USB drive failures in Leopard
 

Is anyone else having trouble with their system recognizing and mounting USB drives since upgrading to Leopard?

I'm running newer Mac Pro with 10.5.1 and cannot seem to get any of the USB ports to recognize either my external hard drive or my 1gb USB flash drive.

It was working for a while and appears to have stopped some time around the Leopard upgrade. I was running Time Machine and I'm thinking that may have somehow been related.

Thanks!

Can you show us what is displayed when you select USB in System Profiler (Hold Option when selecting the Apple menu)?

Hi Las Vegas,

Thanks for the reply.

Here's the USB bus profile:

This is with the USB flash drive plugged into the top USB port on the front panel of the Mac Pro.

What is interesting is that I just tried connecting the USB flash drive to the extra port on the Apple keyboard and it is recognized through the Apple keyboard hub. But is not recognized when going directly in any of the ports on the front or back of the machine.

It's not showing up at all. If you plug in the device after starting System Profile, be sure to select Refresh under the View menu (Command-R). Try different ports including the extra one on the keyboard.

I tried it on all of the ports (hitting refresh each time) and it does not show up at all... with the exception of the extra keyboard port at stated above.

This is the problem. It does not seem to be recognized by the built in USB hub.

When I put the flash drive in a slot the light of the flash drive will flash once and not again. The system/finder never recognizes it or mounts it.

Is anyone else seeing USB drive errors on their Intel Mac running Leopard?

USB CARDS & Leopard
 

I'm having the same problem. When I go to system profiler, it finds the usb drive, but I can't access it. I take the same flash drive to a Tiger Mac -- no problem.

I am using dual, quad core Intel Xeon cpus.

+ + + + +

Profiler data:

Staples Relay:

Version: 0.10
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: SanDisk Corporation
Product ID: 0x5202
Serial Number: 20043512731B64E277B0
Vendor ID: 0x0781

I called AppleCare a couple times with this and other Leopard problems. Like my Logitech mouse will freeze for no reason from time to time, and my Adesso-Mac keyboard will stop working. I have downloaded and installed supposedly Leopard-compatible drivers. Yeah, right. When the keyboard freezes, it's REBOOT time. With the mouse-freeze, I can whip out my Mighty Mouse (which I hate) and squirrel around on the page until the keyboard locks up. When I restart both are working again. The mouse doesn't seem to freeze until AFTER my Mac goes to sleep. Not sure about that, but that's what it appears.

AppleCare,of course, acts like I am the only ones having these particular problems. I am about to revert to my original Tiger OS. Damn, that's why I threw out my PC. I thought Mac wasn't supposed to have these types of problems.

Live and learn. I wish I had never upgraded to Leopard. As a last resort I am going to go to SanDisk to see if they have a magic bullet driver fix.

Good luck to all.

Same problem on a Mac Mini G4
 

I don't think this problem is isolated to Intel Macs. I

I'm trying to trouble-shoot my wife's Mac Mini.. After upgrading to Leopard, her MP3 player stopped being recognized by the computer. Similarly, when you plug in flash memory cards into the Photosmart printer's card slots, iPhoto opens and imports, but does not mount the drive on the desktop or in the Device menu.

Actually, it just acts plain weird. I tried plugging her MP3 player to the keyboard and got the low power alert... no connection. I tried plugging it directly into the Mac Mini (instead of a hub)... No luck, but it gave a device removal error when I unplugged it (even though it never mounted on either the desktop or the Device menu in finder). Just can't get to it .Oh, and the MP3 player gives an endless connecting... message on the MP3 player itself... Just never mounts on the Mac.

As for the memory cards plugged into the printer. They are visible on the desktop, but not the Device menu in finder. It does activate the iPhoto and starts importing. So it sort of 60-70% works (compared to the MP3 which essentially does not work in any usable way).

I'll keep Googling in an effort to find an answer.

Brian

Same symptoms in 10.5.3
 

I'm also having this problem on a bunch of Mac Pros running 10.5.3. Drives show up in the Profiler but nowhere else, and when plugged into the keyboard hub it alerts me that there's not enough power.

Just wanted to bump this trhead back into activity to see if anyone has an answer. Thanks for any extra information.

Same symptoms in 10.5.5
 

I've been running Leopard since February without any problems. Then about a week ago, all of my USB drives stopped functioning in the same manner as described in previous posts in this thread.

Apple Support will only suggest that it is a device problem or a port problem...

