If you're using this drive straight out-of-the-box, meaning it's
formatted Windows FAT and has the Windows software still installed on
the drive, you probably should wipe the HD clean and repartition &
format the HD using Disk Utility. These USB HDs that come pre-
installed with Windows software often cause problems, the SanDisk
thumb drives with their "U3" software is infamous this way, and your
drive appears to have similar "auto backup" or "auto launch" Windows
software pre-installed, which is useless to your Mac, and can only
cause problems.
The MDD only came with USB 1.1 (12 mbps) USB ports, so you need to buy
a USB 2.0 PCI card (400 mbps) to get high-speed operation out of this
HD. Virtually everything is USB 2.0 now, and I've had problems in the
past mixing newer USB 2.0 peripherals with older USB 1.1 ports -
they're supposed to be backwards compatible, but USB is so flakey
already that mixing different versions isn't a good idea.
If the HD has been re-partitioned and formated to Mac (or Windows FAT
if you need a drive that can mount on both Macs & PCs) and you're
still having problems, before jumping to the conclusion the HD is
failing, you might look at the chipset of the USB bridge and see if
there's any kind of firmware updates available (look in System
Profiler under USB while directly connected for VID & PID #'s). Some
USB chipsets are known to have problems and there are firmware updates
for a few. This isn't a likely solution, but the idea your HD is
failing is probably less likely. Get a USB 2.0 PCI card first, make
sure the HD is clean formated for Mac use, check for new firmware, and
only then think the HD might be failing.
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