Formatting a 2.5" USB hard drive

baranovichbaranovich
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hello all,



I recently got an external enclosure for a 40GB 2.5" HD I had lying around. Once I got it assembled, I hooked it up to my Powerbook, but it didn't show up in Disk Utility. I double checked using the System Profiler and it was displayed there under the USB Bus. Then I took the drive to a friend's PC and reformatted the HD using FAT32 (I want to be able to use this drive for both platforms), but when I plug it into my PBook I still don't see the drive on the desktop or with disk utility. Any ideas on how to get my PBook to recognize the drive? Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    The #1 solution to these problems is to supply enough power to the USB drive to mount. You could try plugging it into a powered hub or unplug all other USB devices. The Apple USB keyboard also does not supply enough power for Hard drives, but you are using a powerbook.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    baranovichbaranovich Posts: 184member
    I was wondering about the power requirements...



    The enclosure came with a regular USB connection and another one for power. When I plug them both in to my PBook, I can hear/feel the drive spin up, but the drive still doesn't appear on the desktop or in Disk Utility. Should I spring for a proper power adapter and see if that fixes it?
  • Reply 3 of 3
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    If it is one of those weird cables with 3 USB ends well, I never got them to work. I think the power comes from the same place in a laptop. For me, it just works with a normal USB cable, but then my Pismo may supply more power. I have to plug my USB drive directly into my G5 because it won't work through unpowered USB hubs. Finicky, I know. It is hard to get a power supply because the DC plugs are all different. But if you do, make sure the voltages match.
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