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skew · Nov 5, 2007, 10:02 AM

Hi all. Not sure if this is a Leopard or harwear issue but since it manifested itself since I did a clean install of Leopard I'm putting it here. Mod's, sorry if it's in the wrong place.

Ok. Since upgrading my 17"C2D MacBook Pro I've had intermittent and now no ability to use external disks using FW400 / 800 or USB. Once I had updated to 10.5 I initially managed to to do a full Time Machine Backup onto one of my Lacie drives but when I went to play with it I got beachballed and couldn't quit Time Machine. Had to do a hard restart.

Now since then I've not been able to mount any externals. One weird anomaly is that my iPod is fine. Mounts no problem. I've tested the drive on a MacPro running 10.4.10 - it's fine. Also checks out on an Alu Imac 2.44, again no probs. Finally tested booting the MacBook Pro from the 10.5 disk and trying to mount a drive - nothing.

The drives Do sometimes spin up. Sometimes they even feel like they have engaged the read write heads but nothing appears on the desktop, nothing is shown as available in Disk Utility and there is no error message if I then yank the lead out.

I've also tried re setting the PRAM. No joy.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Skew.

MacosNerd · Nov 5, 2007, 10:07 AM

I upgraded my 15" MBP to Leopard using the archive and install option and I have not had any problems connecting to an external firewire drive.

Sounds like maybe a problem with the install or hardware. I don't think its an issue with Leopard since others including myself are able to connect to external drives, so that leaves the two options that I mentioned.

skew · Nov 5, 2007, 10:22 AM

Just tried the drive again on the MacPro, ran disk utility and it did find errors on the drive. It repaired them successfully and I've just hooked it back up to the MBP. It span up after about 3 mins of total inactivity and has now spun up and down five or six time whilst I have been writing this.

On about the 10th attempt it just mounted on the desktop and appeared in the drive list in disk utility.
What the hell is going on here? I'm now running disk utility on the MBP using 10.5

Verify failed.

Trying repair.

(I should also add that I have 5 drives here that I have tested on the MBP, all have displayed the same behavior I have described on the MBP, assume this drive has got damaged when I have been testing it across the systems)

DU says the "volume header" needs repair.

No it's checked out ok and mounted.

Ejected and mounted first time with no problems.

I'm trying a few other disks. Maybe it was just some disk voodoo after all.

skew · Nov 5, 2007, 11:16 AM

Seems to have settled down a little - disks are now mounting within the time you would expect. The time machine drive is behaving very oddy. Spins up, spins down. Refuses to eject, then does so in it's own good time.

All these disks are completely normal on the other machines. Including the ALU imac Running Leopard.

stevesnj · Nov 5, 2007, 11:44 AM

I have been having issues whith my external drives, sometimes they will mount and work fine and poof they would just unmount...weird

Big Mac · Nov 5, 2007, 11:58 AM

On Leopard or Tiger?

skew · Nov 5, 2007, 02:35 PM

Hi - same old problem after working all day. I was working on another external drive that has been behaving all day and then just would not allow access to files and folder - it remained on the desktop and available for DU but would not spin up after going to sleep.

I eventually got it to spin up (actually it just did it itself - nothing I could manually reproduce) and then ejected it. I've now plugged the Time Machine drive back in and it took for or five attempts to get it to mount on the desktop. All seems fine for a few mins and then the disk will spin down ( not a sleep induced spin down ) and start the process all over again.

WTF?

stevesnj · Nov 5, 2007, 09:22 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

On Leopard or Tiger?

On Leopard...obviously

skew · Nov 6, 2007, 04:48 AM

Hi again. It seems that Time Machine itself might be hosing the drives. I found this on the apple forums:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Time Machine IS killing or corrupting ...

It's inconclusive but would explain why my MBP with time machine invoked is having trouble and yet the drives work fine on the AluiMac running 10.5 but with no TM.

Doesn't look like any other MacNN'ers are having any problems, I just hope 10.5.X sorts this out before I resort to a reinstall.

Skew.

skew · 06:09 AM

Just got into work. Booted MBP, drive is plugged in - nothing. It didn't even turn on let alone attempt to mount.

Could it be a bus problem?

It never mounted after 10 mins of spinning up and down. Eventually I shut it down using the drives power switch. I then pulled the FW800 lead out of the MBP and got the "do not disconnect your drive without first putting it away" message.

WTF?

Also found this:

Apple - Support - Discussions - External firewire drive problems ...

I'm going on a hunt to macfixit, not been round there since the 10.0 - 10.2 days.