06-12-2008, 09:35 AM

my ibook g4 will not read it. The hard drive turns on when i connect it, but wont appear on the desktop or anywhere on the it. However when I connect it to the PC, it works. Its a 40 GB Smartdisk Hard Drive and i have Leopard 10.5 installed. Would it have to do with the software that i have? It worked when i had 10.3.9. What can I do?

06-12-2008, 06:57 PM

Is the external drive formatted to Apple Partition Map, which is what is required if you want to make it bootable. Also Leopard will not read m,any Tiger and early applications/files.

Try formatting and see how you go?

06-12-2008, 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by harryb2448

Is the external drive formatted to Apple Partition Map, which is what is required if you want to make it bootable. Also Leopard will not read m,any Tiger and early applications/files.

Try formatting and see how you go?

how do you format the hard drive...i deleted all the files that were there previously...i tried formatting but it cant find the Hard drive...do i need another cpu?

06-12-2008, 11:17 PM

smartdisks come formatted FAT32: you need to be patient. I believe it came up with Tiger, but using FAT32 disks rather slow; not for file transfers, but for mounting and showing up. It could take upwards of 50 seconds. Be very patient, plug it in, go get a cup of Coffee/Tea/Generic Common Beverage™ and play tennis or something... come back, see if it's mounted. You might want to listen closely to the HDD, you never know, it could be failing. :-|

06-16-2008, 05:09 PM

Originally Posted by iRye

smartdisks come formatted FAT32: you need to be patient. I believe it came up with Tiger, but using FAT32 disks rather slow; not for file transfers, but for mounting and showing up. It could take upwards of 50 seconds. Be very patient, plug it in, go get a cup of Coffee/Tea/Generic Common Beverage™ and play tennis or something... come back, see if it's mounted. You might want to listen closely to the HDD, you never know, it could be failing. :-|

thanks! it worked this time..lol

06-20-2008, 12:47 PM

Could I possibly join this thread, rather than start a similar one?
My partner uses a Mac Mini, OSX 10.4.11 (Tiger?)
She has no proper total backup - and I have a spare external HD, which I have connected to her USB hub by the double USB connection leads.
I have re-formated the drive to FAT 32 - but the MAC will not recognise it, and it does not show up on her desktop.
The drive itself is flashing and whirring, so it is trying to do something.
Can anyone suggest what I can do next?
I cannot format it it to a MAC system (Not even sure how to do that!) if the computer cannot "see" the drive!

06-20-2008, 04:44 PM

Originally Posted by JeremyB

I have re-formated the drive to FAT 32 - but the MAC will not recognise it, and it does not show up on her desktop. The drive itself is flashing and whirring, so it is trying to do something.

Similar issue (not really a problem) with an external drive I connect via an IDE/USB adaptor. I have to power up the drive and THEN push the USB plug into my eMac (or a powered hub). If I have the drive connected to the Mac before powering it on, nothing happens. Perhaps the power on followed by USB plug-in might work for you.