[X4U] External Disk Fails to Mount on Leopard

[John F. Richardson]

Hello,

My Buffalo external USB 2 hard drive fails to mount on my new iMac.

Desired solution: plug the little puppy in and see a cute little icon on the
desktop.... Smile.

Hard Drive: Buffalo 320 GB USB drive
OS: Leopard (probably OX X 10.5.3 or 4 [just opened the box]

Symptoms: 1)No disk icon appears on the screen
2) Disk utility fails to "see" the drive.

Note 1: The drive mounts on a PPC iMac and was originally formatted and used
on a PPC iMac under Tiger (Hmmm, maybe Panther). So, I can access the disk
on my old system. I can backup data using TOAST 8. I can read the CD ROM 's
on Leopard. It just takes a week to transfer 300GB of data. This is not the
desired solution.

The following snippet from a post on a similar problem seems to indicate
that the following solutions are possible. So, does the earlier post seem to
apply. It seems so. Any comments on the best strategy below or an
alternative.
This may also explain the July 5 thread on the 160GB smartdisk not mounting.

1) Load backup CD's onto the new system. This has the disadvantage of
filling up the new iMac's disk drive and wasting a week.

2) Buy a new 500 GB hard drive, mount it on Leopard from the start, format
it on Leopard and then load the backup's onto the external hard drive. This
is similar to option 1. However, I have to pay for a drive ($150 - 300) and
I still have to spend a week loading data.

3) Do a low level format on the existing hard drive using some third party
tool (since Disk utility will not format the drive). Perhaps a Tiger Mactel
mini can format it using disk utility. Attach to the Leopard system. Spend a
week loading data back on the disk.

4) Use some LAN strategy to access the drive as a network drive. Suggestions
and links to directions welcome. Problem is that I need both machines
operating at the same time. Spend a week figuring out the strategy. Power
hog and the PPC is around to test Universal Binaries and run apps no longer
supported or sold.

If this is the case, then Apple has just told Leopard up-graders (PPC to
Mactel) to buy a new disk or spend the equivalent in time and backup media.
I believe from previous comments in trade journals, that GUID is a good
thing for the future.

Solution 5: Buy a commercial disk utility for Leopard that will modify the
existing hard drive without loosing data so that Leopard will mount the
drive. Recommendations accepted, hopefully for apps on sale at the apple
store.

================ Snippet from July 3 post =========================

-----Original Message-----
From: macosx-support at yahoogroups.com [mailto:macosx-support at yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Denver Dan
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 6:16 PM
To: macosx-support at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [macosx] Drive Erase/Format Failure

Howdy.

Try the following steps.  For reasons known only to the gnomes in 
Cupertino, Apple has made using some features in Disk Utility into a 
mysterious maze of difficulty. 

1.  Connect new external HD. 

2.  Launch Disk Utility. 

3.  Click the new external hard drive icon to select it. 

4.  Do a Control click on this drive icon (or Right click).

5.  From the menu that pops up, pick the Partition command. 

6.  IMPORTANT!  in the resulting Partition dialog box, in the popup 
menu below the words Volume Scheme (where it probably says "Current"), 
click and pick "1 partition." 

7.  Next click the Options button and from the resulting dialog pick 
the radio button next to GUID Partition Table.  Then click OK. 

8.  Then click Apple and proceed to erase the drive by clicking the 
Partition button.  It should do the job in just a few seconds. 

When it's done, click the newly erase and partition drive in Disk 
Utility and the info down below should say Partition Map Scheme:  GUID 
Partition Table.  

The format of the drive is still HFS+ Extended but the partition needs 
to be GUID and this is a change from PowerPC Macs to Intel and to a new 
requirement of the Leopard system on Intel Macs.  

Denver Dan

============== end snippet from JULY 3 post ========================

John F. Richardson