I own a pair of Maxtor Onetouch IV 500GB, USB 2.0 drives that I purchased about a week or two apart from Staples. Both are formatted journalled HFS+. In a spate of brilliance, I am using the identical drives to back each other up, rsyncing one to the other on a periodic basis. This system had worked for a while, but has since stopped.
This is currently a problem, as both have stopped working when I connect them to either my Macbook Pro or my employer's iMac. When connected, they do one of two things:
a) they don't show up in Finder or in Disk Utility, and the system.log file records numerous USB errors, such as:
Aug 22 17:19:19 intelbook kernel[0]: USBF: 648.779 [0x3c85900] The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in. It will keep retrying. (Port 3 of hub @ location: 0xfd000000)
Aug 22 17:19:20 intelbook kernel[0]: USBF: 649.197 [0x3c85900] The IOUSBFamily was not able to enumerate a device.
or
b) the drive is recognized, mounts very briefly, and then disconnects itself without any input from me (i.e. no touching of cabling, etc). This is not a clean unmount, so I also get the "Device not correctly removed" warning from the OS. This process seems to repeat itself ad naseum until I unplug the drive.
I have tried with minimal other USB devices (none, in the case of my MBP, and just the Apple keyboard and mouse for the iMac); I have tried with and without a hub between the computer and the drive. Other USB devices seem to work fine.
I have tried with and without the Maxtor software and drivers installed.
I would very much like to get one (or both) of these drives working so I can pull my photos off them, preferably without pulling a case apart and putting the drive in another enclosure (a possibility, but one I'd like to avoid, as these drives should still be under warrantee).
Any and all suggestions appreciated.
Thanks,
Kevin
