externals not showing up in finder!!

Hi

firstly i am not sure if this is the right part of the forum for this questions. If its wrong can you please say where i should put it.

Secondly, i just bought a card reader (digital premier). I've plugged it in but its not showing up in the finder under devices. why not and what am i to do?

thirdly, this is not the first time i've had this problem. I have given up using my larger external hard drive because i also can't find it in the finder, though sometimes it shows up. I really have no clue what's going on there. Actually that's a bit of a bugger because I would prefer to put my images on that hard drive. I am currenlty putting everything on my smaller passport external harddrive.

Both these hard drives are western digital. I'm completely flumoxed by these problems. These things are supposed to be simple.

What should i do.

It can't be a question of usb ports as my passport hard drive and camera work whichever port i plug them into.

Looking forward to easy solutions. Cheers

In the case of your card reader: plugging it in without a card in it will not show anything in the Finder, though "About this Mac" in the extended report would show it being plugged in.

Insert a card into the card reader, THEN plug it in to the computer. Then it should show up.

As for the larger HD, does it have its own power supply or are you trying to plug it in via USB alone?

If the latter, what's likely going on is that the USB ports aren't supplying quite enough power for the drive to spin up enough to mount. Most electronics places sell a two-usb to one usb type cable that might solve that problem, but if the drive has the ability to be plugged in to power in the conventional way, that's what you should use.

Cheers Chas.

The card reader is working now. It decided to work after restarting the laptop. Well that was a relief.

As to the other thing. Its not that its never showed up. I had to set a password and stuff to get it set up and its loaded up with pictures. Now the WD SMart folder shows up but just not the harddriver though i have seen it once or twice.

I think i will have to take it in to the mac shop and get them to show me what to do. I am pretty useless at understanding these things. Yes it does draw all its power from the laptop. It sort of makes sense that what you say is going on though it seems to be intermittent with almost all the time not showing up. But on teh other hand, why can't it draw enough power. The port is a USB2 port and i've got the laptop plugged into the mains power.

Nevermind though.