Other External products

[Darci]

I'm running OS X 10.4.11 and have a Maxtor One Touch II 250GB drive. It was working fine on Wednesday but won't mount today (Friday). I get the light and a whirring motor when I turn the drive on, but can't see it anywhere on my computer. The drive is over two years old. Is it pooped already? I hate to think these drives are so touchy when we entrust valuable data to them (and are so expensive).

[Darci]

Actually, I have fixed my own problem now, but I will post it in case it is valuable information for someone else.

I did some Googling around and found a looooooong discussion about how Apple Firewire cables don't work well with back-up drives. I switched to a USB cable and VOILA!

Here's the link to the discussion in case anyone is interested:
http://www.macintouch.com/panfirewire03.html#nov20

Good luck everyone!

[nathancarey]

Well, maybe...

I have a Western Digital external HD that I have been using for nine months with Firewire on an iBook with absolutely no problems at all. After 24 hours with a Maxtor OneTouch 4, I have yet to complete a backup using Firewire.

[stuardy]

I cannot believe that I found your experience here. I have had the exact experience this week with my One Touch II 300 GB external drive. I unmounted it from my Mac G4 desktop computer so that I could backup data on my MacBook Pro before taking it in for service for an audio card problem. I could not get the Maxtor to show up on the desktop of my new laptop using the same firewire cable, OR my older Mac laptop, and also not on my original desktop when I reconnected it. The drive, of course, is out of warranty, but is not more than three years old. Unfortunately, it also will not show up on any computer using the USB connection. Anyone have any ideas how to kicj-start this machine so I can retrieve some dat from it?

[Darci]

Nathan,

I used my drive successfully with the firewire cable for almost two years! Then one day, without warning -- kaput. There's obviously some kind of voodoo involved ...

Darci

[stuardy]

Darci,

The same thing happened to me, as you can read in my story. I never had a problem using the firewire cable. Now it will not work with either of two firewire cables or a USB connection. There is power to the drive. I hear it spinning, and the proper lights are on. Very frustrating, that my data is so close, and yet so far...........................

I CERTAINLY will not be replacing this drive with a Maxtor.......or a Seagate, for that matter.

I bought this external drive to backup important data from my computer's internal drive. I bought the biggest available then that would be appropriate for recording and storing audio files. Now it seems that I must buy TWO external drives: one to replace the Maxtor One Touch II, and the other to backup that!

How did you get yours to work again?

Stuard

[Darci]

Stuard,

Well, using a USB cable fixed my problem -- for now. It sounds like that didn't work for you.

I guess I'll do a lot more research on reliability before I purchase another back-up drive. Obviously we back things up because they are important, so the drive NEEDS to be reliable. I'm also going to check up on what kind of guarantee there is regarding data retrieval. Reading other peoples' postings, it sounds like Maxtor/Seagate doesn't offer anything; so you have to pay out the wazoo for them to retrieve your data. Surely there is a better offer out there somewhere. If you find one, let us all know!!

Happy New Year!
Darci

[stuardy]

Darci,

Did your drive icon show up right away on your Mac desktop when you used the USB cable? With my USB cable, the drive icon does not show on the desktop, but the system profiler does recognize that the drive is there. Do you (or anyone out there) know of any way to try to mount the drive?

When I took my MacBook Pro to the local Apple Store, the guy at the Genius Bar, could not get the drive to show up either. He said that data retrieval is hugely expensive. He did mention a company that may be more reasonable than Seagate, but I did not write it down when he said hundreds and/or thousands of dollars. When I go back in a few days, I will ask him for the web address and let you know. I bought the Maxtor drive from this Aplle Store. They no longer stock Maxtor or Seagate. They are now recommending Western Digital My Book drives, with a three year warranty. When I came home, I went on the WD website. They have some interesting drives, including a 1 TB dual drive for about $400 which apparently can be set up to backup itself. It also is user-serviceable in that the owner can open it and replace a drive. I was considering the 500 GB single drive in the store ($200), but am now considering a dual drive from the WD website. This would rather conveniently solve the backing up the backup drive problem, as well as providing a lot of space to work with HD video that I may be getting into in the near future. Here is the link, if you are interested: <http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=270&language=en>

Wishing you a great New Year, also.

Stu

[Darci]

You know, I already can't remember if the icon showed up right away or not. I'm thinking it didn't until I rebooted. Then it acted as if the device was something new I had just connected for the first time.

Thanks for the information about Western Digital. I probably won't buy a new drive right away, as long as this one is working. I have most of my real important stuff also backed up on CDs (although, I don't want to jinx myself saying that).

Cheers,
Darci