The issue is not a port problem (same symptoms on all USB ports, while other USB devices work properly on all USB ports), and is not a device problem (the devices all work properly on other machines). I believe it to be an OS problem.

System Profiler can detect each of the drives on the USB bus properly, but the OS does not mount the devices as external drives accessible to the filesystem.

The only thing I wonder about is why it happened when it happened, after working well for so long. The only thing I can think of is that while I usually dismount my USB drives before shutting down my laptop (2.2GHz dual-core Intel-based MacBook Pro, just 5 months old), there was one day last week when I shut the machine down with a USB drive still attached and mounted. This was about the same time all USB drives stopped working for me.

me too
 

I'm having the same problem.

just git back from six weeks holiday and suddenly it doesn't recognise my creative mp3 player or lacie external hd.

does anyone know how to fix this problem?

Me too
 

Hi...
Yep - I was really panicking about this (still am a bit actually) - all my work is on an external Lacie drive which I now can't access. I upgraded my MacBook (2 GHz Intel Core Duo) about 6 weeks ago, initially the drive didn't work, then it did once, now it doesn't again. It's the same problem with the firewire port (the drive has both options) I think I did 'not dismount' one time too as someone else mentioned here.

Someone please reply with a solution or hint to help!

Thanks...

Hi, I'm having this problem too. I've been on Leopard for over a year now, and this is the first time I am having this problem. My Flash drives on the key board works and transfers files very slow. Was there an upgrade released that created this error? I know my flash drives still work because they work on other computers. Just mine is special...I Have not found a repair just yet, this is the only thread that actually talks about my problem. Please help.

I have also been having this problem. I have no idea why, but all I know is that I need to restart my macbook pro every time I want to connect a USB device. (iPods, printers, cameras etc.). I don't know why this is. My built in i-sight camera also doesn't register, however I am not sure why this is. I think this may be due to the fact that I have had a new screen attached.

i try to connect toshiba 1GB and it finds it in USB Prober but not on desktop or finder

USB drives not appearing in Leopard
 

I was having the same problems as described by previous posts in this thread when I tried using a Tribeca 4 GB USB flash drive on a G5 Mac Pro (OS X 10.5.6). In my case, erasing/reformatting the flash drive using Disk Utility did the trick (I specified MS-DOS (FAT) for the Volume Format in Disk Utility).

According to Get Info, the format of the flash drive both before and after erasing/reformatting it was FAT32 though I chose FAT in Disk Utility so I'm uncertain whether the format is FAT or FAT32. This shouldn't be an issue unless you need to copy files > 2 GB or create volumes > 4 GB on the flash drive (see
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infoce...ilesystems.htm).

I've had this problem as well on multiple types of flash drives. It seems to happen after removing the drive after not properly ejecting it, but restarting the Mac fixes things.

I have also looked at system profiler, and the drive always shows up there.

Another method that seems to work (that I just found) is to run Disk Utility, select the flash drive partition you wish to mount in the left-hand column, then look at the Mount Point in the bottom-left side of the screen. Mine has a hyperlink that you can click, which brings up a finder window with the partition in it. It still doesn't show up under Devices in Finder, but atleast you won't have to reboot. :)

This is definitely a bug in Leopard. I'm running 10.5.6 and the problem has been there since I switched from Tiger. The Disk Utility can see it, Profiler sees it, and running the mount command in a terminal window shows it mounted under /Volumes. For whatever reason, Finder just doesn't see it.

BB

Interestingly, if you use the Disk Manager to get to the flash drive as I mentioned above, you can then drag the flash driver partition under the Devices column and it will work. I can even eject the drive and reattch it, and it now shows up under Devices.

Hope this helps (someone)! :)

BB

And how are you guys ejecting these flash drives in the first place ?
Dragging the drives icon to the trash or select its icon in the Finder and choose Eject from the File menu ?
Why is it a problem? Because the operating system keeps a "cache", an image or copy of a portion of the drive's data in computer memory and writes it to disk (this is called "syncing") every so often, not instantly. Unplug it just before one of these sync events and the data on the drive could theoretically be out of date and incorrect , leading to data corruption and/or loss.
Sometimes a reformat on another Mac running Tiger/Leopard may fix it or even a PC but I bet there are a few here that will fix their problems by ejecting it properly to start with.

Stewie

I just want to point out that this thread Actually has at least Three Different symptoms which probably have very different solutions.

"New" USB failure.
 

