OWC external harddrive problems

[GBB]

I have an OWC Elite AL-pro harddrive. My Mac doesn't recognize it when I turn it on and connect it. The power light is on but it doesn't sound like the drive is spinning.

I have a ton of movies and pictures on there that I would hate to lose. Is there any sort of trouble shooting I can do? If not, can I somehow get those files off of the external drive?

[FJ62]

Oddly, I've had the same issue... I can't tell if it's my Mac or the hard drive or the Firewire cable/connection but I can get the files if I tether the hard drive to another hard drive or even if I use Firewire 400 instead of the 800.

It's weird. I've got a few Macs so I've just learned to work around it. The files are in there and fine, it's just that my one Mac has decided to stop recognizing the hard drive.

[ACH]

How are you connecting it to your Mac (Firewire 400 or 800)?
And, are you connecting and disconnecting it frequently?
Firewire 400 connectors go bad over time if they are used a lot (disconnecting and connecting).
A faulty connection with 400 will still power up the drive without connecting it to your desktop.
Check your cables and the connections, and or try a different cable.
If you have the option of using 800 go with that, it's a more secure connection and faster.

If that isn't it, there's a chance that it's the chip set, though I think not.

[GBB]

How are you connecting it to your Mac (Firewire 400 or 800)?
And, are you connecting and disconnecting it frequently?
Firewire 400 connectors go bad over time if they are used a lot (disconnecting and connecting).
A faulty connection with 400 will still power up the drive without connecting it to your desktop.
Check your cables and the connections, and or try a different cable.
If you have the option of using 800 go with that, it's a more secure connection and faster.

If that isn't it, there's a chance that it's the chip set, though I think not.

Firewire 400. My macbook is close to 6 years old.
Not connecting and disconnecting frequently. Maybe 2x/month since I've had the hard drive.
It's powered through a different power supply. I've never used the Firewire 400 port to power it.

I guess I'll try hooking it to another Macbook with 800. Any hints on how to access the data if all of the above methods fail?

[ACH]

Firewire 400. My macbook is close to 6 years old.
Not connecting and disconnecting frequently. Maybe 2x/month since I've had the hard drive.
It's powered through a different power supply. I've never used the Firewire 400 port to power it.

I guess I'll try hooking it to another Macbook with 800. Any hints on how to access the data if all of the above methods fail?

If it is just a connection issue, and all else fails, carefully remove the drive and plug it into one of these.
This option is the least expensive and may come in handy if you ever need to pull information off of other drives, etc.
Or, you could pick up one of these to replace the current enclosure.

[Arty50]

Have you called OWC yet? I seem to recall they had really good CS, but I'm not sure.

[grskier]

They have very good CS, I plugged the wrong connection into my hard drive and they fixed and sent it back for just shipping.

[stuckathuntermtn]

try ripping out the drive and putting it in another enclosure. If the drive still won't spin, then the actual motor is dead, not the usb/firewre controller. It's common for those drive enclosures to stop working right.
If the actual drive still won't spin, then it's going to get expensive.
Try different connections/computers first, if possible.

[systemoverblow'd]

I've had a couple firewire weirdness on my Mac Pro. It seems that if I unmount a drive turn it off, unplug it, plug it back into the same port and turn it on my mac won't see it. If I plug it into any other port when it is on it mounts fine.

Here's what I would try, shut everything off. Plug the drive into your computer. Turn the drive on. Now boot the computer. Obviously if this works you are seeing a similar problem I am running into. If not, due diligence first and try a different fw cord and try mounting to a different computer. If those fail you can try the docking method that AlpenChronicHabitual suggested. It is what I have but they have cheaper options than those too. It is literally just a plug you plug into your bare drive instead of docking it.

If you can't mount it from dock, the drive may be toast. And if it is, possibilities of retrieving the data depends on tons of variables.

[stuckathuntermtn]

So what you're saying is.......try turning it off and on again?

Brilliant!
(But seriously, that solves 99% of problems)

Sent from my DROID2 using TGR Forums

[systemoverblow'd]

No, not even close. I said boot the computer with the drive plugged in and turned on. I said IF I just unmount the drive an turn it off. Then back on it WON'T mount on y machine.

[ACH]

So what you're saying is.......try turning it off and on again?

Brilliant!
(But seriously, that solves 99% of problems)

Sent from my DROID2 using TGR Forums

Some times strangely true with computers.

On older macs in the past, some times the system bus wouldn't mount the drive to the desk top.
Shutting down with the drive still attached and rebooting would some times take care of the problem, you could also use a disc utility (forget the name) to mount the drive to the desktop. This seems to be a thing of the past though.

Check the cheapest/simplest things first, cords and connections.
After that, as suggested earlier, a call to OWC wouldn't hurt even if the drive is several years old.
I have a lot of their gear, most of the time it's surprisingly robust.

[stuckathuntermtn]

bus. That was the word I was looking for.
The bus goes back in external drives sometimes.

[GBB]

Thanks for the input guys. I'll post an update after I have gone through the requisite steps.