[plumpchild@hotmail.com]

I have a 15 inch 1.5 GHz powerbook, a 3.5" external HDD exclosure which supports from USB 1.1 up to Firewire 800. I pulled my PC HDD which is a 80GB Seagate ST380011A.

I opened up Disk Utility and erased without zeroing out the data on disk and formatted the disk from NTSC to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Now when ever I try to drag in larg files (>1GB) from my iPod to the HDD, the process of copying gets stuck and I would not be able to stop it.

If I try to turn off and on the HDD without the powerbook detecting it (in other words, keeping the spinning of the disk but restart the disk enclouser), the HDD will not unmount, and the process of copying would continue.

I fear this is never a good way to store files, but only that way will it unfreeze and finish the process after a few times of restarting (of the enclosure), since that would damage my files? Can someone tell me what can I do to the HDD so that it can be used in a more normal way?

I tried another HDD that is 15GB but in FAT32 format, which I found to be slower. I would like to use my HDDs in HFS+ formats. Someone please help!

[ibook_steve]

First, I doubt you changed the formatting from NTSC (a television format in North America) to HFS+.

Second, can you describe how you have these things connected to your Powerbook? You don't mention if you are using USB, Firewire, daisy chaining, using external power supplies, etc. If you are chaining FW devices and not using an external supply, there could be issues using just bus power. More details please.

Steve

[plumpchild@hotmail.com]

ahhahahaha sorry dude.. i meant NTFS.. instead of NTSC.. aha (duh..)

anyways, the HDD is connected to my powerbook by firewire 800, and the enclosure has its own power supply.

also, i did the 'erase' and 'zero the disk' with disk utility before, and afterwards my drive is simply unable to mount of eject. when i go onto my PC to format it, it only gives me the option of formatting to NTFS (no FAT).

now that i plug the HDD in it tells me the format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and i have read & write permissions to the disc. it just somehow stops writing in the middle of copying... is there anything i can do to just make it HFS+ then? so there wouldnt be so much problems..

[ibook_steve]

Is this only when copying from the iPod? Is the iPod daisy chained through the drive or through your FW 400 port? Have you tried the drive on FW 400 or USB 2? This HD may just have problems if you couldn't mount it after erasing and zeroing it. It could just be a bad HD.

Steve

[plumpchild@hotmail.com]

ok. the HDD works fine with the USB... so is it that i won't be able to format it to HFS+?

plus a side question. my powerbook comes with panther. and after i reformatted the computer to install tiger, i realized i don't get any iLife stuffs... if the powerbook comes preloaded with iLife, wouldn't the discs that comes with the powerbook include iLife of any sort?