Powerbook G4 and external drive

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Level 1

4 points

Powerbook G4 and external drive

I have a powerbook G4 1.67 and a portable seagate external drive. When I plug the drive into the powerbook's USB ports, I get nothing, no power, no disk visible in disk utilities.When I plug the same drive into my Imac 24", it works fine. I have tried plugging different usb items, the wireless mouse I use will work on both USB ports, flash drives will also work. any ideas would be great

powerbook G$ 1.67

Posted on Jan 9, 2010 6:53 PM

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Answer 1

BGreg

Level 6

17,552 points

Jan 10, 2010 6:01 AM in response to goodspeedrd

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.

Powerbooks don't put out much power on the USB port, and it's not unusual for external devices that rely on power from the USB port to not function properly. Several options:

If the adapter also has a firewire connection, use that
Get an external power adapter
Use a powered USB hub
Get one of the USB cables that has two USB plugs for the Powerbook side

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