[TonTaub]

Hi All,

I got this USB 2.0 2.5" HDD enclosure which works nicely on Intel hardware. I've fitted an IBM/Hitachi 5K80 (Travelstar 80GB) harddrive.

While on virtually every Intel notebook I came accross this combination works ok, on my PowerBook the harddisk even fails to spin up.

So for a test I borrowed the power via the supplied PS/2 connector from a nearby PC.

Meahwhile, the only Mac I manage to get it working is an elderly beige G3 here in the office with an PCI USB card.

But on any Mac the only format I could achieve was "erase/ms-dos", which creates one big FAT32 partition.
Any other attempt to create multiple partitions with HFS+ etc. has failed and brings Disk Utility to hang in an endless loop.
The partitioning is ok but the newfs-process just starts and then is stuck (used CPU time 6-7ms, and then it stays like that for hours, that's all).

So I'd like to know:
Is the power output of the current PowerBook's USB connectors rather low?

Is this problem with partitioning/formatting an USB 2.0 connected harddrive an known issue?

Thanks a lot, Michael.

[chabig]

I would say the power output of the USB port meets the spec. Chances are that your PC puts out more than the spec (it is a desktop after all). I would also guess that a hard drive uses all of the power it can get from the USB port. It is not uncommon for some devices to work on some ports and not others. I even have two USB keychain drive...one works in the keyboard port and one doesn't.

As for the formatting problem, I would guess that the firmware in the hard drive enclosure is to blame. Check the manufacturers website to see if there is an update.

Chris