Directly Connect NAS Hard Drive to Lion

Question

Level 2

158 points

Directly Connect NAS Hard Drive to Lion

OK until Apple/Western Digital (and others) do an update, those of us with NAS (hard drives connected via Ethernet or Wifi) are in a jam. My Time Machine backup with my iPhoto and iTunes libraries are not accessable to me. I had to do a clean install to get rid of a pesky program and now my data is locked up.

Here is my question. If I take the physical hard drive out of my NAS device and hook it directly up to my Mac (I have a USB to ATA cord) will Lion be able to see it and access the backup?

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Jul 27, 2011 4:58 AM

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Answer 1

jbjoret

Level 3

652 points

Jul 27, 2011 5:06 AM in response to Geoff Gentry

Apple or Western will not do an update, apple changed the communication API that broke every NAS currently on the market. The NAS will have to come up with an update ... but this is not for tomorrow.

Now If you can mount your NAS as a USB device it will be OK depending on how many drives you have in your NAS. If you take out the drive assuming there is only one in your NAS, there are also good chances that you get this to work. If your NAS is configured as a Raid with multiple HDDs you will most certainly be experiencing issues with Lion. If you depend on your NAS, my recommendation would be to wait before upgrading to Lion.

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Answer 2

Geoff Gentry Author

Level 2

158 points

Jul 27, 2011 5:15 AM in response to jbjoret

It is one HD with a partition one for regular storage and one set up as a backup area. This is how Western Digital sets up the My Worldbook II device I have. Well I am alread on Lion. The Apple Care rep, when helping me, did not ask what type of drive my TM backups were on. So I wiped the internal HD, installed Lion and then learned when I tried to migrate my data that Lion would not see the device.

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Answer 3

Geoff Gentry Author

Level 2

158 points

Jul 27, 2011 7:25 PM in response to Geoff Gentry

I did a test. I hooked up the WD Drive via usb to my Lion Machine. With no luck. It said the disk is not recoginzed to initilize, ignore or eject. So I have to wait on Western Digital.

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Answer 4

Governa

Level 2

206 points

Jul 30, 2011 2:42 PM in response to Geoff Gentry

I have the same problem with my Conceptronic CH3HNAS and have found a free and easy solution.

Since a lot of people report they are able to access their NAS using apps other than the Finder itself, I decided to look for a free Lion-compatible File Manager to use instead of Finder.

I have found muCommander ( http://www.mucommander.com/ ) and indeed it works fine. All I did was click on the button highlighted bellow, go to "bonjour services" and select my NAS. It prompted me for my username and password and voilá, it works fine.

I keep Finder for everyday use and just load muCommander when I want to access the NAS. At least now I don't have to start my WinXP VM anymore just to access it.

Hope it helps you.

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Answer 5

Geoff Gentry Author

Level 2

158 points

Jul 30, 2011 4:38 PM in response to Governa

Well that lets me browse the shared part of the drive, but I still cannot access the backup portion of the drive. Western Digital has partitioned the drive into the normal section and a back up section. I can get in to the normal but not the back up. Thanks for the software tip. Hope it helps others.

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