western digtal external hard drive not recognized

C

clairethomas

Registered
Hi all,
I got a used powerbook g4 aluminum recently and want to connect my werstern digital 80gb hard drive via usb. When I do it doesn't recognize it. Doesn't show up on desktop. The usb port seems to be working as I can use my mouse with it ok. Any thoughts on why this could be happening? The drive works fine on my g4 tower and another powerbook (titanium).
 
Is it a bus-powered hard drive? If so, some USB ports don't provide enough power to fully power the drive -- the drive may spin up and appear to be "on," but the drive is unusable or doesn't appear to the computer at all.

You can try a special Y-shaped USB cord that connects from the drive to two USB ports on your computer to provide extra power, or, if your drive also came with a power adaptor, try it with that.
 
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