Can't mount PC format firewire drive

L

laird

Registered
I have an 80 GB Maxtor external firewire drive that I use as a convenient way to store lots of photo's that I capture and edit on my Mac and record on a CD on a PC. In order to access the drive from both machines, I left the drive formatted for the PC, which mounts on the Mac through the magic of File Exchange.

I upgraded to Mac OS X today, and File Exchange appears to be gone. When I connect the drive, the OS says that it can't recognize the contents of the disk, and helpfully offers to format the disk.

Does anyone have any helpful suggestions? If I reformat as HFP+ I am sure that the PC won't be able to access it. Does anyone know about UFS? Either way, I'll have to figure out how to back up the contents of the disk to convert it.

I can't imagine that File Exchange is completely gone -- it's far too useful to slip through the cracks. Is there some other tool in MacOS X that does the same thing, and is there a way to get it to handle the firewire drive properly?
 
Well, I think that file exchange is actually just more integrated. It probably isn't really called that anymore, too.

If you can figure out what device the firewire drive is (/dev/firewire?), then just make a directory (mkdir directory) and type (in the console or a terminal window):

mount /dev/whatever /mydirectory -t vtfat

if perhaps the windows file system isn't working, try this:

mount /dev/whatever /mydirectory -y msdos

Figuring out what device is correct will be the hard part.
Go to a terminal, and type cd /dev (enter) and then ls (enter) if you see a device with 'fire' in its name, thats probably it. I hope this helps, and let me know if it does or doesn't.
 
Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

I'm amused at myself -- you gave a perfectly reasonable UNIX response, and I've been working on UNIX machines for decades, and it didn't even occur to me to look in /dev because I was "thinking like a Mac" instead of "thinking UNIX." heh. Time to "think different!"
 
I have installed MacOS X (G4 320MB, two ATA drives, 4 partitions, one SCSI drive, one external Maxtor 80 GB drive).
The Maxtor external FW 80 GB was formatted in the 9.1 environment. A single HFS+ partition was created.
In MacOS X, the drive does not mount. It must be disconnected and then reconnected; at that point the drive must be initialized- but the DriveSetUp fails.
It also believes that it is a 2.5 Terabyte disk!
Any help in getting MacOS X to recognize this disk?

Originally posted by laird
I have an 80 GB Maxtor external firewire drive ...
I upgraded to Mac OS X today, and File Exchange appears to be gone. When I connect the drive, the OS says that it can't recognize the contents of the disk, and helpfully offers to format the disk.
Click to expand...
 
Hi-
I have the same drive: 80 GB Maxtor, but I formatted it in OS9.1 (after installing the Maxtor drive utilities- it was not supported before that). I made it a single HFS+ partition.
OS X doesn't mount/see the firewire device. If I unplug it, and replug it then OSX offers to initialize the 2.5 TB disk! Something wrong there. I used Drive Setup to partition it into 4 20 Gb partitions, but the utility hangs and I have to kill the process.
If I try to mount the device:
mount /dev/disk3
it claims that thefile system is unknown. Any ideas?
cheers


Originally posted by kilowatt
If you can figure out what device the firewire drive is (/dev/firewire?), then just make a directory (mkdir directory) and type (in the console or a terminal window):

mount /dev/whatever /mydirectory -t vtfat
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top