Knox not always "seeing" external USB Drive

Jimmysan

I've noticed that Knox doesn't always see a vault on one of my external USB 2.0 drives.

I am using a MacBook Pro (mid 2009), 2.8GHz, 17 inch, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB internal drive, with a Western Digital Portable 1 TB external drive (USB 2.0).

I have two vaults on my internal drive, both of which show up under all conditions, but the one vault I have made on a partition of the WD drive (which is partitioned into 4 volumes), does not always show up when I access Knox via the menu bar icon.

I am able to see the vault (sparse bundle) on the external drive when I open it via the Finder. I can mount it, again using the Finder, and it seems to work properly from then on. After that, the vault will show up in Knox (accessed via the Menu bar icon), up until I unmount the external drive (and re-connect it).

Not a huge problem, but having to do these steps seem to negate some of the advantage of having this application in the first place.

Let me know if I'm missing something!



- Jimmysan

MartyS

Welcome to the forums, Jimmysan!



It may be helpful to know what version of Knox are you using. You stated "... does not always show up when I access Knox ...". Are you saying the item is listed, but not check-marked or is the item not listed at all? Presuming that the vault is listed but just not mounted, what happens if you have Knox mount the vault instead of double-clicking it in the Finder?

Jimmysan

MartyS,



Sorry I didn't provide more information...



I am using version 2.0 (119).

When I have the problem, the item is not listed in the Knox menu at all. After I mount the vault via the Finder, it will then appear in the Knox volume list until the problem appears again.

I did a restart on my system yesterday, and the vaults all showed up in the Knox list.

I just did the following:

Checked Knox and all three vaults listed (two on the internal HD, and the one on the external).

Used the Finder to unmount the external HD (all four partitions, or as the Finder "thinks" - Volumes)

Disconnected the USB cable to the external HD and waited a couple minutes before re-connecting.

All four partitions (Volumes) showed up on the desktop - Finder mounted them OK

Went to Knox, and only the two internal Vaults are in the list. The one on the external HD is not in the list.

In the Finder - opened external HD partition that contains the Vault, it is there. I double-clicked it, and after entering the password, it mounts on the desktop.

Checked Knox and the Vault is now listed normally.

Used Knox to un-mount the offending Vault, and after it unmounted, it still is in the Knox list (this is good).

I suspect it will stay in the list, even across restarts, until I un-plug the USB cable to that drive. I am now suspecting the problem is with the drive, not Knox. I've noticed that the transfer rate to/from this drive seems really slow. Maybe why it was so cheap :-(

Unless someone else has this problem, I will consider it MY problem, most likely due to the transfer speed of this Western Digital HD. I can live with this, since it only seems to occur after removing the drive(s).

Sorry to raise the issue, and I Thank You for your time.



-Jimysan

MartyS

We'll keep our ears open to others reporting similar issues too so if we can find a problem and make improvements we will. Thank you so much for the extra details!

zhengming

I have the same problem with a Platinum MyDrive 500GB 2,5" USB2-drive that I use mainly with my MacBook Pro. The MacBook travels with me, so I have to connect and disconnect the external drive all the time, and the only way to make the vaults on this drive visible to Knox is to mount them in the finder.



Since I also use external iPhoto libraries on the Platinum drive (mounting them without problems from within iPhoto Library Manager), I suspect the visibility problem originates in Knox.



My OS is Snow Leopard with all the updates. If you need more information to zoom into the problem, I would gladly help. – The way it is keeps Knox from being the universal interface to my vaults that I bought it for.