Western Digital External Hard Drive

Hi there...

I bought a last-minute 80GB Western Digital Passport external USB hard drive to take on a trip to India to supplement my hard drive space on my G4 Powerbook.. . . Said on the box it was good for Mac and Windows.

The drive does not mount onto my computer, but it does mount onto my wife's MacBook Pro. Something to do with the intel system I'm sure...

So I used the Disk Utility software to re-format my external.
I opened Disk Utility, Selected the 'Erase' tab, and from the drop-down menu selected Mac OS Extended (Journaled) ...

I figured this would do the job.. but alas, the drive still will not mount onto my G4 Powerbook...

Does anyone know a way I can reformat this External with the MacBook Pro to work on the G4 Powerbook ?

thanks
b

HFS should work. It didn't show up in Disk Utility on the G4?

Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is HFS+...

I bought one of those for my roommate about a week ago and I couldn't get it to mount on my Powerbook either. I don't think the one USB cable is supplying enough power for it to spin up. Unless there's another way that I haven't thought of, you're going to have to look at a different drive.

would that mean a problem with the cable, or the port on the G4 ?

When I plug it into the powerbook, a light on the external lights up, and I can hear it spinning...

It would have to be the port if the hard drive works on the MacBook Pro.

I could hear it spinning up, stopping, then ticking when I had it plugged to my Powerbook.

does it show in disk utility on the G4 though?

It doesn't mount at all, meaning you can't view it through Disk Utility.

Yeah... Spinning.. Stopping and a tick... Thats what I've got.

How does he know if it's mounted if he's not in Disk Utility? Sometimes a drive can show up in D.U. and not show on the desktop or in finder.

Does it show in D.U on the G4?

Try a different USB cable

I opened USB Prober and it wasn't even able to detect a device in the port, simply that the port was used.

I just don't think the Powerbook's USB ports have enough power to run that hard drive. Take a look at a Firewire offering from a different manufacturer...

Edit: Yes, IceCreamMan, that's sometimes true, but I had the exact same problem the original poster is having and I assure you it didn't mount in Disk Utility.

I've looked for it in the system profiler and in disk utility.. and get nothing...
My biggest problem is that I'm in india with thing, so I can't run back to best buy for an exchage.. I've tried 3 differnt cables..do you think they make a firewire cable that will have the USB end that fits into that drive..

No, there's not a Firewire>USB cable as this would just bottleneck to USB anyways.

Sorry to tell you, but I think you're out of luck...

I have one of those WD connected to my G4 Sawtooth and it works fine. I tried to connect the WD to an external HUB and it did not work, because of not enough power. This may sound simple, but I installed a PCI card and now WD mounts fine. I don't know enough about Powerbook, so I hope this is helpful.

Have you tried one of the 3-connector USB cables? You plug the cable into TWO USB ports on the Mac and the other end into the drive.

I have an external 2.5" drive enclosure and that's the only way I can get it to mount on a G4 Powerbook.

are G4 USB 1.1 or USB 2, and this drive shouldn't be getting it's power from he USB it should have an external source, unless it is a 2.5 external one which means you need USB 2+ to operate it, you need a powered USB 2 port, not all comps have a powered USB 2 port, but just standard USB 2.