Question

Mac User - Lacie 250gb External Harddrive that won't mount on MacbookPro, Leopard OS

Asked by: Sugoi20

My internal harddrive recently died on my first generation Macbook Pro laptop running Tiger (no 800 firewire).  Before the harddrive failed, I backed up my computer onto an Lacie 250gb external drive.  While my Macbook Pro was being fixed, I used the Lacie drive on my Mac Pro desktop running Leopard with no problem.  

When my Macbook Pro was returned with a new harddrive and my Tiger OS reinstalled, I decided to upgrade to Leopard.  I completed the upgrade and connected my Lacie drive to restore my data, but it wouldn't mount.  It is not visible in disk utility, but under system profiler, firewire, it says "unknown device."  

I have multiple Lacie external harddrives and I've changed the power cords and firewire cable and even tried the USB cable.  The drive no longer mounts on my Mac Pro desktop and I'm at my wits end.  

I've been quoted $150/hr by Techroom to retrieve data from my hardrive and they think it will take about 2 hours.  Is there a solution less than $300?  I just spent nearly $500 replacing my dead harddrive (applecare had expired) and upgrading to leopard...

Please note I've also tried the "free trial" software on the web for mac data recovery, but they have all been useless because they don't recognize the drive in order to do a proper scan to retrieve the data...

Please help!

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Asked On
2009-03-14 at 15:18:02ID24230884
Tags

Lacie

,

Macbook Pro

,

Leopard OS

,

mount

,

external harddrive

,

system profiler "unknown device"

Topics

Microsoft Hardware

,

Apple Laptop

,

Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard)

Participating Experts
3
Points
0
Comments
14

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Answers

 

by: jhyieslaPosted on 2009-03-14 at 16:27:26ID: 23889070

Have you checked the LaCie site concerning this drive to see if there is some firmware upgrade or upgrade to any laCie disk manager that you might have?  I realize that you had it working once on your Leopard desktop so this probably doesn't make any sense.... I know it doesn't to me... but I have a My book studio from WD and before it would work on leopard I had to upgrade the firmware and the disk management software.

 

by: Sugoi20Posted on 2009-03-14 at 17:17:48ID: 23889236

I tried to using the "Lacie Update Tool" on my MacbookPro and the update tool gave me a message that read:  The update tool did "detect a device that appears to require complete reprogramming of internal firmware.  If you have a drive connected that is NOT responding or detected by the system then you should continue with this update..."

After I pressed "continue" the firmware update ran for a few seconds and then I received an error that said "sorry, failed to update the firmware!"  

 

by: jhyieslaPosted on 2009-03-14 at 18:27:11ID: 23889406

Do you have another Mac available to you with the older version of OS X? The catch-22 in my case was that I needed to update the firmware for the My Book to be recognized by Leopard but I couldn't do it with Leopard and that's pretty much all I had available to me.  Had to find a Mac with Tiger so that I could run he firmware update so that I could then get Leopard to recognize the drive.

 

by: Sugoi20Posted on 2009-03-14 at 20:35:59ID: 23889669

I have no access to a Tiger Mac (new in town and only Tiger Mac is overseas until the end of the month), but can't I configure my macbookpro to also boot to Tiger?  I think I have the original Tiger install/restore disc in storage and I can retrieve tomorrow.  Just need help "creating a second partition" to install Tiger...

 

by: strungPosted on 2009-03-15 at 06:47:41ID: 23891327

If your LaCie is a simple external USB/FIrewire drive, switching to Tiger will make no differnence. There is something wrong with the drive or the LaCie case. You say you have other externals.

Have you tried using Disk Utility to repair the drive? Launch Disk Utility and see if it recognizes the drive. If it does, run Repair Volume.

You say you have other externals. If Disk Utility doesn't recognize the drive, try swapping the drive from the LaCie into one of your other cases. If it then works, you know the LaCie case is bad. If it doesn't work, then the drive is bad.

 

by: Sugoi20Posted on 2009-03-16 at 07:48:38ID: 23898325

I reinstalled my original Tiger disks and tried to run the Lacie firmware update, but kept getting a "sorry, failed to update firmware" message.  I have other lacie externals, but they all have data on them and I'm afraid to swap casings with this troubled drive.  When I use the USB cable under system preferences it recognizes that it is a Lacie Hard Drive so that seems to be progress from the "unknown device" message I was getting when the FW 400 was connected.  Thru a google search I saw the tip to download the XCode developer tools for Tiger and to try to use their USB probe to get the computer to recognize...   Still does not show up in Disk Utility.

If this xcode developer thing doesn't work, then I'll take the drive in to Techroom to spend the money for them to retrieve the data...

 

by: jhyieslaPosted on 2009-03-16 at 07:59:25ID: 23898430

Did you try and run the firmware update while connected by USB?

 

by: Sugoi20Posted on 2009-03-16 at 08:50:29ID: 23899105

When I run the tool is says that it detects a USB drive, but that the drive "does not need updating" and it doesn't allow me to override that...

 

by: jhyieslaPosted on 2009-03-16 at 09:21:52ID: 23899456

That would tend to say that its firmware is up to date... but since Disk Utility doesn't see it when using the USB cable.. not sure that's valid.

If you have a PC available, you might try connecting it to hat and download the trial version of MacDrive.  That allows Mac disks to be read on a PC... You do need Vista or XP.  This might also work if you're running Parallels or Vmware Fusion.

 

by: strungPosted on 2009-03-16 at 09:44:16ID: 23899691

You are not by any chance running VMWare or Parralels? If so, try shutting VMWare or Parallels down and see if that solves the problem. If you have a virtual copy of Windows running, it may take over the USB port and your drive will appear only in Windows, not in the Mac.

 

by: Sugoi20Posted on 2009-03-16 at 14:26:17ID: 23902649

Not running VMWare or Parallels.  No access to a PC so I took the drive in to Techroom for them to take it apart and determine whether data recovery was necessary.  I'm crossing my fingers that isn't necessary b/c it is a min charge of $300.  Will purchase a new hard drive to house that data, probably and OWC mercury elite drive

 

by: bthomasianPosted on 2009-03-21 at 01:06:35ID: 23946328

You can try to use the Tiger OS bootable DVD's to boot the Mac off of and then  using Disk Utility within the installer menu (before you get to the screen to wipe and reinstall) create a partition big enough on the new drive to copy the files over and then boot back to the Leopard system.  Worth a shot.

 

by: Sugoi20Posted on 2009-03-22 at 05:40:32ID: 23951304

Reinstalling Tiger and trying to install firmware updated didn't work and DU didn't recognize the drive, but it still shows as an "unknown device" in system profiler.  I took the drive with me to Tekserve in NY and initiated data recovery and hope to have most of my data back soon.  Thanks for the suggestions.

 

by: bthomasianPosted on 2009-03-23 at 16:20:29ID: 23963258

Sorry we couldn't solve it, I have had a lot of great experience in the past with LaCie drive too!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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