External hard drive mounts and unmounts automatically!

tokey666

Registered
Hello all, I have just purchased a Western Digital 250 gig external USB/Firewire hard drive for backup at the office.

Well, my computer, running OSX 10.3.9, keeps mounting and unmounting the device, no matter if it is hooked up to USB or Firewire. The USB, it happens every 20 seconds, the firewire, every two minutes.

Now, I have tried it on other computers, OSX 10.3.9 and it worked PERFECTLY. Stays mounted.

So any ideas what is causing this and what I need to do?
 
Uh, I'm not exactly an Uber Mac whiz, but have you tried it on any other 10.2.8 computers and still had the same problem? I have 10.4 installed on my computer, and when I ejected the harddrive under OS9 it would refuse to mount in OSX. So I got the 10.4.7 update and all fixed.
 
You'll never believe this, but its working!

Why? I plugged it into the keyboard USB!!!!!!! Now what the crap is that about? lol

Anyway, thanks for the help!
 
Wow, that's the strangest thing I've ever heard, plugging an External HDD into a keyboard never worked for me. Anyway, your welcome and I hope it keeps working.
 
Alexander Smith,

It's USB 2.0 which is different than regular USB and started in the year 2000 with peripherals appearing in mid 2003. A number of external CD and DVD recordable drives support USB 2.0. Most of the major hard drive suppliers now sell external drives supporting either FireWire or USB 2.0 - or both.

"USB 2.0 can transfer data between the computer and peripherals 40 times faster than original USB. Hi-Speed USB technology offers transfer rates up to 480Mbps (megabits per second) compared to USB 1.1 devices, which transfer at speeds of 12Mbps. For example, it would take 1.1 minutes to download a 100 MB file with USB 1.1 devices in a sustained, optimal condition, while with USB 2.0 it only takes 1.6 seconds to transfer the same file."

For more info look here:
http://www.usb-2-0.com/what-is-usb-2-0.html
 
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