toshiba external hard drive

To talk to such a drive, you will need the program that lives in the land between Physical Disks and Logical Volumes, whose name is Disk Utility.

If Disk Utility cannot see BOTH the Make&Model AND a non-Zero Size/Capacity, the drive cannot be repaired, partitioned, or mounted in its current state.

rzdrojewski wrote:

I cannot get my MacBook Pro Retina to recognize a Toshiba Canvio USB3 1TB Portable hard drive, model HDTC610XK3B1 at all. It works on my My Windows XP machine just fine and I believe it was factory formatted as NTFS format. I would be happy to reformat it to Mac specs, but my MacBook won't recognize it at all...

Your external is bus powered and the rMBP's USB 3.0 port most likely isn't providing enough power to make it work. You'd need a powered USB hub that supports USB 3.0 or a cable like this to provide sufficient power.

rzdrojewski wrote:

Thanks for that $11 cable recommendation, I just placed the order now, hope that solves it!

I began the Toshiba returns process online but they required a copy of the original sales receipt which I cannot find, so hoping to keep the drive after all and the $11 cable will do the trick!

Ummm, there's a wrinkle with that cable, though, judging from the picture (which was intended as an illustration). I have a rMBP too, and I don't think the cable length between the two cables to the Mac's USB ports is long enough to reach both sides.

rzdrojewski wrote:

...What if I plugged in the open USB end into an AC power adaptor like this picture shows:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/66535040

Might that work?

I'm trying to picture how that would work. From the picture, it looks like power is added at the USB 3.0 "A" end with the "B" end, which is shaped to match the device you're connecting, at the other end. With the OWC cable, you've got two A's and one B. You'd somehow have to mate the power adapter and free OWC A plugs. If such a power adapter were available as USB 3.0, it'd solve the problem all by itself, but I can't see how the OWC and adapter cables would connect.

I'd been thinking your hub might work just as a power source for the cable's second plug as long as the power source for the hub was connected but its USB plug was not. If it was connected to the Mac also, that would mean both the USB 2.0 and 3.0 signal connections would be connected to the rMBP's ports at the same time, which could confuse things no end.

There are external drives which can run on the power Apple supplies from its ports; it unfortunate you can't get a refund on the Toshiba.