FAQ Details
Question
My external firewire drive will no longer mount, but the blue light is on.
Answer
Unplug the firewire cable and turn the drive on. The blue light should be lit, and the drive should be spinning. If the drive is not lit and the drive is not spinning, check all the connections in the power chain from the drive to the wall outlet. There is a green LED on the power adapter that should be glowing steadily.
2. Make sure that you are using the correct power adapter for the drive. If you need help identifying the power adapter feel free to contact our technical support team and we will assist with that.
3. Try a different power outlet. Sometimes outlets do have problems and changing to a different one may resolve the issue with the drive.
If attached to a power strip, battery backup, etc try attaching it directly to a wall outlet.
4. Once you get the drive spinning and the blue LED is lit, then you can plug it into the computer. The drive should then show on the desktop.
5. If the light does not come on check to see if the drive shows up in the Profiler or Disk Utility.
If it isn't showing up in either location then you will want to try different firewire ports. This is to see if any ports allow it to mount. This is to help determine if any of the ports either on the enclosure on the system your using it with may be bad.
6. If your enclosure also has a USB port you can try to see if it will mount via USB. This is another way to check to see if one or more firewire ports are the problem. If you have another known working firewire cable try using that. While a cable is rarely the cause they can occasionally stop working properly.
7. If you have access to another computer see if it will mount on it. If it mounts and works fine on another system then it is something with the original machine you are trying to use it with.
8. The last thing to try is to use Disk Warrior or Tech Tool Pro to see if they can locate the drive and if there are disk errors they can attempt to repair them for you.
Search our FAQ
My external firewire drive will no longer mount, but the blue light is on.
Answer
Article applies to the following products: External firewire drives
1. The first thing to check is that the drive is, in fact, getting power. The blue light can be deceptive, as it can also be powered by the power that comes down the FireWire bus.Unplug the firewire cable and turn the drive on. The blue light should be lit, and the drive should be spinning. If the drive is not lit and the drive is not spinning, check all the connections in the power chain from the drive to the wall outlet. There is a green LED on the power adapter that should be glowing steadily.
2. Make sure that you are using the correct power adapter for the drive. If you need help identifying the power adapter feel free to contact our technical support team and we will assist with that.
3. Try a different power outlet. Sometimes outlets do have problems and changing to a different one may resolve the issue with the drive.
If attached to a power strip, battery backup, etc try attaching it directly to a wall outlet.
4. Once you get the drive spinning and the blue LED is lit, then you can plug it into the computer. The drive should then show on the desktop.
5. If the light does not come on check to see if the drive shows up in the Profiler or Disk Utility.
If it isn't showing up in either location then you will want to try different firewire ports. This is to see if any ports allow it to mount. This is to help determine if any of the ports either on the enclosure on the system your using it with may be bad.
6. If your enclosure also has a USB port you can try to see if it will mount via USB. This is another way to check to see if one or more firewire ports are the problem. If you have another known working firewire cable try using that. While a cable is rarely the cause they can occasionally stop working properly.
7. If you have access to another computer see if it will mount on it. If it mounts and works fine on another system then it is something with the original machine you are trying to use it with.
8. The last thing to try is to use Disk Warrior or Tech Tool Pro to see if they can locate the drive and if there are disk errors they can attempt to repair them for you.
Article last modified on 2/8/11 DC
Search our FAQ
© Copyright 2000-2013 Other World Computing, All Rights Reserved.
Load Time: 0.003 seconds, Guest ID: 205730370
