Mac mini cannot see sata drive

February 9, 2008 6:22 PM

Liquid was spilled into and fried my MacBook Pro. The local Apple fix-it shop removed my HD for me and put it into an external case. The Mac mini I have access to does not see the drive.

This was a 2.5 SATA drive which was put into a case with 3 connections on the back: usb to usb, power to usb, and sata. When I couldn't get it to mount (there is no error message, it does not even show up when I look at About This Mac.. More Info under USB) I went back to the fix-it guy.

He plugged it into his iMac, it showed up and I saw all of my files. He plugged both usb cables (the usb to usb and power to usb) into his Mac. I've tried that, to no avail. The mini is a G4. I tried a G5 PowerMac in my office and it didn't work. Both machines are running Leopard.

I'll be buying a new MBP, but with the rumors of a refreshed line this Tuesday, I'm waiting. But I'd like to get to my data. Should this drive be mountable on the mini? Or the G5? The fix-it guy was stumped and so am I.

posted by jdl to Technology (7 answers total)

I work in IT, and I can't rightly say. That's odd, for sure.

The only thing I can say is that in my experience, mass storage devices connected via USB can sometimes be unreliable. We use USB to IDE/SATA adapters to connect laptop and desktop drives externally for data recovery purposes, and while everything usually works out, there will be a disk from time to time that just doesn't want to work - known good disks. I attribute this to a number of factors - mainly the quality of the adapters and particular quirks that may exist in the particular brand/specification of the USB controller used on the host device.

I wish I could give you a better answer than that, but that's all I have for you - just one little data point.

I know it's not an answer, but you could have the tech burn your files off to DVD, since he can seem to mount the drive in question.
posted by kbanas at 7:15 PM on February 9, 2008

If it doesn't even show up on the USB bus, I might think that it isn't getting enough power from your Mac Mini. Some of the 2.5" SATA drives have that problem when placed in enclosures. I might try and put it in an enclosure with a separate power supply and see if that helps. But definitely bring it and the Mac Mini to the fix-it shop, and get what you need for the time being.
posted by procrastination at 7:19 PM on February 9, 2008

Yeah, that's definitely a good idea.

The adapters we've used in the past have always powered laptop drives over the bus, without external power, but it's really likely that in this case, as procrastination astutely pointed out, for some odd reason, the drive isn't getting enough power.

If you take the lid off the enclosure and put your ear next to the drive, do you hear it spin up or spin down?
posted by kbanas at 7:31 PM on February 9, 2008

What version of the OS was your macbook pro running? Have you tried looking for the drive with the disc utility? The only other suggestion I can think of is to get an external enclosure with an eSata port - I was going to suggest Firewire, but on newegg I don't see any 2.5" enclosures with firewire. In theory I think you could daisy chain the eSata port to an external drive with eSata and Firewire/USB (like a 1TB Western Digital My Book from Costco).
posted by thomas144 at 7:33 PM on February 9, 2008

Response by poster: I believe my MacBook Pro was running the same version as the mini. I just plugged it in and could maybe hear some clicking (yeah, I know clicking is bad... so perhaps that's another issue, but I did see it mount on his machine and I saw my files), but it was very faint. The light comes on on the case, but again -- nothing under USB and nothing under Disk Utility.

Thanks so much for these suggestions. I didn't think about trying to daisy chain this. It does have an eSata port. I said Sata before, but eSata is what it says on the case.
posted by jdl at 7:44 PM on February 9, 2008

I think it's a power issue as well. Unfortunately, USB is a bit marginal when it comes to hard drives, which is why they often ship with a cable that plugs into two ports. And, anecdotally, I just hooked up an external USB drive to my PowerBook the other day, initially with just one of the USBs connected to the computer. The green light on the drive came on but it did not show up on the desktop until I connected the second (power) USB.

If you've got (access to) a powered USB hub try that. Prob a case where the tech's computer had enough juice on the USB but your computers don't.
posted by 6550 at 9:23 PM on February 9, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks to all of you, I now have access to my hard drive. You were all right--it was a power issue. I bought a high speed USB 2.0 hub with its own power supply, held my breath, and plugged in the drive's 2 USB cables. And it mounted on the mini's desktop!

Thanks again. I now have all of my photos, music, etc. etc. back.
posted by jdl at 7:44 AM on February 11, 2008