[ShaneBryant]

Howdy, I have a iBook G4 933 and am running OSX 10.3.3 and all the other updates.

I just bought a Maxtor 160gb hard drive and put it in a new Firewire/USB 2.0 external enclosure. I can get the drive to mount when using USB (I partitioned it using USB, into 2 drives, one 100gb, one 50gb), but I cannot get it to mount using Firewire.

I'm very new to all of this (OSX, laptops, and external drives), so can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

Also, it's not the cable, as I've tested the cable with my external burner. Furthermore, the system profiler finds the drive and under "Firewire" says it is there...

[Langdon]

It sounds like it might be the firewire chipset.
I would try out the drive on another computer. Also look at the specs of enclosure it would be odd but maybe that one does not support larger drives.

[ginoledesma]

What does System Profiler and Disk Utility have to say about it?

For System Profiler, you can access it from the Apple Menu > About This Mac > More Info. Once the program loads, click on Firewire in the left-hand side and it should at least acknowledge that you have a Firewire device connected to the bus.

Similarly, Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) should show the drive partitions, and should be able to mount them if they're detected.

Its very odd that you're unable to get them to mount with Firewire, unless your Firewire chipset is incapable of addressing >120GB hard drives (which I say is also odd since the USB portion works fine).

[ShaneBryant]

Okay, so I'm still havin the same issue, now updated to latest OSX. I connected a Firewire DVD burner to my the external hard drive and then ran the Hard Drive to the iBook with another Firewire cable. Okay.

When I run System Profiler, under FireWire Bus it shows:
FireWire Device
TDK DVDRW480

I click on the Firewire Device and I get:
FireWire Device:
Speed: 400 Mb/sec Speed

I click on the TDK burner and I get:
TDK DVDRW840:
Manufacturer: TDK
Model: TDK DVDRW840
Drive Type: CD-RW/DVD-RW
Disc Burning: Not Supported
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
Speed: 400 Mb/sec Speed
Unit Spec Id: 24734
Unit Software Version: 10483
Firmware Revision: 1.03

So it's not the cable, and the OS is finding it, just not mounting it. Any other help? Please?

[Randman]

If the OS is reading it, try Disk Utility and see if you can verify the disk. I recently added a WD 120 external to my iBook G4 and at first I was having problems copying many things to it. I went into Disk Utility and checked it and my earlier external (a Maxtor 40 which I'm selling off).
The Maxtor read fine but I got errors on the Western Digital and couldn't repair the disk. I decided to reformat (since I hadn't moved anything over) and once I erased the disk, it's not working like a champ.

Do you have an iPod? If you can load it, you know there's nothing mechanically wrong with the FireWire port.

Might want to see if that helps.

[ShaneBryant]

My iPod mounts fine. ANd when I run Disk Utility I don't see the drive anywhere....

[Randman]

Hmm, what about when you use USB? See what DU says then once the drive is mounted.

[ShaneBryant]

It shows it as 152.7 GB USB 2.0 Storage and verifies fine: "2 HFS volumes verified" and show as OK when repaired...