Connecting older Harddisk to Mac Studio

I have an external hard disk drive (80 GB) from "One Technologies which I used from 2010-2014 with my Intel based iMac primarily as photo backup. Via an USB 2 /USB C cable I connected the drive to my new Mac Studio via the Thunderbolt 5 port (the two front USB-C ports didn't work out). I could hear and se that the system was trying to access the sectors on the disk but after a while it stopped and the activity light on the hard drive went to constant blue, but no data on the screen and the Disk Utility app couldn't help me either.

Am i missing a HD driver on the Mac Studio or may another disk utility tool solve my problem.


Mac Studio (M4 Max, 2025)

Posted on Apr 18, 2025 6:10 AM

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Apr 18, 2025 7:05 AM in response to gsf1

No missing drivers.

Your Mac has drivers already built in for every sort of drive you could hope to attach and see.


A drive that will not reveal to Disk Utility its make&model, and a reasonable non-zero size/capacity is dead to you. Such a drive can not be Repaired, Read, or even Erased.


Mac Thunderbolt 5 ports have additional restrictions and do not happily supply POWER to drives that do not properly follow ThunderBolt-5 rules. I would have advised connecting to the FRONT USB ports rather than ThunderBolt-5.


Can you provide external power?

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Apr 18, 2025 1:38 PM in response to gsf1

Try connecting the drive to a USB3 hub. I've seen a report on this forum where a user was unable to access their drive until it was connected to a USB3 hub. Usually connecting the drive directly to the computer is best, but sometimes not it seems.


Have you tried using a different cable and adapter? You need to use good quality cables & adapters. They are one of the main reasons people have trouble with external devices.


Can this drive still be accessed using your older Mac?


If this drive has sat unused for years, then it is possible the drive has gotten "gummed up". I've seen this happen before.....sometimes the drive may just start working, other times it won't.

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Connecting older Harddisk to Mac Studio

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