06-24-2010, 07:38 AM

Got a bit of a confusing issue here, so bare with me

I've got a 2007ish Macbook, all works fine. I've just had the hard drive upgraded from 60GB to 500GB. All went fine and I was left with a 60GB HD going spare. So I ordered an enclosure for it and now have it as an external drive. If I connect it to one of the Macbook's USB ports, it works fine. However, if I plug it into my USB hub, which is obviously plugged into the MB, nothing happens. The light comes on, it all seems fine but the Macbook doesn't find it. This USB hub in question is plugged in directly to the mains power, but that doesn't seem to help at all.

It's not just this external hard drive, it's any. It finds normal USB sticks that are plugged into the hub fine, it finds everything fine except my external HD.

Any clues or is it something I can't solve?

06-24-2010, 01:02 PM

Does your drive show up in Disk Utility?

06-24-2010, 01:56 PM

To the OP:

Not all USB hubs are created equally. I've found some hubs (even those that are self powered) to be totally useless for external hard drives and optical drives. In other words, some work, some don't. Rule of thumb, avoid them for use with external hard drives and optical drives. Most hubs work fine with flash drives.

Regards.

06-24-2010, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by chscag

Not all USB hubs are created equally.

I agree. The OP should also keep in mind that if the external enclosure he is using doesn't have its own power source then some USB hubs don't provide enough power to run them.