I am having problems with USB Pen Drives on my PB (G4 1.67 15" 512MB OS 10.4). I bought two unbranded 1GB USB2 drives to go with an older Kingston 128MB USB1 drive.
I used the 1GB drives on holiday to back up pics from the PB for a week without incident. One evening one of the drives stalled while copying a large number of files and sat with the activity wheel spinning effectively monopolising the PB. It claimed it was trying to empty the Trash (which was empty). This happened every time I mounted the drive. Later that evening the other drive suddenly refused to mount, just nothing happened om screen. I gave them up as a bad job and contacted the dealer.
The dealer replaced the drives with a slightly different model, again unbranded and bearing the reference SV-U89. These appeared to work satisfactorily when tried on the PB but were not used extensively with it. However they were used to transfer large numbers of files between two G4s (OS9, using keyboard ports) on several occasions without incident.
Yesterday I wanted to put some files on the PB (500 items, 10.5MB). When dragging the folder containing the files over it became obvious that nothing was happening, although the activity wheel was spinning continuously. I shut down and remounted the drive which was not recognised but was offered the option of initialising which I refused. I put the drive on a G4 (9.2.2) and got the message that it needed more power than was available at the keyboard. Under the circumstances I deemed it wise not to use one of the G4's ports.
I went back to the PB to try to initialise the drive. Disk Utility saw the drive but options to initialise, verify etc were greyed out. DU reported the drive as 2.0TB SKYMEDI USB Drive and said SMART status was not supported.
I then tried this drive in the other G4 (keyboard 9.2.1). It mounted normally, I was able to copy the files which caused the problem on the PB without incident, and it ejected immediately.
I put it back in the PB where it failed to mount in either port (not even a 'not recognised' alert).
Back to the G4 where it became obvious that something was amiss as some folders on the pen drive were missing and opening one folder in Finder (as list) just led to many repeats of the same folder name tabbed across the window. Ejecting took a long time.
Camera works fine on PB USB. Kingston drive has not presented problems but has not been used much on the PB.
There seem to be directory and other issues and the problem seems to be associated with the PB/OSX.
I can't see that these points have any relevance but the PB has been on mains when this happened and Classic was (I think) running each time.
Thoughts and suggestions welcomed.
Thanks,
Michael
I used the 1GB drives on holiday to back up pics from the PB for a week without incident. One evening one of the drives stalled while copying a large number of files and sat with the activity wheel spinning effectively monopolising the PB. It claimed it was trying to empty the Trash (which was empty). This happened every time I mounted the drive. Later that evening the other drive suddenly refused to mount, just nothing happened om screen. I gave them up as a bad job and contacted the dealer.
The dealer replaced the drives with a slightly different model, again unbranded and bearing the reference SV-U89. These appeared to work satisfactorily when tried on the PB but were not used extensively with it. However they were used to transfer large numbers of files between two G4s (OS9, using keyboard ports) on several occasions without incident.
Yesterday I wanted to put some files on the PB (500 items, 10.5MB). When dragging the folder containing the files over it became obvious that nothing was happening, although the activity wheel was spinning continuously. I shut down and remounted the drive which was not recognised but was offered the option of initialising which I refused. I put the drive on a G4 (9.2.2) and got the message that it needed more power than was available at the keyboard. Under the circumstances I deemed it wise not to use one of the G4's ports.
I went back to the PB to try to initialise the drive. Disk Utility saw the drive but options to initialise, verify etc were greyed out. DU reported the drive as 2.0TB SKYMEDI USB Drive and said SMART status was not supported.
I then tried this drive in the other G4 (keyboard 9.2.1). It mounted normally, I was able to copy the files which caused the problem on the PB without incident, and it ejected immediately.
I put it back in the PB where it failed to mount in either port (not even a 'not recognised' alert).
Back to the G4 where it became obvious that something was amiss as some folders on the pen drive were missing and opening one folder in Finder (as list) just led to many repeats of the same folder name tabbed across the window. Ejecting took a long time.
Camera works fine on PB USB. Kingston drive has not presented problems but has not been used much on the PB.
There seem to be directory and other issues and the problem seems to be associated with the PB/OSX.
I can't see that these points have any relevance but the PB has been on mains when this happened and Classic was (I think) running each time.
Thoughts and suggestions welcomed.
Thanks,
Michael