USB External Laptop Hard Drive. Powerbook will not see it.

Hello All

I just got a 15" G4 Powerbook last month. I love this thing! I have an external 40gig Laptop Hardrive (USB) that i was using with my old WinXp laptop. Now I want to use it with my Powerbook through usb. It was formated NTFS. I formated it to FAT32. When I plug it in the Powerbook will not see the hard drive at all. I have no idea what to do from here. Can some please help?

Thanks in advance!

Run the Disk utility application to see if it sees the disk. It located in the application -> utilitird folder. If you are able to mount it you should see it, in the window that comes up. Select it, and choose the mount button at the top of the window.

Question for the MacForums PowerBook community:

Does the USB port on the PowerBook carry enough juice to power an external USB drive? I was having problems with a cheapie USB enclosure on my iBook because its USB port didn't give enough power to the enclosure to run it. It ran fine on my XP machine.

Just wondering if this could be gfk9000's problem.

Usless it was designed to run off the power being provided from the powerbook, I would plug it in.

Good question, I forgot about that possibility,

Thanks guys for the response. I think this is the problem. It is designed to run off USB power. Powerbooks do not have enough power to start an external drive? Its a cheap laptop drive case. Is there a case you guys think I should get the will run off USB power? I am going to Afganistan for 6 months and I want a place to put all of my pictures.

gfk9000 said:

Thanks guys for the response. I think this is the problem. It is designed to run off USB power. Powerbooks do not have enough power to start an external drive? Its a cheap laptop drive case. Is there a case you guys think I should get the will run off USB power? I am going to Afganistan for 6 months and I want a place to put all of my pictures.

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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817250002

The I-Rocks Externals work very well. I know a few people that use them with their PBs here at the call center and love them.

You need 2 USB ports available though - one for the interface and another for power.

The external is designed for 2.5'' HD's (Laptop Drives). You will never be able to find a 3.5'' HD external that can be powered via USB - they need at least +12v.

This link I posted was just for the enclosure - it does not include a drive. You may be able to buy one with a drive included, but I actually recommend buying one separately (installation is VERY easy) - you have the freedom to pick from a much wider selection of HD's, and you never know what type of crummy HD they put in those externals when you buy them preinstalled... Plus it’s cheaper!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152501

That's the HD I would recommend putting in the enclosure. It's quite fast and reliable for a 2.5''. You could, of course, move up to a bigger size, or even go with a 7200RPM 2.5'', but if you're on a budget, it really isn't worth messing with the higher-end 2.5''s - the prices really do shoot up signifcantly.

Thanks for the info. But there was something you said about using 2 USB ports got me thinking. When I bought the encloser it came with a funky "Y" USB cord with it. I am glad I didnt through it away. It has like to male ends on one plug. (the part you stick in the powerbook).Hard to explain. So I tried sticking both male ends in the 2 USB ports that I have on the powerbook. Low and behold it worked! Now Finder sees the harddrive. Thanks for your help. If you guys want me to post a picture of the cord on here I will just let me know.

Here is the case I got from NewEgg. It has a picture of the cord.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145124

I was going to suggest getting a powered USB hub, but you were able to get it to work.

gfk9000 said:

Here is the case I got from NewEgg. It has a picture of the cord.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145124

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I hate Newegg. Big reason is because I bought an lcd monitor from there based on the reviews and turns out it was bad. Plus I try to write a review on the product 10 times and they all got rejected. It turns out that they only accept good reviews. I guess this is to give you a false sense of security on the products they sell. I emailed them saying they have lost a customer not because of the product but for the simple fact that they basically lie about their reviews policy. But like they really give a hoot anyways because there is always another customer to get sucked in like me :blind:. YES, I slam them wherever I can because although they do have many satisfied customers the unsatisfied ones get swept under the rug like me. Sorry, I saw the post about NEWEGG and it disgusted me so much that I had to say something since I am still a little ticked . Anytime I see that name I want to puke :biohazard.

That's weird, never seen a device that draws power from 2 usb ports before...
Strange!

I was about to suggest a drive with a firewire connection or an old iPod with a bad battery or something...

Aptmunich said:

That's weird, never seen a device that draws power from 2 usb ports before...
Strange!

I was about to suggest a drive with a firewire connection or an old iPod with a bad battery or something...

Click to expand...

I've got a notebook sized external hard drive that connects to firewire for data, and USB for power. Freaky!

Works OK though.

You would think that my POWERbook would be able to power an external hard from 1 USB port. Do the firewire drives need to be powered from a seprate power source as well? All in All I love my powerbook. I will not use windows again for a personal computer!

gfk9000 said:

You would think that my POWERbook would be able to power an external hard from 1 USB port. Do the firewire drives need to be powered from a seprate power source as well? All in All I love my powerbook. I will not use windows again for a personal computer!

Click to expand...

The output of the USB port on the PB is within spec but empirically lower then Windows machines. I've got a notebook USB enclosure that works fine with several Windows machines but can't be powered by my PB. My suggestion is to get an enclosure that supports FW and USB.

The USB spec only calls for 2.5W and that is all the PB delivers. Many Windows machines must exceed this.

On the other hand, the PB will put out 7W over Firewire.

http://developer.apple.com/document...BookG4/3Input-Output/chapter_4_section_2.html

http://developer.apple.com/document...BookG4/3Input-Output/chapter_4_section_3.html