Ext. Hard Drive pwning every OS

[4g3nt_Smith]

I have a 250GB MiniMate attached to my Mac Mini, but I can't seem to copy anything to it. I got it yesterday, and while the manual said it was formatted as FAT32 from the factory, it was completely un-initialized when I plugged it into the machine, so I formatted as HFS+(Journaled) with the APM partition table. It worked, and I began to copy my files from my 80GB OneTouch to it. The files will get to various points, be it 105MB copied or 2GB, and then stop. The finder progress window just sits there, Finder still functions along with everything else, but I'm unable to stop the transfer, logout/restart, or quit finder. I can force kill Finder via Activiy Monitor, but then I can't open it back, I can't logout or restart the machine once this occurs, but other apps open fine and function flawlessly. If I turn the drive off, the machine instantly returns to working order. I tried connecting it to a WIndows XP box, and formatted it there. Tried to copy a file to it from the XP box, but it killed Explorer and nearly every other running process. Scandisk says its fine, OS X's Disk Utility says its fine, Linux seems to say its fine, but obvioiusly its not. ANy ideas?

[Foo]

Sounds fucked. My MP3 Player drive caused similar problems. I fixed it with a format, though. Looks like you're not similarly lucky.

[Underpants?]

The only one I would trust and believe is linux. did you run badblocks as well as fsck?

[4g3nt_Smith]

fsck won't do anything since its a file system checker, and I can't even format it to do anything because it locks up my Ubuntu system and Gnome Partition editor. I'm going to run DBAN on it right now to see if I can zero fill it and see what I get.

[YourGrandpa]

EDit: Have you tried a new cable?

IF so, then...

I say take it back and get a new one.

[4g3nt_Smith]

Tried another USB cable from another ext. HD I know works and got the same thing; crapped out at 1.05 gigs of 11.7 gigs.

[AmIdYfReAk]

Another kind of Crack Pot thing, But i have had a Very simular thing happen, and i found that swapping the HDD from DMA to PIO ( i dont know how to do this in mac OS ) Got the Job done, However slow, it worked

it might be something to read into though, Esp if you need to get that data..

[SOAPboy]

i have no solution for you since what fixed this for me worked.

But, i had this actually happen on 2 IDE drives. Formatting both low level fixed it.

If i had to take a wild guess, id say its your USB freaking the fuck out and corrupting shit on the drive. But, again you tried it on another box so id assume its not that either.

Sounds like a bad drive dude. Really.

the logic board in the device has corrupted firmware.

And again, agreeing with riddla kills me. but hes prolly right here

[dzjepp]

Return it and get a new one?

[4g3nt_Smith]

Thats my next step for today.

[Underpants?]

... so I formatted as HFS+(Journaled) with the APM partition table. It worked....
Linux seems to say its fine, but obvioiusly its not. ANy ideas?

fsck won't do anything since its a file system checker, and I can't even format it to do anything because it locks up my Ubuntu system and Gnome Partition editor. I'm going to run DBAN on it right now to see if I can zero fill it and see what I get."

I don't want you to get discouraged but maybe this external hard drive thing just isn't for retards.

[4g3nt_Smith]

... so I formatted as HFS+(Journaled) with the APM partition table. It worked....
Linux seems to say its fine, but obvioiusly its not. ANy ideas?

fsck won't do anything since its a file system checker, and I can't even format it to do anything because it locks up my Ubuntu system and Gnome Partition editor. I'm going to run DBAN on it right now to see if I can zero fill it and see what I get."

I don't want you to get discouraged but maybe this external hard drive thing just isn't for retards.

*NIX won't do anything to an HFS+ partition, and I can't try to reformat it, as the Gnome Partition Editor commits application suicide along with the whole OS until I power off the drive.

[4g3nt_Smith]

So, I called, they made me format it again via the install disc for OS X, and lo ahd behold its working perfectly.

[Foo]

Next time don't throw some random faggy formatting on it, or I cut you.

[4g3nt_Smith]

Next time don't throw some random faggy formatting on it, or I cut you.

If by random you mean the default OS X file system...

[Foo]

Sounds like a load of shite.

[4g3nt_Smith]

Sounds like a load of shite.

Almost as shite as ext3 and reisferfs

[Foo]

I'ma go get my nine...

[4g3nt_Smith]

That lasted all of a week. Now its doing the same thing, only it breaks at 2 megs instead of 1 gig.

[Foo]

I'm thinking trip to the store & swap it?

I'm not familiar with the hardware in the prebuilt external drive units, but I would take a guess that the controller chip onboard the drive itself is taking a huge dump due to some bad memory in the drive's cache.

[4g3nt_Smith]

Bought it online, and the last time I tried to get an RMA, they had me format it and said since it formatted I was ok, then hung up. I may have gotten it to work, though I'm not really sure how.