How to: Mount an external usb hard drive?

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Hi all,
just switched to the new Imac. This machine is amazing - I'm never going back to windows!
However, I have an external hard drive which I m trying to mount on the new mac using a usb enclosure. I connect the drive but I can't "see" it anywhere (desktop or disk utility) any ideas?
Complete newby - so please help me!
OS X 10.4.10
 
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Does it need external power? Maybe it's not formatted (or it's formatted to something unusual that the OS can't read) and so there's no volume to mount.
 
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Does it need external power? Maybe it's not formatted (or it's formatted to something unusual that the OS can't read) and so there's no volume to mount.

A different file system wouldn't account for the drive not mounting.

Anyway, like thebrza mentioned, is there a power cable that you forgot to insert? Perhaps try another cable (it sounds weird, but it actually happened to me yesterday; I couldn't get my external drive to work when I never had any problems before, but I decided to swap the cable and bam, it magically starts to work)
 
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I was just looking at buying an external hard drive... it seems that they're plug-in-and-play for Windows and Linux but Macs (often) need drivers... so that might be the problem.
 

dtravis7


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I was just looking at buying an external hard drive... it seems that they're plug-in-and-play for Windows and Linux but Macs (often) need drivers... so that might be the problem.

Can you show me a URL where it states that OSX needs USB drivers for external drives? I have never seen that in the years I have been using Macs.
 
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Do you mean a power or data cable?

The same disk works with xp but not mac. It is powered up of course.

Any ideas? Anything else i could do? Maybe connect it with my pc and then create a network between my pac and my pc and then get them through xp....
 
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on Mac OS X you don't need drivers either
 
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Does it show up in disk utility?

/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app
 
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If I recall correctly a different file system CAN affect a Macs ability to read or detect disks if previously formatted and/or partitioned on a windows PC. If the USB disk works on an XP computer check to see if it is a Fat 16, Fat 32 or NTFS system. Whatever it is currently partitioned as (and assuming it is blank or you have the data on it backed up) reformat it to another file system and try that in the Mac. Once it is visible use disk utility to format it for the Mac if necessary.
 

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