Failed to mount External HDD using FireWire but OK using USB

Hi,

I have power off my Macbook Pro without properly disconnect my Ext HDD. It is connected thru FW. On the next reboot, it failed to show on Finder. Using Disk Utilitly, I can see Ext HDD but I CAN'T mount it. The error was time out or something. I did a PRAM/NVRAM reset (opt-comm-P-R).

When I connect the Ext HDD using USB I can access the Ext HDD alright.

** A complete power off shutdown and boot solve the problem, my bad **

G'day and welcome to the forumns.

Yes a reboot after disconnecting the power lead for thirty minutes is the go. Great you shared it for others to find.

I have this same problem and powering it down for 30 minutes and more didn't help. When I first plug in the external self powered hard drive, it recognizes it no problem. It mounts it and I could use it.

The WD portable hard drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but the moment I shut down and/or reboot, the next time it comes up, it doesn't recognize the hard drive at all (no shortcut on Desktop) even though it does show up in Disk Utility. It doesn't mount the hard drive after a shut down or reboot. The power on light is on on the external hard drive so it's getting power, just no connection.

I'm new to Macs, so any help would be appreciated. I believe I have all the latest software and firmware since I just got this MBP 2 weeks ago.

The external hard drive works perfectly when used with the USB cable that it came with. However, I'd really like to take advantage of the Firewire 800 cable.

Which model WD do you have? Look in the spec sheet for the drive and see what the FW 800 power requirements for it are. It almost sounds as if the drive is not getting enough power to mount. Power output from the FW 800 port on your MBP should be sufficient.

Regards.

chscag said:

Which model WD do you have? Look in the spec sheet for the drive and see what the FW 800 power requirements for it are. It almost sounds as if the drive is not getting enough power to mount. Power output from the FW 800 port on your MBP should be sufficient.

Regards.

Click to expand...

I have the Western Digital 500GB My Passport Studio WDMT5000TN. I'll have to look at their site cause I can't find my spec sheet. But wonder why it works fine with USB, but not with FW? This little portable hard drive didn't come with a power cord. In fact, there's not even a port to plug in power.

Logic board was replaced on my MBP and since then have an intermittent Firewire deal. Have replaced cables and tried to find the exact issue but stuck at sometimes the FW800 works and sometimes FW400 works but USB always works. So after weeks still no closer to knowing what the issue is. Connect the 800 or 400 to another computer and always works - back to MBP and it is a coin toss.

Collin Bl said:

Logic board was replaced on my MBP and since then have an intermittent Firewire deal. Have replaced cables and tried to find the exact issue but stuck at sometimes the FW800 works and sometimes FW400 works but USB always works. So after weeks still no closer to knowing what the issue is. Connect the 800 or 400 to another computer and always works - back to MBP and it is a coin toss.

Click to expand...

Wow, interesting that you have the similar problem. Hopefully, someone will come by with a solution.

I tried the suggestions found here - Apple - Support - Discussions - No Firewire after install Snow Leopard ... but it didn't work for me. I had hopes but still no go. The good thing is that the drive mounts now.

However, I can't seem to do a repair when connected with the Firewire 800. It takes forever. When I connect using the USB, the repair is completed in minutes with no error messages.

The repair with Firewire has several error messages, which I forget to take a screen shot off. Maybe I'll just ignore the error message so long as the external drive at least mounts now lol.

Look at the post by Dale Weisshaar from the link above. He talks about repair permissions, which I do not have, mine is greyed out.

Have you:

A) Tried a different FW cable?

B) Tried a different FW port?

It could be either.

baggss said:

Have you:

A) Tried a different FW cable?

B) Tried a different FW port?

It could be either.

Click to expand...

Yup just came back from Best Buy this afternoon and I bought a new FW 800 cable. No go.

My MBP only has one FW 800 port so I can't test it anywhere else. Darn! Running out of hope and ideas.

I ran into the problem which I claimed to have fixed. I fixed it again and realized that it was not what I assumed the problem was. The problem was not with my macbook but the external HDD. For whatever reason, I powered down my Maxtor OneTouch Ext HDD before it can be detected via FW.

In any event, if that doesn't work, power down ur macbook, ext HDD and try again. Hope by then everything will be fine.

/lim/

Further to my earlier post - i not only had intermittent FW 400 and 800 on my MBP but the La Cie Ext drive would unmount once it reached a certain operating temp. Apple Tech confirmed MBP issue and i took the drive out of the La Cie and it worked flawlessly in a Voyager Q.