I cant see my external hard drives on my Power Mac G4 using leopard

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Level 1

15 points

I cant see my external hard drives on my Power Mac G4 using leopard

I have a power mac G4 MDD with 2 GB RAM. I have always backed up to a My BOOK 750 GB external HD. After installing leopard, the machine does not even recognize this external hd on the desktop or disk utilities.
I took that external hd to my macbook pro with tiger on it and it recognized it right away.

I installed the leopard on my son's IMAC 2 GB intel duo processor and it recognized it.

Is this a problem with the G4? I even reset the pram without any help as suggested by someone on the board.

Please help

G4

Posted on Oct 27, 2007 10:01 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 27, 2007 5:00 PM in response to Rajiv Jauhar

Hello! Try resetting the pmu. Press the button once with all external cables (usb/firewire, monitor, a/c etc.) unhooked. Tom

pmu location
[IMG] http://img470.imageshack.us/img470/1623/mddlogicbd4ga.jpg[/IMG]

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Answer 2

Rajiv Jauhar Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 27, 2007 10:53 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Thanks for the response Tom. I reset the PMU without any help. I still cannot see the external HDs

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Answer 3

Oct 28, 2007 7:57 AM in response to Rajiv Jauhar

Hi Again! If it is seen on the other computer run the repair disk function and try it again. Tom

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Answer 4

Rajiv Jauhar Author

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Oct 28, 2007 10:05 AM in response to Thomas Bryant

I did that already without any help. I am wondering if it is a G4 problem or maybe an older mac problem because it worked fine on my new intel 2.0 duo processor IMAC and worked well on my tiger macbookpro.

Do you thing they will create an update for this?

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Answer 5

Oct 28, 2007 10:12 AM in response to Rajiv Jauhar

Hi Again! It sounds like you installed Leopard on this machine "while" the external was connected to it? If so that's a no, no. Try repairing the external on a computer that sees it then try it again on the G4. Tom

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Answer 6

Rajiv Jauhar Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 28, 2007 11:36 AM in response to Thomas Bryant

Tom:

thanks for the response. They were connected but the externals were both off. Would that make a difference.

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Answer 7

Rajiv Jauhar Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 28, 2007 12:28 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Tom:

I attached it to my macbookpro which has tiger on it. I ran disk utility on the external HD. It said no repair was necessary. I reattached it to the G4 and nothing happened. It still didnt work

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Answer 8

Oct 28, 2007 12:49 PM in response to Rajiv Jauhar

Does the system profiler see the drive? Tom

Message was edited by: Thomas Bryant

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Answer 9

Rajiv Jauhar Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 28, 2007 3:55 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Thanks for your help. In system profiler under firewire , it says : Warning: unable to list firewire devices

what does that mean

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Answer 10

Rajiv Jauhar Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 28, 2007 4:07 PM in response to Rajiv Jauhar

Before I loaded leopard, it always showed the external drives in system profiler and I even backed up a couple of days before I got leopard.

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Answer 11

Oct 28, 2007 5:50 PM in response to Rajiv Jauhar

Hello Again! It means there's devices on the firewire bus but that it can't identify them. I suspect it has something to do with software on the drive from the drive company such as special software on some of the MY Book drives and others. Contact the external drive manufacturer. Tom

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Answer 12

Rajiv Jauhar Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 28, 2007 7:14 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Thanks, but I am confused because they both worked with Tiger. I have a mybook and a maxtor internal drive in an external drive closure. Why does it see them with leopard on my IMAC? Would it help to run erase the disk completely using leopard from my imac?

Dont you believe it is a leopard problem? I am not a computer guy but just a physician but it sure seems to be the one variable that is constant.

Thanks again for patience and help

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Answer 13

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Oct 28, 2007 7:32 PM in response to Rajiv Jauhar

Hi-

Is the iMac an Intel?
Reason I ask is there is a known issue with the format of a disk, and the ability of a disk to be bootable in Leopard.

You will not be able to boot a PPC Mac from a GUID partition.
You will not be able to install Leopard onto an APM partition using an Intel Mac.

I am wondering if, possibly, the format of your drives is causing the problem with being "seen" by Leopard on your G4?

If a disk is formatted with a G4, the partitioning format should be APM (Apple Partition Map) by default. If, the disks were formatted on an Intel, they may very well be GUID.

All this may only be conjecture, as the known issue is the boot-ability issue. I just find it interesting that you can see the drives with one machine, and not the other.

Definitely explore any drivers that may be installed on the G4 for the ext. drives. Third party drivers/software will be high on the list of suspects.

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Answer 14

Rajiv Jauhar Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 28, 2007 7:55 PM in response to japamac

yes it is a 2 ghz intel duo processor.

I will explore the drivers. Should I just go to the web sites for the 2 companies (Western Digital and Maxtor/Seagate)?

All my external disk formatting was done on the G4 and tiger.

Thanks again for your help.

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Answer 15

Oct 29, 2007 6:17 PM in response to Rajiv Jauhar

I have the same issue, except mine did this out of the blue tonight. This weekend I ran Time Machine successfully, backing up my G4 Powerbook and an external LaCie Firewire drive, both an a Firewire 800 Lacie Drive. Today at work I ran the laptop and the smaller external drive with no problem. Tonight I plug in both drives again and neither show up. I tried a different drive which I know is good and it doesn't show up either, though it did after my install as well. Under system profiler I'm getting the Unable to list firewire devices notice as well. Kinda *****, as all my files, and my backups are on these drives.

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