# external hard drive not viewing in os 9.2



## traciedavey (Mar 12, 2011)

i've bought a western digital external Hard drive, formatted it on a mac running osx using the mac os extended journaled option. Reads fine on that machine but when I plug it into my old mac it does not even mount on the desktop. Any ideas please?


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Mar 12, 2011)

Mac OS 9 drives require Mac OS 9 drivers -- and in more recent versions of OS X, you cannot install these drivers on the disk when formatting anymore.

Best bet is to format the drive on the OS 9 machine so you can use it on both OS 9 and OS X.


----------



## traciedavey (Mar 12, 2011)

thanks, I can't even get it view for me to format it on old mac though???


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Mar 12, 2011)

Try repartitioning the drive on Mac OS X to "APM" or "Apple Partition Map" format, then format the drive as Mac OS Extended (not the journaled option), then try it again on OS 9.

You should be able to see it on OS 9 with the "Drive Setup" program, which is either in the Applications folder or Utilities folder.


----------



## DeltaMac (Mar 12, 2011)

Is that external hard drive USB? or Firewire?


----------



## traciedavey (Mar 12, 2011)

its a usb, i've reformatted including the os9 drivers, when i plug it on mac running os9, it won't see it even through drive setup.

Very confused :-(


----------



## DeltaMac (Mar 12, 2011)

Connect that external to your old Mac, then restart.
Can you see that drive in your Apple System Profiler?
That will be in your Apple menu.

What is the capacity of that external?
A really large volume (more than about 190 GB, I think) will not boot an OS 9 system, and may not even be recognized, because the OS 9 system will not provide addressing for a volume larger than that....
That addressing issue for OS 9 may be your solution, which will be to partition your drive so you have a volume for use by OS 9 smaller than 190 GB.
Don't get confused about the OS 9 driver issue mentioned by ElDiabloConCaca. That's only needed if you will be booting that drive to OS 9, so using the drive for file storage will work, even without the OS 9 drivers installed. The volume just has to be smaller than 190 GB.


----------



## traciedavey (Mar 14, 2011)

thanks, i've tried partitioning got 2 of 149gb recognises as partitioned on osx but still won't load on os9. Really don't know what i've done wrong, any ideas...i'm really really stuck


----------

