# MEDION HDDrive2go



## kabeach2001 (Nov 24, 2005)

My Maxtor external hard drive went belly-up so I'm going to take it to a data recovery company to rescue what I can. As it's about 125Gb of data I've bought a new external HD to load the old stuff onto.

MEDION HDDrive2go
Front of box says connect to any computer with USB interface - side of box says Windows only. Decided to take the gamble as it was only £100 ($170) for a 250GB HD.

IT WON'T MOUNT. Appears in Apple System Profile devices connected via USB (no firewire connection on Medion). But can't get at it to format it or anything.

Have I wasted my money?

Keith Beach

PS you guys were very helpful when I bought a Medion tablet. SOLUTIONS'R'US!


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 24, 2005)

Have you tried using Disk Utility to format the drive?


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## kabeach2001 (Nov 25, 2005)

Thanks for responding

Yep, tried Disc Utility but it doesn't have any apparent effect. I've attached PDFs to show situation. The Medion HDDrive2go is greyed out ???

I suppose I could always try to sell it on Ebay. But if this can get sorted out it's a cheaper storage solution for everyone.

kabeach2001@gmail.com


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 25, 2005)

Can you provide a screenshot of the "Partition" tab when you've got the "232.89 GB WDC" device selected as in your "information.pdf" screenshot?

You should be able to select a partition scheme then and re-partition the drive.


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## kabeach2001 (Nov 27, 2005)

PDF included
It never even ocurred to me to partition...I won't try it until you respond to this. 
Would it be a good idea to partition (2, 3, 4?) anyway. Might it be easier to rescue data some time in the future???

kabeach2001

I feel the urge to fly over and hug some anonymous Texan!


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 27, 2005)

Yes, it looks like, from that screenshot, all you gotta do is click the "Partition" button down there at the bottom.

You can create multiple partitions if you like, or if you have the need for it.  Otherwise, I'd leave it as one, big partition.


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## kabeach2001 (Nov 28, 2005)

Well, this is going well...not

Tried partitioning, but nothing happens (I gave it an hour), tried different quantities of partition, tried erasing but nothing. Enclose the screenshot of nothing happening. 

Jeff...you are allowed to give up on this.

kabeach2001


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 28, 2005)

Very strange... it sounds like it may just be an incompatibility between the drive and Mac OS X or your machine, but I see no reason for this incompatibility.  Drives are drives, and enclosures are enclosures.

One question: does the literature that came with the drive specify the "bridge" used in the enclosure?  "Oxford 911" bridges typically have excellent compatibility with Mac OS X -- if the bridge is something other than an Oxford, that may be the cause of the problems (although I still don't see why it's not working)...

We're not gonna give up on you -- if you stump me to the point where I can't help anymore, there are many other knowledgable members here who will be happy to pick up where I left off!


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## kabeach2001 (Dec 1, 2005)

I've asked the question and they're coming back to me after calling the original manufacturers (this is obviously only branded by Medion).

Thanks again for sticking with this. Every day I'm trying to erase or partition just in case it suddenly works!

Keith


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## Shark (Dec 2, 2005)

I just bought the same harddrive, I am running Tiger.

The drive mounts after a few seconds as external USB drive. Disk Utility allows to re-format in MS-DOS. Partition scheme can also be switched to Apple, afterwards the drive can be formatted HFS, HFS+ or UNIX. I did reformatting to HFS+, it took about 15 seconds.

No problems putting ICONs on the drive or storing and reading data. As a test I put on 20.000 files consuming 30 GB.

Disk Utility, TechTool and Disk Warrior report no problems with the drive.

What is strange is that neither TechTool nor Disk Warrior can write an optimized replacement directory.

Any comments ?

Shark


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## kabeach2001 (Dec 2, 2005)

Shark, you're going to have to talk me through that...

Previously when I try to partition I get this dialogue box ('setting up' PDF) and nothing happens at all.

When I try what you've suggested I get this dialogue box ('NOT setting up' PDF) and again nothing seems to happen....for hours.

Could a solution be to let someone with a 'PC' erase it so I can start from fresh (I think I just showed how little I know about computers there!).

Looks like someone's getting a hard disk for Xmas from me.

Keith

Still waiting for Medion to come back to me.


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## Shark (Dec 3, 2005)

Keith,

I use mine on two Macs with 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 (I regret this update to 10.4.3 though) installed. To me it looks like you are on 10.3.X, there may be differences in support for external devices between Panther and Tiger.

I would expect that if you are admin and if you see the drive, nothing should be greyed out. You should be able to re-format the drive.

Nevertheless, make sure that if you look at USB status in the system profiler, the drive appears as "MEDION HDDrive2go".

The Tiger Disk Util shows the drive as in my attached GIF.

Unfortunately, as I said in my last post, not even Tiger seems to fully support this drive.

I do not think that you need to reformat using a PC, but you may need to upgrade to Tiger.

Shark


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## kabeach2001 (Dec 22, 2005)

Sorry folks....I had to drop all of this to deal with family problems. 

If anyone is still monitoring this

Got back yesterday and Medion had left me a message saying they could only find out that it was a "USB bridge" and the original manufacturers were Western Digital. I've done a quick google but can't see anything helpful yet about solving my problem (I'll keep trying).

I've ordered DiskWarrior hoping it might help retrieve stuff off my old Maxtor (data retrieval companies extortionate!).

*I forgot to mention* When I've previously tried to format via Disk Utility and nothing seems to happen I have to force quit to get out of Disk Utility.
Is it possibly a USB 1 vs USB 2 thing? My old flat screen iMac is obviously USB 1. The old Maxtor worked fine with firewire so can I get a hub to connect a USB 2 to a firewire port?

Thanks

Keith

Mac OS 10.2.8 - iMac 700MHz G4, 640 Mb memory, L2 cache 256k, bus speed 100MHz


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## kabeach2001 (May 1, 2006)

Just in case anyone ever follows up this old thread. About a week back I picked up the Medion HDDrive2go from the shelf where I'd stashed it in disgust...plugged it in and VOILA! instantly recognised and mounted. Lord knows why it didn't wanna do it before, but I now have 2 back-up drives working.

Thanks to all you gentlemen who responded previously.

kabeach2001


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