Feed
 

G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Eric Jervis
The title says it all really; the drives are a LaCie 1TB and a mini DV camcorder. I stopped using the G5 over a year ago when I upgraded, but now I want to use it for iMovie HD and InDesign. It had been giving me some aggro when I stopped, but I can't remember exactly what. I know it took a long time to fire itself up, but I just have a cup of tea while it does so.

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Eric Jervis
And in addition it will not display these discussions properly; some of the text is OK but some looks as if some gremlin has pushed the slug of type over so I can just see the serifs on the foot of it!

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Mick Burrell
When you say it can't see the drive, do you mean it doesn't show on the desktop (Finder>Preference) or Disc Utility can't see it?

The display issue may be because the browser you're using, whilst being the most up-to-date you can use on that machine (you don't say which OS or version of which browser), is not up to modern web standards.

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Eric Jervis
Hi Mick, I mean both. Missing the first half of your second sentence but, Leopard 10.5.8 and Safari 4.0.2.

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Eric Jervis
Hi Mick, I mean both. Missing the first half of your second sentence but, Leopard 10.5.8 and Safari 4.0.2.

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Mick Burrell
Safari is now at version 8! See if there's an update to run on Leopard or try Firefox.

Do the external drives have their own power supply and/or appear to be humming? (Perhaps when you first plug them in).

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Eric Jervis
Software Update just offered me the chance to upgrade 8 items so I unchecked 7 of them and Safari went up to 5.0.6, which has cured the display problem.
External drives have their own power supply, and do not appear to hum.

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Mick Burrell
Glad Safari's fixed.

I'm trying to establish if the drives are actually running. If you turn them off then, with your ear close (touching?) the drive you turn it on, can you hear it spin up? If not, are they both plugged into an extension lead with a blown fuse? I can't imagine both drives would fail at the same time.

Do you have a USB stick you can plug in to see if the Mac can see that?

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Eric Jervis
The USB stick works fine. One of the 'drives' is a camcorder and so makes no noise, the other is a LaCie which makes a slight humming noise when I hold it to my ear. I think I see what you're hinting at though; both drives are connected by Firewire cables, so maybe the Firewire ports are down. Hmmm.

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Mick Burrell
Load System Profiler (About This Mac from the black Apple logo in top left corner then More Info) and under the Hardware section, click on Firewire. On the right hand side of the window you should see Firewire Bus (possibly two) and it should show you anything connected to it/them.

If you don't see Firewire Bus then, I'm no engineer but I'd guess your firewire has died. If the bus is there but nothing connected, I'd try to find something else to connect to test. Not sure if two busses would be linked so something could allow both to fail simultaneously.

You can daisy chain devices - you haven't plugged the drive into one port and the camcorder into the drive? If so, only one bus may be the problem.

Sorry but difficult to diagnose even if the machine was here - at a distance, I'm struggling!

Re: G5 unable to see external drives

Avatar Eric Jervis
AHA! 'Unable to List Firewire Devices'.
Well done, Mick, I'll take this one into the shop when I pick up the MacPro!
 
Feed