Comments on: Low-Power USB Ports Haunt My MacBook Pro

By: Brent

Brent — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:11:23 +0000

I've also came across this issue recently with my WD Passport I pulled out to look for some old files. In an attempt to try the left hand port on my mbp I noticed that all I received was a blinking status/power light. So I tried the right hand side which seemed to spin up the drive and start reading it, then doing the dreaded tick with a moment of silence then spinning again.

After a few loops of it failing it would tell me that the device has been prematurely removed, spite which nothing was touched. So I tailed the system log while I tried plugging it in to see if there were errors occurring that might elude to if it was unable to read the drive or not (No one wants to buy a new drive right?)

From the logs it looked as if there was a problem mounting it, and it being disconnected on its own. So I thought to myself, I'm pretty positive when I bought this twice overpriced silver mobile computational machine ... I made sure it had 2.0 ports on it. But I digress, I pulled up the System Profiler to check out the USB ports on it to find out essentially your exact post. Needless to say after seeing that the bus is shared with these other components was pretty disheartening at the least. I don't know anyone who likes having this Y cable flopping all around behind the LCD screen, maybe it's just my obsessive compulsive minimalism driving me insane.

For what it's worth (and for reassurance) using the 6" single USB connected to my Dell, works fine also.

SYSTEM LOG
-----------------------------------
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: ExtFS: Oops! Media 'disk1s1' removed while still mounted!
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: Attempting to remove from pending states.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: ExtFS: Media '' removed. Retain count = 3.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]: disk1s1: media is not present.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: Attempting to remove from pending states.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]:
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: ExtFS: Media '' removed. Retain count = 5.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]:
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]: disk1s1: media is not present.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]:
Oct 9 18:33:09: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]: disk1s1: media is not present.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]:

Oct 9 18:32:56 AppleJacks mds[23]: (/Volumes/PASSPORT/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/CD5F69BF-747A-4E77-B9C7-AF4586859430)(Error) IndexCI in indexRestoreHeaderFromBuffer:Invalid version (0) expected (63)
Oct 9 18:32:56 AppleJacks mds[23]: (/Volumes/PASSPORT/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/CD5F69BF-747A-4E77-B9C7-AF4586859430)(Error) IndexCI in recoverIndex:Unrecoverable error: Malformed index head file (live.2.)
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: ExtFS: Oops! Media 'disk1s1' removed while still mounted!
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: Attempting to remove from pending states.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: ExtFS: Media '' removed. Retain count = 3.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]: disk1s1: media is not present.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: Attempting to remove from pending states.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]:
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks efssmartd[147]: ExtFS: Media '' removed. Retain count = 5.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]:
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]: disk1s1: media is not present.
Oct 9 18:33:09 AppleJacks kernel[0]:

By: Brent

Brent — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:11:23 +0000

By: konastephen

konastephen — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:05:03 +0000

I'm just discovering the frustration this problem can cause. What a lame dilemma to face on a computer that was supposedly designed specifically for communications professionals. What about the specs on the firewire port? What if I put a Firewire/USB hub on that port? Would it output enough current to power a portable external drive?

By: fluffylovable

fluffylovable — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:20:13 +0000

Has anyone found a solution to this slow usb memory sticks on macbook problem? I have a macbook pro generation 3,1 and on it's become unbearable. I've honestly tried everyhting!!!! The slow usb transfer speeds exist on my macbook pro under leopard, snow leopard, linux, windows xp, and on both ports!!! ARGHH!!! The only time usb transfer speeds seem normal is when I use my external hard drive or ipod 160gb classic. I know others have complained that it happens with their ext hd's but with me that seems to be okay (I use a 160gb maxtor that has power needs requiring it be plugged into two usb ports simultaneously for it to work properly). I just haven't found a usb stick that will work at a decent speed with my macbook pro. This problem is most manifest when transferring things from the laptop to the usb and much less so vice versa.
Please help. Any advice would be sincerely appreciated.

By: Mgrey

Mgrey — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:21:52 +0000

I have the early MacbookPro, when I used Tiger my rightside usb was able to feed enough power to the Buffalo's MiniStation. Ysterday I updraded to the Leopard and I've had a lot of problems. The Buffalo will work (from right side), but time to time the osx just notces that “you have illegally removed your USB device”, and I haven't even touch the cables. And the most horrible part is, that it crashes sometimes the whole OSX!!! That is not Apple way, feels like Windows user… It's really weird that the switching the OSX to the Leopard did this…

By: Mgrey

Mgrey — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:21:52 +0000

By: Mark van Wolfswinkel

Mark van Wolfswinkel — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:09:07 +0000

What bothers me these days: I bought an exteral enclosure and a seagate 320GB disk to make a clone of my disk so it can be replaced by the new seagate disk. When working with Windows XP via Bootcamp the disk works just fine on both the left and the right USB port. But when I'm running OSX, it just doesn't work at all! I coudn't test it with the disk powered by both USB ports, because the cable is too short.

By: How To Move OS X Time Machine Backups To A New Disk | Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:59:38 +0000

[...] My MacBook has just one USB port that would work with the Maxtor, and I like to leave the Time Machine drive plugged in when I’m home, which would leave me with a hub (which I don’t have) or only a single USB port for everything else [...]