After reporting difficulties in recognizing Flash Drives, etc. while using my Mac Pro USB built-in hubs, I have had an additional problem show up. I have been using a Telex USB headset/mic unit for last year or two... first on a prior G4 running Tiger and recently (past 6 mo.) running on this very same Mac Pro, and have not experienced the slightest problem. For the past two days my headset could no longer be acknowledged by the system (Leopard). System Prefs, iChat and Skype prefs no longer acknowledge the presence of my erstwhile, trouble-free headset. I have been running 10.5.6 since it was released.It begins to look like the problem is not peripheral-specific, but a general USB anomaly. So far my USB has turned down a Samsung A7 digicam, a Kingston Flash Drive and a Telex headset. If I reboot the system with the Flash Drive still inserted it gains normal operation until ejected. No fix as yet which will permit recognition for either of the other two items. Comments welcome.

What USB-related messages appear in your logs? You can easily view your logs using the Console app, in /Applications/Utilities.

Does the problem continue from a newly-created user on your computer?

What other USB devices do you have connected? What third party (not included with OS X) USB drivers have you installed?

Trevor

Unpredictable USB connects(Cont'd)
 

There are no new or other users on my machine.
Any USB peripherals I have used have initially worked immediately and without adding any third party drivers. I have been able to, in a rather unpredictable manner, get my Kingston 8GB flash Drive to operate normally in the Mac Pro by merely rebooting, shutting down, detaching the USB connection and rebooting. Voila... the icon appears. This was also true of the Samsung A7 camera. I have not been able to meet any similar success with the Telex Headset; in fact, I now need to convince myself that the headset will operate normally using the previous G4 system(Tiger) and that it hasn't been modified in any way through the MacPro testing and difficulties.
I need to develop some log reports as you suggested(Trevor) as I continue to seek a valid answer to all these worrisome problems. It appears, from not only my own, but the related difficulties of others, that there is a systemic hardware and/or software problem with all the USB hubs in a Mac Pro (dual-quad) when OSX 5.6 is presiding.

For there to be a new user on your machine, you have to create a new user. Please do so, then log out of your existing user and into the new user to make this test.

You seem to be misunderstanding. Please list in detail all other USB devices you have connected to this machine.

Good. Please don't forget to list all of those USB peripherals, no matter how unimportant they seem (like hubs, iPods, or whatever). List everything.

That's not something you need to develop, you just need to look in your Console app, as I mentioned above, and let us know what it says. Please copy/paste anything relevant, and the messages around them.

No.

Trevor

Updated to Leopard and suffered the "slow USB stick" experience - 5 minutes to copy across 580 Kb! Reformatted USB stick in Mac Extended (was in FAT32) -cured. Whether this will help other FAT32 formatted sticks remains to be seen.

Flash Not Recognized
 

I've been using my 2G Kingston( data transfer ) MS-DOS( FAT 16 ) with no problem on all of my Tiger PPC macs. On my 1,1 mac-intel-mini, upgraded to 2.16, 2G RAM 320G HD, and using 10.6.4 and no peripheals plugged in except the keyboard that came with my Emac( PPC ), I can ONLY get mini to recognize --on desktop and sidebar--- the flash drive, if I plug it into the keyboard.....mini will not recognise flash if plugged into any of the mini's four ports...ergo...the problem appears to be with the design of ports being somehow differrent between 1.1 intel mini and PPC....probably will format drive to OX journale etc as suggested, as I rarely need to use a PC with my flash drive.....people who do will not be able to, unless they can figure out this kink in system, cause intel users will be force to use a PPC keyboard only to access the flash...Ebuc

Reformat No Work Either
 

Ok, so I reformat flash drive, to OS-extended makes do differrence to mini ports not recognizing flash.. So, I tried OS Mac Journaled, and that makes no differrence either, so, I guess next option is the try "special circumstance" options also available in the "disk Uitlity" "erase" program. Also noteworthy is that on two occasion, after trying mini ports adn then using keyboard port I go error message that USB device was drawing to much power so device or port was disabled to prevent damage,,but somhow the flash drive still appeared on desktop and all seemed to be normal.....I'. using 10.6.4 Ebuc

After trying a few differrent formatting options in "disk uitility" still no luck getting mac mini to recognize Kingston 2Gb Data transfer flash drive, unless I'm plugged into the Emac( PPC ) keyboard. I tried an older 4-port powered Belkin thinking it might boost the power of the Kingston, as maybe that is what the PPC keyborard is doing. Did not work but perhaps a newer belkin would raise the power to sufficent level of the flash drive to work in mini's ports, assumming that is the problem. Ebuc