External Hard Drive Does Not Recognise On PowerBook g4

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I recently got a PowerBook g4. Even though it is old i want to use it for some basic tasks in addition to my 2012 iMac. I store a lll of my files on a Verbatim 320gb external HDD. When i plugged the hdd into my powerbook it said You have inserted a disk that contains no volumes that Mac OS X can read. However the drive is formated in FAT32 and as far as i know Mac OS X 10.3.9 supports FAT32. Any help please?
 

chscag

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Are you sure the drive is formatted as FAT-32 and not NTFS? If it is indeed FAT-32, the drive may be damaged and can't be read. Have you tried to read it with your iMac?
 
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I have formatted the drive in Fat32. It reads fine on my iMac 2012 and i have a lll of my files including iTunes on it and have no problems.
 
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Can anyone help me here? I have this issue that needs to be resolved.
 
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And what map is it in under Partition? GUID which is for Intel or Apple Partition Map for PowerPC machines like the G4?
 

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Can you post a screen shot from Disk Utility of the drive? And, did you format the drive as FAT-32 using Disk Utility on your iMac? A PowerPC machine can not read a drive that has been formatted using the GUID scheme. It will display the error that you received when you attached the drive to the PB.

Looks like Harry has gotten ahead of me. Must be Australian Summer. :)
 
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It was factory partitioned FAT32. It is Master Boot record partition. See disk utility screenshot below.

Screen Shot 2012-12-26 at 9.38.42 AM.png
 

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To be honest, I see no reason why that drive can not be read by your Powerbook. It's formatted as MS DOS (Master Boot Record) which is the standard for FAT-32 drives. Do you have another FAT-32 formatted drive or flash drive you can try with the Powerbook to see if it'll read that?
 
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My 8gb flash drive works however this uses low power. The only thing I can think is that perhaps the PowerBook supplies no enough power for the drive?
 

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Not enough power is a possibility. What you can try is to use a double USB connector. It has a single connector on one end (attach to drive) and two connectors on the other end for attaching it to two USB ports at the same time.
 
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I will try double usb when i get powerbook hinges fixed. They broke yesterday.
 

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