Can I use an older LaCie rugged hard drive with USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 with a new MacBook Air?

tomznyc wrote:

I have an old LaCie external hard drive. It has three ports: USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. Here's what they look like:

http://www.memoryc.com/images/products/bb/lacie-rugged-3_10590_10591_12570_13993 _13994_16766.jpg

I just bought a new MacBook Air. I'd like to connect the hard drive via the USB 3.0 port on the Air. The Air doesn't have FireWire ports, and I'm using the Thunderbolt port for an external monitor.

The guys at the Apple store couldn't help me out. I went to a Micro Center and bought a USB 2.0 to USB 3.0 cable that didn't work (the LaCie would not mount on my desktop).

I like this old drive. It's a workhorse. It's the best external hard drive I've owned. I don't see a good reason -- as yet -- to get a new one. I use it only to store and play back music.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on how I can make it work before I give up and buy a new one.

Thanks so much.

Tom

Does it work with a USB 2.Cable? MBA should be backward compatible. LaCie is USB 2.0 it won't work because of the built in chipset being USB 2.0. I do not think your wanting to implement USB 3.0 will work. You may have to get a Thunderbolt hub. Take a look here for some ideas:

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Athunderbolt%20hub

I invite alternatives.

Good Luck,

Your drive needs nothing special to connect via USB (other than a standard USB cable of course). There's no USB 2 to USB 3 converter nor is one necessary. All my old USB drives work with my new computers. If the drive mounts on other computers but not the new MBA I suggest the following:

1) open a Finder window and look on the sidebar under Devices. Since by default drives don't appear on the Desktop maybe you have't set the Finder prefs to show external drives there yet.

2) reset the SMC and try mounting again.

3) run the Disk Utility program and see if it lists the drive. If so try clicking on the Mount button.

4) I assume you've tried mounting it on another computer via USB?

I had a Seagate drive at work that I always used with FireWire and when I received a new computer I had to use USB obviously and it wouldn't mount. Not on the new computer, not on the old computer. Turns out the USB port on the drive had always been defective or had become defective at some point and I didn't find out until then. Maybe that's your problem.

tomznyc wrote:

Hey William,

Thanks for the help. Yes, I did use a USB 2.0 cable. I plugged it in, but the drive failed to mount on my desktop. Thanks for the suggestion on the hub. I appreciate it.

Best,

Tom

Does Disk Utilites see it? I have 3 older USB drives and I have noticed some cables don't work. I use better grade cables and no problems. Try an Apple USB Cable.

Good Luck. Let us know if it works. Please.

This is frustrating!! The exact same thing has happened to me and I have four fw800 drives that I use for work. When I had my iMac I just got a Y cable (I.e. 2 USBs coming off of 1 micro B) -- this worked great, but they finally moved one of the USB ports over to the right on the new MacBook so the Y cable can't reach. Anyway long story short, I'm pretty sure that this is what you (and I) need.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008RXYOKY/ref=ox_ya_os_product_refresh_T1

Should not have been so ******* hard to figure this out... Good luck!

that setup is ancient history.

Grab a USB 3.0 HD, hard drives are cheaper than dirt.

completely unnecessary frustration for nothing.

I had the same problem with LaCie rugged not mounting on MacBook Air mid 2013 model. I installed the driver available on the LaCie site and after restarting, the drive mounted perfectly. https://www.lacie.com/au/support/drivers/driver.htm?id=10239