External HD Problems

[Not Julias Brother]

I have an older iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 gig of DDR3 running on OS X 10.9.5. It has a 500 GB hard drive with 252 GB available

I am trying to set up an external HD as a back up.

I have tried a Maxone 2.5” 500 GB Super Speed USB3.0 external HD, which loads just fine on two other Macs I have, but won’t load on this one. When I run disk utility, the external HD is not found. No trace of it.

I thought maybe the problem might be that there was not enough power in my USB system so next I tried an HP Personal Media External HD. It has it’s own power cable. It loads just fine on my two other Macs, but once again, on the computer in question, it will not load. When I run disk utility, there is no trace of it.

I do have NTSF 3G on the computer and I have set Finder to find all hard drives.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[MacsBug]

Can you see any flash drives that are plugged into the USB ports? If you can then it may be that the drives are not backwards compaitble with USB 2.0 which is in the Late 2009 iMacs.

The 1st thing that I would recommend is that you zap the PRAM to see if that resolves the issue.

You do this by making sure that the iMac is off. Then hit the power button on the back and then immediately hold down the fllowing 4 keys: Command Option P R Keep holding these down until you hear the 3rd startup chime and then let go.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

Hi
Thanks for the ideas.
I have usb2 midi interface that works fine.
I have read that usb 3 devices are supposed to be backwards compatible.
I tried the PRAM but only ever got two chimes. After that I plugged in the hard drive and still no trace of it.
I tried booting in Safe mode and there was no trace of the external drive there either.
I am perplexed

 

[MacsBug]

Several things to check while the drive is plugged into your iMac.

In Disk Utility under the View menu do you have Show all Devices checked? Once checked do you see the drive?

Next thing is to hold down the Option Key and click on the  in the menu bar and select System Information. In the left side select USB, and then on the right check each bus and see if the drive is seen.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

Hi
Thanks for the suggestions. I am including a screen shot.
There is no View menu under Disk Utility. Also, I have no idea how to interpret USB bus info.
Still stuck.

 

[MacsBug]

From the screenshots you are showing the drive is not seen at all by the iMac. It may be a power issue, but I am stumped on this.

Perhaps one of the other members has a suggestion.

 

[Not Julias Brother]

From the screenshots you are showing the drive is not seen at all by the iMac. It may be a power issue, but I am stumped on this.

Perhaps one of the other members has a suggestion.

Hi thanks for the attempt.
The drive I am trying to use is an HP Personal Media drive which has its own AC adapter.
I don’t know if this can be at all related but if I try to Air drop from this computer, it does not see anybody even though I am there with my iPhone open.
Ach!

 

[Not Julias Brother]

So it turns out it was a cable issue. I replaced the power cable and success.

 

[MacsBug]

Awesome.