2012 Macbook Pro with retina display won't recognize my External Hard drive.

clintonfrombirmingham wrote:

Well, at least you guys were able to replicate the problem and know, now, that it's a USB problem that can, in all likelihood, be fixed with a software update...

Since one of the goals here should be to be able to boot from an external drive connected via the USB 3.0 port, the software fix on the MBP would have to be at a very low level so that the USB port would work properly before any system software is loaded off the drive. That would probably have to be a firmware fix.

I'm having the same problem with Macpower SK-3500 HD Cases/Controllers on my MBPR

Here's an excerpt of the protocol:

And another one with a different HD in the same HD case:

I had some luck with these terminal commands. The drive mounted and showed the right speed in System Profiler. I recommend copying and pasting the commands into the terminal if you're not comfortable there.

sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext.not

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

Reboot the system after running these commands.

I had migrated from my previous machine and had this problem. I restored it, and it worked fine. I put everything back on and started isolating. This extension seems to be from when I had installed LaCie drivers on the old machine.

these terminal commands did not work for me and gave me the message:

MacBook-Pro:~ Solorboy123$ sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext.not

mv: rename /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext to /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext.not: No such file or directory

what type of extrenal hdd are you using and out of curiosity what is it formatted as?

Well, let's hope that it will be a software fix, because it seems if this is widespread, and everything is soldered in the new MBP Retina, is it going to be possible to fix it in hardware? Or are the ports something they can work with? It seems a possible nightmare for Apple.

It maybe that Apple will have a list of compatible drives is another possible solution depending on what the problem is. But this is all speculation as we don't know what or if there is really a problem. I'm sort of waiting around to see how it gets sorted out before I order.

Message was edited by: Barry Fisher

Solorboy123 wrote:

these terminal commands did not work for me and gave me the message:

MacBook-Pro:~ Solorboy123$ sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext.not

mv: rename /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext to /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext.not: No such file or directory...

FWIW, a PXHCD.kext is, as whatheck says, installed by LaCie and was included with their LaCie USB 3.0 PCIe card, though PXHCD may be the code name peculiar to LaCie for all such drivers. When I installed my Sonnet USB 3.0 PCIe card, I initially couldn't get it to work with its drivers and tried the LaCie drivers; that's the .kext that was installed. Sonnet uses SXHCD.kext for its card and an updated driver installer worked for me but only after I disabled the PXHCD.kext left over from LaCie that was by then also present. Since the Apple USB 3.0 support is (or should be) built in, the drivers should be in firmware if booting from a USB 3.0 drive is going to be possible, but the presence of any other such drivers may be interfering. It's possible that the terminal commands need to be specific for whatever stray drivers might be present; PXHCD in whatheck's case and SXHCD in mine if I should ever migrate from my Mac Pro to a MBP Retina.

The underlying problem may turn out to be a conflict between Apple's drivers and whatever software users might have installed as part of setting up an external drive. I and others avoid that type of software like the plague so the issues with Apple's USB 3.0 implementation may not apply to all users and fixes may have to be specific to what third party software the users installed.

I was having the same issues with Lion. I loaded Mountain Lion Developers Preview 4 and all is well. It's obvious they wanted to release these with Moutain Lion, but it wasn't ready. Which is why we get a free upgrade to Mountain Lion.

But dont you have to pay like 100 dollars to become a mac developer just to have access to the mountain lion preview? if not can you please post a link on how to get this?

It may be a 'free' preview, but it's illegal.

Clinton

I don't think it's illigel because Apple has already said that we are getting the update for free. Trust me. It's much better. I have it running on a seperate partition. That way I could test it, but seriously it's stable.

Solorboy,

No you don't have to be a developer like on iOS. Technically you do, but you don't have to activate it like you do with iOS, so you can run it... I've paid for all updates, but still used the previews. Yes, I'm wrong, but I do pay for it so I don't feel it harms anyone. I've paid for developer access before, but didn't have time enough free time after work to develop my ideas. One day I'll have the time 😉

Hi Guys,

My MBP Retina Display came in the other day and i had the exact same problem. My Seagate 1TB HDD wouldn't show up on the new MBP but was working perfectly on my old one. I'm not sure if this would work for anyone else because it was completely a fluke for me but i tried everything else and it wouldn't work, However when i connected it back to my old MBP and backed up more stuff on there and tried connecting it back to my new MBP it started working. Not sure why it wouldn't work in the first place. Hope it works for others.

psedog wrote:

I don't think it's illigel because Apple has already said that we are getting the update for free. Trust me. It's much better. I have it running on a seperate partition. That way I could test it, but seriously it's stable.

Solorboy,

No you don't have to be a developer like on iOS. Technically you do, but you don't have to activate it like you do with iOS, so you can run it... I've paid for all updates, but still used the previews. Yes, I'm wrong, but I do pay for it so I don't feel it harms anyone. I've paid for developer access before, but didn't have time enough free time after work to develop my ideas. One day I'll have the time 😉

it kinda sounds like it is but it would be nice if some one else can confirm that this would work with their external, as for MikiD89 's solution i will try this tommorrow as this is my first Mac computer and i would have to try this on mac's at work. just out of curiosity what version of mac os did your old MBP have?

I think my old MBP was running on OS X 10.5