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Ext. Hard Drive pwning every OS
Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:46 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
I have a 250GB MiniMate attached to my Mac Mini, but I can't seem to copy anything to it. I got it yesterday, and while the manual said it was formatted as FAT32 from the factory, it was completely un-initialized when I plugged it into the machine, so I formatted as HFS+(Journaled) with the APM partition table. It worked, and I began to copy my files from my 80GB OneTouch to it. The files will get to various points, be it 105MB copied or 2GB, and then stop. The finder progress window just sits there, Finder still functions along with everything else, but I'm unable to stop the transfer, logout/restart, or quit finder. I can force kill Finder via Activiy Monitor, but then I can't open it back, I can't logout or restart the machine once this occurs, but other apps open fine and function flawlessly. If I turn the drive off, the machine instantly returns to working order. I tried connecting it to a WIndows XP box, and formatted it there. Tried to copy a file to it from the XP box, but it killed Explorer and nearly every other running process. Scandisk says its fine, OS X's Disk Utility says its fine, Linux seems to say its fine, but obvioiusly its not. ANy ideas?
Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 7:51 pm
by Foo
Sounds fucked. My MP3 Player drive caused similar problems. I fixed it with a format, though. Looks like you're not similarly lucky.
Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 7:58 pm
by Underpants?
The only one I would trust and believe is linux. did you run badblocks as well as fsck?
Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:17 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
fsck won't do anything since its a file system checker, and I can't even format it to do anything because it locks up my Ubuntu system and Gnome Partition editor. I'm going to run DBAN on it right now to see if I can zero fill it and see what I get.
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 1:30 am
by YourGrandpa
EDit: Have you tried a new cable?
IF so, then...
I say take it back and get a new one.
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 1:44 am
by 4g3nt_Smith
Tried another USB cable from another ext. HD I know works and got the same thing; crapped out at 1.05 gigs of 11.7 gigs.
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 6:41 am
by AmIdYfReAk
Another kind of Crack Pot thing, But i have had a Very simular thing happen, and i found that swapping the HDD from DMA to PIO ( i dont know how to do this in mac OS ) Got the Job done, However slow, it worked
it might be something to read into though, Esp if you need to get that data..
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:16 am
by SOAPboy
i have no solution for you since what fixed this for me worked.
But, i had this actually happen on 2 IDE drives. Formatting both low level fixed it.
If i had to take a wild guess, id say its your USB freaking the fuck out and corrupting shit on the drive. But, again you tried it on another box so id assume its not that either.
Sounds like a bad drive dude. Really.
riddla wrote:the logic board in the device has corrupted firmware.
And again, agreeing with riddla kills me. but hes prolly right here
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:43 am
by dzjepp
Return it and get a new one?
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:04 am
by 4g3nt_Smith
Thats my next step for today.
Re: Ext. Hard Drive pwning every OS
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 3:51 pm
by Underpants?
4g3nt_Smith wrote:... so I formatted as HFS+(Journaled) with the APM partition table. It worked....
Linux seems to say its fine, but obvioiusly its not. ANy ideas?
4g3nt_Smith wrote:fsck won't do anything since its a file system checker, and I can't even format it to do anything because it locks up my Ubuntu system and Gnome Partition editor. I'm going to run DBAN on it right now to see if I can zero fill it and see what I get."
I don't want you to get discouraged but maybe this external hard drive thing just isn't for retards.
Re: Ext. Hard Drive pwning every OS
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 6:21 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
Underpants? wrote:4g3nt_Smith wrote:... so I formatted as HFS+(Journaled) with the APM partition table. It worked....
Linux seems to say its fine, but obvioiusly its not. ANy ideas?
4g3nt_Smith wrote:fsck won't do anything since its a file system checker, and I can't even format it to do anything because it locks up my Ubuntu system and Gnome Partition editor. I'm going to run DBAN on it right now to see if I can zero fill it and see what I get."
I don't want you to get discouraged but maybe this external hard drive thing just isn't for retards.
*NIX won't do anything to an HFS+ partition, and I can't try to reformat it, as the Gnome Partition Editor commits application suicide along with the whole OS until I power off the drive.
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:09 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
So, I called, they made me format it again via the install disc for OS X, and lo ahd behold its working perfectly.

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:13 pm
by Foo
Next time don't throw some random faggy formatting on it, or I cut you.
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:14 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
Foo wrote:Next time don't throw some random faggy formatting on it, or I cut you.
If by random you mean the default OS X file system...
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:20 pm
by Foo
Sounds like a load of shite.
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:24 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
Foo wrote:Sounds like a load of shite.
Almost as shite as ext3 and reisferfs
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:30 pm
by Foo
I'ma go get my nine...
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:03 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
That lasted all of a week. Now its doing the same thing, only it breaks at 2 megs instead of 1 gig.
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 10:48 pm
by Foo
I'm thinking trip to the store & swap it?
I'm not familiar with the hardware in the prebuilt external drive units, but I would take a guess that the controller chip onboard the drive itself is taking a huge dump due to some bad memory in the drive's cache.
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 11:20 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
Bought it online, and the last time I tried to get an RMA, they had me format it and said since it formatted I was ok, then hung up. I may have gotten it to work, though I'm not really sure how.