G4 iBook usb issue. Help!

[ninahugo]

Just bought the new G4 ibook.  Saved the info from my G3 iBook to a zip drive to transfer files between the two (couldn't figure out the ethernet mthod, although I tried).  All went well until my final set of stuff.  The zip appeared on the G4, then disappeared and I cannot find it again.  I tried restarting my computer, unplugging and replugging the zip, ejecting the disk and reinserting it, etc.  I've only had the computer for two days and the usb worked just fine the previous day.  Any suggestions?          

[Paddy]

Nina, welcome to Techsurvivors! Sorry it's taken a little longer than usual for someone to reply (too busy watching Al's video of the crater fire near his house perhaps?)

Have you tried connecting the Zip drive to the old iBook? Does it work there? I'm wondering if the Zip disk itself has gone toes up.

Other things to try:

Restart the G4 iBook, with the Zip drive connected. Ya never know...a simple restart can solve some mysterious ills. If it still doesn't show up, have a look in Apple System Profiler (in the Applications->Utilities folder) to see if the Zip drive is recognized.

Have you tried both USB ports (I'm assuming you have 2?).

Have you any other USB devices that you could try connecting, to rule out a USB problem on the G4 iBook?

There are probably a few more things to try, but those are the first things that occur to me. Let us know if any of them resolve the issue or pinpoint the problem, or if you still need suggestions!

[krissel]

Paddy covered most of the possibilities.

Is this the only disk you have? Can you borrow or buy another to see if that one is recognized, if so, the disk itself may be bad, though I would think you would get one of those "you have inserted a disk this computer can't read, yadda, yadda".

You don't by any chance hear any clicking sounds do you? The older SCSI zip drives  were prone to the Click of Death but I think the USB ones have been pretty free of that problem.

Here's an info doc at Apple but it's mainly for SCSI zips. Might help.

zip drives

I would suggest zapping the PRAM if it was an older Mac, but....

One slight possibility is the option to show all disks on desktop may need to be reset. I'm not on X so I can't tell you exactly where in the prefs that option is.  
Someone?

OH, forgot    TO TS.    

[krissel]

OH, just had an idea that since this is a PB, maybe resetting the power manager would help. Similar to zapping PRAM but better.

How to do it is HERE.

[Mrious_be]

Welcome to the board Ninahugo
Don't think i can anything more interesting here, so just saying "hi" to you.