Powerbook G4 won't detect USB 2.0 external hard drive

Hi, April. The USB ports on most Powerbooks are unable to supply enough power to bus-powered hard drives to make the drives usable. Unless your drives are being powered by something other than the USB port in your machines, this is your problem. There are four solutions: 1. get an AC adapter for your USB drive(s), if there's someplace on the drive to plug one in; 2. connect an AC-powered USB hub to your Powerbook and plug the drive(s) into the hub instead of the computer; 3. get a "Y" cable that allows a USB drive to draw power from two USB ports on your Powerbook rather than just one; or 4. remove your drive from the USB enclosure and put it in a FireWire enclosure. FireWire drives don't generally seem to have the inadequate-power problem that plagues most USB drives used with Powerbooks. FireWire is also faster than USB, and it's bootable, which USB is not.

Message was edited by: eww

Hi eww,

Could you please tell me what you mean by number 4? How do you do that?

External hard drive enclosures can be connected to computers in any of several ways. USB is one; FireWire is another. Some enclosures offer several different connection options: they may have any combination of USB2, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and eSATA ports. All G4 And G5 Macs have FireWire 400 ports, and can start up from an external hard drive that is connected to one of those ports. No G$ or G% Mac can be depended upon to start up from any external drive that is connected to a USB port, though it may happen in a few cases. Because a FireWire-capable drive is bootable, it's much more useful than a USB-only drive in any situation where a primary hard drive has failed or has become temporarily unbootable because of file or directory corruption.

Bare hard drives nowadays come in two platter sizes: 2.5" for notebook computers and 3.5" for desktop computers. The sizes and shapes of their outside casings are tightly standardized to make them highly interchangeable. They also come in two types: Parallel ATA, also called IDE, PATA, or ATA-5, ATA-6 or ATA-7; and the newer Serial ATA, or SATA drives.

External enclosures are made to accept either PATA or SATA drives — rarely both types. If you have an external drive with only a USB2 port, and you can see how to open the drive enclosure to reveal the bare drive inside, it may be to your advantage to order an empty FireWire enclosure and "transplant" your bare hard drive into it to get the benefits of higher speed, bootability, and adequate power that come with FireWire.

External hard drive enclosures are designed to hold standard-sized bare hard drive units — the same units that can be mounted inside a desktop or notebook computer. An enclosure contains a place to mount the drive, a circuit board or two that mediates between the drive and the port to which you'll connect a USB or FireWire cable, and in the case of a 3.5" drive, sometimes a fan for cooling.

Portable FireWire-connectable external hard drives seldom or never have the problem of insufficient power that plagues so many portable USB hard drives when they're used with Powerbooks. For whatever reason, Powerbooks' USB ports just can't put out enough juice to run most portable USB drives, while their FireWire ports are able to do so comfortably.

so glad i found this reply i have the exact same problem and I couldnt figure it out......THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!

I have had the same problem, and I am disappointed to hear the answer. Carrying around a powered USB hub defeats the nice portability of a powerbook. I have a number of USB external drives that I use for transferring data among computers and for backup. Although firewire sounds possible, my PC's are not that firewire friendly. My thinkpad has a mini unpowered firewire jack. ( I have a mixed household.)

However, I did discover that a USB flash drive does get recognized and is usable. I tested with a 2gb.
These drives are available in bigger and bigger capacities, so this may be a satisfactory solution.