05-18-2009, 09:52 AM

Hi all,

I have a Buffalo 300GB external hdd and it has been working fine on my imac, via USB, for the last year and a half but now it will not appear on my mac (before my imac I was using it on a Windows XP laptop).

I tried it on my friend's Vista laptop and it worked fine, no errors, but still it won't appear on the mac.

Changed cables and ports.
Rebooted.
Unplugged everything to mac (including power cable).
Does not appear in Disk Utility, even through the boot disc.
Does not appear when typing 'df' in Terminal.
Have looked in System Profiler but not really sure what I am looking for there.

I am running Leopard 10.5.7 and it recently updated for iDVD and something else.

My other Lacie external hdd works fine and that is even older.

The hdd turns on, spins, makes all the usual sounds and flashes but then just spins waiting to be read by the mac. If I put the mac in standby and turn the hdd on or off it awakens the mac.

Please please help.

Thanks

p.s. have used the search function on here but could not find a solution, but it is how I knew to check Disk Utility and Terminal.

05-18-2009, 10:50 AM

Hmm. If it's not showing in Disc Utilty but works on your friends machine that's odd. Was it working under the previous version of Leopard that you had?

05-19-2009, 04:41 AM

Yeah.

I got my mac when Leopard came out, so it has always worked with Leopard/ OS X 10.5

05-19-2009, 05:46 AM

There seems to be a lot of niggly issues with the latest update, so this may be another.
If you can I would do an archive and install back to the original 10.5 from your discs that came with the machine, and see if that solves it.

05-19-2009, 09:06 AM

Do you know which update it was? Is there a utility that will tell me? I don't have anything to archive too so an original install is sort of impossible at the moment.

Thanks for the advice. Any other suggestions are great

05-19-2009, 09:57 AM

When you mount the drive does an icon appear on your desktop.

05-19-2009, 10:33 AM

When it did connect an icon would appear on the desktop, but now it doesn't even appear to be mounting, so no icon on desktop.

I am thinking about connecting it to vista again and deleting any files that the mac may have put on it, like trash files, etc.

05-19-2009, 11:05 AM

The 10.5.7 update is the one causing problems.
When you say you don't have anything to archive to, what do you mean?
If you do an archive and install it wipes your hard drive of all files except for your preferences for mail, internet etc., so it just reinstalls the OS on your normal HD, which you must have!

05-19-2009, 11:33 AM

I may be miss-understanding 'archive' but I thought you meant to copy all my personal files to another drive and then re-install OS X 10.5. I don't have another drive to archive them on, so unfortunately I can't do that.

If this is incorrect please say as I am a bit of a mac novice, previously being a PC.

05-19-2009, 02:19 PM

Ah ok, sorry. Yes the way you're thinking is wrong, but you clearly have stuff that needs to be kept.
Archive and install keeps all of that stuff for you, but re-installs the software side of things.
That way you should be able to go back to 10.5 and be ok.

05-20-2009, 07:40 AM

Originally Posted by Kevriano

Ah ok, sorry. Yes the way you're thinking is wrong, but you clearly have stuff that needs to be kept.
Archive and install keeps all of that stuff for you, but re-installs the software side of things.
That way you should be able to go back to 10.5 and be ok.

Hi guys

I have followed the thread and my problem sounds similar. Though im still using 10.4.1.1 and this happened after updating the firmware.

When you say archive and install, is that what will appear when you go through the the process of putting in the operating disk that came with the machine to restore back to the original version?

Lee

05-20-2009, 07:42 AM

Originally Posted by lee.perrin

Hi guys

I have followed the thread and my problem sounds similar. Though im still using 10.4.1.1 and this happened after updating the firmware.

When you say archive and install, is that what will appear when you go through the the process of putting in the operating disk that came with the machine to restore back to the original version?

Lee

Yes, you get several options, and that is the one to choose.

05-20-2009, 08:18 AM

thank you much apprieciated

05-20-2009, 10:16 PM

I tried deleting the mac files on Vista but this has not helped.

I just want to make sure before I try an archive and install: if I do this, I will NOT lose any of my files, such as pictures, videos, pages/numbers/keynote documents, etc? Will any software that has been installed need re-installing?

I only really want to do this as a last resort. Will I then get a list of updates if I archive and install, one of which will be the problematic one?

Argh! How about re-installing drivers? (Although I cannot seem to find drivers for this hdd for a mac)

05-20-2009, 10:37 PM

hahaha I just found this aobut the 10.5.7 update:

MacOS10 said on Wed, 13 May 2009

Just a word of caution...

If you have a Buffalo external hard drive, macfixit.com reports that the 10.5.7 update can stop Buffalo hard drives from mounting in the Finder. They suggest this is probably a firmware issue, but no fix as yet from Buffalo so if you have one of these drives, best hold off updating to 10.5.7 at the moment!