New Western Digital "MyBook Premium Edition II" not mounting on firewire

There is a firmware update that may help you:
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=27&swid=54

I'm not sure, but I think it needs to be UNmounted when you run the update.

When you attach the drive to the computer, what does the light on the front of the drive do? (Such as off, remain constant, move up-and-down etc...)


C h r i s t o p h

I have had some trouble using mine with firewire, but I finally figured out a way. It's all in the order of how you connect it. Have the firewire cable not connected to the comptuer, nor the power cord of the WD. The computer should be on. Plug in the WD to the wall. You should see the light come on for a brief instant. Then connect the firewire. The light should come on, and it will try to mount.

C h r i s t o p h

I have the same "Error while loading generic library", how did you solve this problem? The applescript in the dmg doesn't work for me - it just closes immediately, so I extracted the accompanying tar file and ran the application - to get this error.

I've had this issue repeatedly with clients trying to take the less expensive way out and for some reason WD's Externals have issues such as these more often than not. I had purchased 2 500GB WD External Drives a couple of years ago to back up a few Client Drives on my top of the line XServe and n matter what I did only one of the drives could be recognized.

I exchanged them for Lacie 750GBDrives and they showed up the minute I plugged them to any my Server's ports (FW800, FW400, USB).

Needless to say, the Lacie Drives worked flawlessly until they failed a little over a year later, within weeks of one another. LOL

I've been using Fantom Drives since then and not a single issue.

Thanks for the tip. Connecting in this order totally worked for me. The MyBook was 'stuck' in standby mode and I couldn't get it to mount... thanks again!

I have a My book Premium Edition external drive and I can not get it to mount no matter what I do. Tried your suggestion with plugging in the cables and that did not work. I can't get it to mount in firewire or USB 2. Please help my life is on the drive right now.
It does show up in Disk Utiliity but it does not mount to the desktop. I see the drive and the 2 partitions but the partitions are grayed out. I can eject it through Disk Utility but it does not shut down. It sounds like it is still spinning and the lights are solid. How can I shut it down? Is there a way to test the drive? What is the proper way to use this...meaning should I turn the computer on first then plug the drive in? Should I leave it plugged in and on like my mac or should I eject it when not using it for an hour or so?
Sorry about all the questions at once but I have been searching for answers for 4 hours now,
The Western web site is horrible for finding troubleshooting info. When you do find something close to your problem the explanation is weak.

CHRISTOPH I LOVE YOU...
I tried your way after four days of firewire ****, and that one worked for me.
Thank you so much...

Catherine, no longer spiffed in UK

I read this post from "mucmacian" on the Macrumors site. It solved the firewire problem for me:

"Firewire 400 workaround
Some people may be experiencing issues connecting Firewire 400 devices to their new Aluminum iMacs.

At least for me, I've been messing around with an iBook G4 and my new 24" iMac, beeing unable to get the iBook connected to the iMac in target mode.
After a long lasting call with a very kind person at Apple Support, they contacted some cupertino based third level support guys and came up with a workaround:

As they stated, few users are having problems with Firewire 400 devices, even when connecting several Apple computers (depending on model and revision) in target mode to their new Aluminum iMac.
As far as I understood, the issue is related to low voltage input (diverging from Firewire specification?!?), meaning, the connected device is not able to deliver enough power through Firewire to work properly.

Simply connect the device using a Firewire hub with its own power supply, and things will work fine. At least, they did for me."

I am still having trouble with this. My hard drive will not show up on any inferface (800, 400, or USB) on the desktop or Disk Utility.

When I run the raid manager program that came with the book, it says that the drives are not connected. I've personally checked and can say that this is not true. the program only gives me a green check when I do the following:

1. unplug all connections from computer/hard drive
2. plug in firewire 800
3. plug in power

only THEN does it show up in the raid manager program.

Any Advice?

I purchased a WD MyBook Pro Edition II (1 TB) in January and set it up with my 2.8 gHz Intel iMac for TimeMachine back-ups. Connected via FireWire 800, it's been working fine over the past 4 months, and then suddenly stopped showing up anywhere on my Mac, not listed as a device, not detected by Disk Utility, etc. Been researching this on multiple forums and the WD website.
Finally tested the drive with a USB cable, and it worked. Now reconnected as a visible Device, I thought I should try to update the firmware, as suggested here and elsewhere. However, could not get this to work (trying to update with the firewire connection, I'm told to attach a WD drive, which it doesn't see; trying with the USB cable, I get that message that states there was an error loading the generic library.)

Could these recent problems (after 4 trouble-free months) be a result of a recent OS upgrade?
I'm running 10.5.3 now, but even when I first connected to the WD MB I was already running some version of Leopard (OS 10.5.2 maybe?)
Anyone have similar troubles, and succeeded in restoring the connection via firewire?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.