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Guy Kuo · Jun 16, 2006, 02:15 AM

Has anyone gotten Disk Utility to successfully partition or erase a drive attached using a NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive adapter. This is a device for connecting external, bare, ATA, SATA, 2.5 or 3.5 inch drives to a USB port. I ordered two as soon as I read about them. The problem is I can't ever get Disk Utility to reformat, erase, or partition any drives connected to the adapters. If there are pre-existing files and voluems, Finder does just fine. It just won't work with Apple Disk Utility.

I tried a Titanium, iBook, PB Aluminium, and a MacBook all to no avail. This was with OS 10.46 and a late OX 10.3x. All had the same hang in DIsk Utility. Thinking it was the drive mechanisms, I tried five different drives. None worked.

Tech support at NewerTech had me go through reboots, power on/of, verifying jumper status, etc. No go.

Do these work for anyone else? Without an ability to format a drive, these adapters just won't do as a backup tool.

Guy Kuo · Jul 14, 2006, 07:01 PM

OWC surprised me by sending out replacement instead of refunding my return. The replacement adapters have the same problem. I cannot format or partition a drive. Disk Utility simply hangs. This adapter simply does not appear compatible with Mac OS 10.4.7 on either a PB Aluminum or MacBook. NOT RECOMMENDABLE.

Cadaver · Jul 15, 2006, 08:18 AM

Damn. Mine is scheduled to be delivered by UPS on Monday.

Guy Kuo · Jul 15, 2006, 02:51 PM

Well. Good luck. I couldn't get it to work with DIsk Utility on my G4 Tower either. It will work for accessing a drive so long as you never try to erase or repartition. Don't try that unless you have another means of attaching the drive to use Disk Utility.

Please let us know if you can get it to work with DIsk Utility. I simply can't get it ot complete a partition function.

Cadaver · Jul 17, 2006, 05:29 PM

My Universal Drive Adapter came in the mail today. I connected a 160GB SATA drive that had an old Windows NTFS partition on it. Apple's Disk Utility mounted it and formatted it for MacOS X HFS+ without problem. Just like any other drive.

No trouble at all.

This is on 10.4.7 (for Intel).

Color me happy.

Guy Kuo · Jul 17, 2006, 05:41 PM

Could you also try an IDE drive? All the ones I have tried are IDE.

Cadaver · Jul 17, 2006, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by Guy Kuo

Could you also try an IDE drive? All the ones I have tried are IDE.

Sure. I'll try later tonight.

Cadaver · Jul 17, 2006, 08:29 PM

Looks like I spoke too soon.

While I could format/partition the attached SATA drive any way I wanted, I couldn't actually copy anything to the disk. Even 8KB files would hang the machine. Had to pull the USB plug to regain control.

And an ATA drive I attached wouldn't even mount.

Guess the POS is going back!

Guy Kuo · 11:41 PM

Sorry to hear that, but on the other hand it is good to know I'm not the only one.

Your story did jar my memory for some earlier details. On the first few times I tried to simply clone my MacBook to an attached drives, I didn't try to partition the drive. It looked like it worked, but only for a portion of the file transfers. I came back and found the MacBook still "busy" running SuperDuper, but getting nowhere. What was even more interesting was how HOT the bare drive had become. It was after a few freezes like that when I decided to try erasing and repartitioning in case there was an issue with the drive structure. That started my dismay at not being able to partition.

Guy Kuo · Jul 18, 2006, 12:22 AM

Tried again on my PowerBook. Tonight I was able to parition a 2.5 inch drive and start a disk copy with SuperDuper. It got 350 some MB into the transfer before the drive hanged. The console log shows mutltipe time outs and a single DIOTransfer Error like the below....

....
Jul 17 22:08:30 localhost kernel[0]: USBF: 19750.719 AppleUSBEHCI[0x237a800]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 91, timing out!
Jul 17 22:08:36 localhost kernel[0]: USBF: 19756.719 AppleUSBEHCI[0x237a800]::Found a transaction which hasn't moved in 5 seconds on bus 91, timing out!
Jul 17 22:08:36 localhost kernel[0]: USBF: 19756.722 AppleUSBEHCI[0x237a800]:

oIOTransfer - error 0xe000404f queueing request
Jul 17 22:09:07 localhost kernel[0]: USBF: 19787.720 AppleUSBEHCI[0x237a800]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 91, timing out!
......

Tried to partition by booting the MacBook 2.0 GHz with its install CD and running Disk Utility directly off the CD. On the MacBook, Disk Utility once more hanged at the "creating partition map" stage.

Alton · Aug 2, 2006, 09:16 PM

I was so thrilled with the concept , I bought two recently. I was tired of re-assembling drive external enclosures. This is the solution - if it worked.

I've tried SATA and IDE drives and notebook drives. I tried all the different (and poorly documented) power options. I've tried three machines (Macs), 5 drives (WD, Seagate, Toshiba), and two differnet sets of adapters. I'm not a happy camper.

I've had all the same problems disk utility and other utilities to get a drive formatted. Nothing.
When the drive mounts without formatting, I can't copy anything to it - or at least not much.
Except once, I got a IDE drive to mount the USB 1.1 on my G4 Powerbook - only after trying ever jumper position imaginable. It took overnight to back up my 40Gb HD using SuperDuper. I think I'll stick to my Firewire drive for that one.

I've written the company twice with unsatisfactory results. I'm writing next for either complete documentation or a refund.

kikkoman · Aug 4, 2006, 03:17 PM

We bought a couple of these at work and I can confirm they are junk. I guess that what happens when you go el cheapo, should have sprang for Weibetech DriveDocks.

Tripteron · Aug 9, 2006, 08:21 PM

There is a bug in the current version of Disk Utility. It wouldn't partition my Hitachi external USB drive. A 2005 version of Disk Utility worked fine.