have all different kinds of macs.

 

[Jamao]

Hi all, I have an iMac C2D, and I have the same problem, but with another HDD trade, btw is an USB external drive, it doesn't mount... too bad for me, I need the disc data, I think it's a big mistake from apple, even when they say in the new update there is a better USB connection it sounds ironic.

If you know something new or how to repair the problem please post it!

Thx a lot.

 

[GilGrissom]

It appears to be Intel 10.4.10 update only as my 10.4.10 PowerBook is fine.

UPDATE: Finally got somewhere on this. A helpful guy over at the Apple Support Forums has posted a work-around, which gets the drive mounted, for the time being. It's not a fix, but a work-around is better than nothing.

Either downgrade to 10.4.9 or follow these steps.

Hi Nick and all others,

found this on Macosxhints:

After updating my Mac to OS X 10.4.10, my external FireWire/USB2 drive didn't mount any more (if plugged in via the USB2 port). I thought about an interface failure specific to my enclosure, but searching on the web, I saw that it was a common problem for 10.4.10 users with Intel Macs and external enclosures. Moreover, I tested the drive on another Mac with 10.4.9 and it worked flawlessly. So it was a problem with the 10.4.10 update.

The only solution found until now was downgrading to 10.4.9 again, but this is a real pain. I was ready to use Pacifist to replace the new USB kernel extensions with the older 10.4.9 ones. But before doing this, I wanted to check if I could force the drive to mount in some way, and accidentally found the workaround.

I used System Profiler to list USB devices and get the VendorID/ProductID of the drive; it was listed amongst my other devices. As I needed some more device information, I launched USB Prober (included with Apple's Xcode Developer Tools) and ... the drive mounted on desktop! Apparently the polling that USB Prober does on USB devices causes OS X to realize that the device is a USB Storage Class product and finally mounts it. I tried several times and it always worked: USB Prober makes the drive mount.

So, if you have the same problem with your external USB device, here's a workaround until Apple fixes it:

1. Plug your drive in
2. Launch USB Prober (/Developer » Applications » Utilities » USB Prober)
3. After the drive mounts, quit USB Prober

That's it! The only drawback is that you must have the Developer Tools installed (as USB Prober comes with them). If you don't want to install all of the developer tools, you can simply extract the application from the installer package using Pacifist. Hope this helps!

Could be helpful.

Stefan

Orignal post here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4773565#4773565

 

[GilGrissom]

Well...I've finally managed to actually give that work-around a shot and so far it doesn't appear to be working for me, but I'm experimenting still.

USB Prober does detect a problem but doesn't offer a solution or anything (I'm guessing that's not its job anyway!)

 

[Jamao]

Yes, for me not working too. USB Prober just check the USB connection but not mounting the drive. So we must wait I think... Apple -1 :/

 

[GilGrissom]

10.4.10 v1.1

Right, Apple have announced 10.4.10 update version 1.1 which is supposed to solve the USB mounting issue. I've installed it and still no luck, infact my iMac is now worse!

My screen is quite blurry and not clear and when I move my mouse cursor, the screen moves slightly in the opposite direction, it's quite strange. Also, the top menu bar is no longer rounded in the corners (by the Apple logo and clock) like it usually is.

It would appear my graphics card driver is up the swanny as a result of this v1.1 update...I can't believe Apple have made such a mess of this update.

I'm going to downgrade to 10.4.9 and then try the 10.4.10v1.1 again, if not I'm sticking with 10.4.9.
****************
UPDATE: My screen problem has been fixed, it would seem that my iMac slightly activated the zoom feature, ctrl and scroll wheel on the mouse solved it. Was a bit strange as I've not pushed the ctrl button to zoom in and out of the screen for ages...I'm not sure if it was just a slight glitch of v1.1, or if it was me.

Unfortunately I'm still not able to mount USB drives, despite having 10.4.10 v1.1 installed. I'm trying to reinstall it again to see if something didn't quite install properly.

 

[GilGrissom]

Up and running!

Thankfully my issue has been resolved, but I'm not sure how.

As I stated in my previous post, the v1.1 update didn't seem to do anything for me. It installed fine with no complications that were obvious, but it just didn't seem to fix the problem.

Here are the steps that I did that got my iMac working again (no guarantee it will work for others, but I'm simply passing on exactly what I did.)
1. Download Pacifist (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12743)
2. Download 10.4.10 v1.1
3. Use Pacifist to open 10.4.10 v1.1 and install to default location using administration privileges, when asked if something already exists, select "replace" and tick the box so it repeats this action.
4. When installation has completed reboot OS X (At this stage it didn't fix my problem, it might do you, so see if this does it, I randomly found mine worked after step 5...no real logic!)
5. Reboot the Mac and boot into Windows Vista.
6. Boot back into OS X...drive mounted instantly.

I'm not saying there is any link with booting into Windows and it working, and that people without Windows installed under Boot Camp are screwed, you may find yours works without that step, but mine seemed a little delayed. Maybe it was simply the second reboot that did it instead.

Regardless, I'm thankfully back up with my hard drive.

I hope everyone else with problems can solve them.

 

[Jamao]

Not worked for me, I have XP on Boot Camp, not Vista, btw isn't worked damn :/ I need the disc dates! :s