External Hard Drive Won't Mount

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I just got a new 250GB SimpleTech external USB hard drive (no firewire). I'm able to access it from Linux and have partitioned it from there. There is a 20GB Linux ext2 partition first, and the rest is FAT32. I couldn't remember what Windows sets as the partition identifier for FAT32 partitions--it's currently set to 0x0C, which Linux fdisk identifies as "W95 FAT32 (LBA)".

My Mac Mini is on 10.4.8 and completely updated. When I plug in the drive, no partitions get mounted. In System Profiler, the USB section hangs when the drive is plugged in. I've unplugged all other USB devices with the same results. The Disk Utility also hangs when the drive is plugged in. I've changed which USB port is used a few times, with the same results. It continues to work fine on Linux. Haven't tested with Windows.
 
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I would actually do the Windows test next. If Windows can see it, perhaps you should try reformatting in Windows, as FAT32. See if the Mac sees it then.

My worry is that the Mac doesn't natively support ext2 (although you can get support from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/ ). I wonder if this is throwing it off? So, I suggested reformatting to a single format to start with, so that we know for sure that the Mac SHOULD be able to see it.

Once you have this done, you could install the above ext2 support for Mac and use ext2 as the format between your Linux box and your Mac box.
 
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I popped it on Windows. I reformatted the first partition to FAT32 and plugged it back into the Mac. Still not coming up there. Also plugged it into my brother's iBook G4, with the same results.
 
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So, we know that this disk has two FAT32 partitions, that it works successfully on both Linux and Windows and that Mac OS X is having trouble with it. So far so good. We can conclude that the drive is A-OK and the problem is likely logical not physical.

Now that both partitions are FAT32, does it still hang up your Disk Utility when you plug it in? If not, you can now use the Mac to reformat to its own taste.

Are you using the same USB cable when you plug it into the Linux, Windows and Mac systems? Just wondering if the cable could be an issue.

One last thing. The partition table might be the source of your issue, as I suspect you are thinking as well. If you have access to SuSE's YaST partitioner, you can use it to erase and rebuild the partition table. I did this myself in a similar situation (although it was Windows that wouldn't acknowledge the drive, not Mac OS X, which worked with it happily) and it was very successful. After recreating the partition table, all my OS' seemed happy with the drive.
 
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I'm his Brother, and I'm just as confused with this as he is.

He is using the same cable for all of this and has 2 fat partitions, now. It still takes a very long time for disk utility to say anything, but it will sometimes "see" the drive, but he can't really do anything with it. He can't reformat it totally yet because he has information on it that he needs, but I think that is where he needs to start- with just one basic fat partition across the whole drive. I don't know why OSX would have a problem with this, but it is acting quite odd.
 
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I agree. Get the information off it and try a fresh, whole disk, reformat. I am still thinking that the partition table is likely messed up somehow. That is why I recommended SuSE's YaST partitioner.

You don't need to have SuSE loaded. Just get their Live CD. Connect your problematic drive back to your Linux machine, boot the SuSE live CD (10.1 or 10.2) and start up YaST. Per the above, YaST Partitioner has certainly saved my bacon a few times.
 

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