[voodoo]

I borrowed this USB portable hard drive from a friend of mine. It is a 2.5" drive in an external case connected with USB. There is no PSU, but the drive works when just plugged in the USB of his PeeCee.

Now when I connect it to the USB of my iBook (1.33 GHz G4) it just goes *click* *click* and doesn't mount. Some red light flickers.

Why does it mount on the PeeCee and not on my iBook? I have no idea!

Help?

V

[Bolero421]

If I remember correctly, the iBook G4 has two USB 2.0 slots. However, I think that those slots might be under-powered. When I had a iBook I remember having problems with some USB-powered devices because they were not able to draw enough power from a single port.

The solution to your problem would probably be to get a double-USB cable. If you don't know what that is, it is essentially a cable with two plugs on one end and a single on the other, which allows the device you are attaching to the single-plug side to draw power from both USB slots. A lot of USB-hubs have cables like this to plug into the back of your computer so that they have enough power to run themselves as well as any attached devices. A google search should turn something up.

[f1000]

Originally Posted by voodoo

Why does it mount on the PeeCee and not on my iBook? I have no idea!

I have an old 2.5" USB enclosure that works fine with OS 9 and PCs, but doesn't work with OS X. System Profiler sees the device, but OS X won't mount it. Try booting into Classic.

[voodoo]

Thanks guys, I suspect the G4 iBook USB ports are just under-powered (as silly as that may be) - booting inyo Classic (OS 9) isn't possible on the iBook G4s or modern PPC Macs. Classic emulation only

USB is so much better than FireWire. Sheesh. /sarcasm

V