Mac OS X Not Recognizing Galaxy S Phones

When I bought my Galaxy S phone (Sprint Epic 4G) I was really excited about the phone until I connected it to my Mac, to my surprise, OSX wouldn’t recognize the phone, so Mounting the phone as USB Mass Storage was of no use, nor trying to connect it thru ADB; I was very disappointed. I rushed to Google trying to find an answer and to my surprise, I wasn’t the only one having the same problem, some people were able to connect for a couple of seconds then OSX would kick them out of the system, some others wouldn’t connect at all, and some other ones connected just fine. Digging deeper I found several solutions:

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  • Make sure you have USB Debugging turned on in your phone (/Settings/Applications/Development/USB Debugging)
  • Try restarting the phone and changing USB ports
  • Try a different USB cable, the one out of the box is not so good
  • Try connecting the phone thru a powered USB Hub

Since I did not want to buy an expensive powered USB Hub, I tried the first three choices with no luck. First, I bought two USB cables, one from RadioShack and the other one from Sprint Store, neither worked, the only one that has worked is the one provided, but just for a couple of seconds, then OSX would kicks me out of the system.

So I decided to buy a powered USB Hub, but instead of buying an expensive one from BestBuy, I went to eBay (my favorite site) and got myself a cheap, 10 bucks, one. When I plugged my phone through it, daaang, worked at firat try, amazing!!! I was pleased. So if you have a 5th gen Mac and a Galaxy S phone, chances are you will be needing a Powered USB Hub.

On a side note, it seems that either the Mac or the phone requires more power for some reason, weird cause works perfectly fine on a Windows box.

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13 thoughts on “Mac OS X Not Recognizing Galaxy S Phones

  1. Esau Silva says:

    New Post: Mac OS X Not Recognizing Galaxy S Phones http://bit.ly/eCAmHn #GalaxyS #Epic4G #OSX

    • ferisoft says:

      Problem was the cable, i tried with the cable from my external HDD and worked as a charm…I guess you need a more heavy duty cable…

  2. jgezau says:

    New Post: Mac OS X Not Recognizing Galaxy S Phones http://bit.ly/eCAmHn #GalaxyS #Epic4G #OSX

  3. Dan Darden says:

    Ok I’ve done all of this, even went and got a powered USB hub. No Dice. OS X 10.6.6, Verizon Fascinate Galaxy S. I am just so dang frustrated. I set up an FTP server so I could transfer files, but it is slow and unreliable. Need a bette solution and a USB connection is the way to go. Now I got this expensive hub from Best Buy that was a waste.

    Any ideas?

    -Dan.

  4. Blog tip: Get OS X to see your Galaxy S android phone http://ow.ly/49kP5

    • Ulfa says:

      I can surely uedrnstand the feeling of a kid in xmas. I’ve bought and build many computers(macs and pcs) till now, but I was never excited as much as when I’ve build my first hackintosh.your hardware looks very nice for hackintosh!good luck and never hesitate to ask questions if you have any problems~

  5. Dale King says:

    Thanks so much! I’ve been going nuts wondering why I could no longer connect to Mac for the last 6 months. Now I know. Back then I was using a powered hub and lately I’ve been using a cable directly.

  6. Mac OS X Not Recognizing Galaxy S Phones http://t.co/8qzat21d via @AddToAny <- saved me a lot of time today.

    • Massiel says:

      Hi, first thanks you for your guide. I’ve been ceotlmpely captured by your detailed instructions and advices. I must say that I’ve been a mac user for a long time (I’m not a youngster sigh) and I’ve a lot of Macs around (home & office). But I think there’s no reason to pay thousands of bucks (euros here, about 3.800,00) to get a Power Mac any more now. So I came here, read your pages and went into the shop. Now I’m waiting my new machine like a kid at Xmas (he he). Hope I’ll succeed in making things work. This is what I’ll get:GIGABYTEMotherboard GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 socket LGA 1155 chipset Intel Z68 ATXCOOLERMASTERCase Cosmos 1000 Big Tower Nero Silver ATXCORSAIRDimm Vengeance Blue 16 Gb (4 4 Gb) ddr3 1600 MHz Unbuffered CL9 1,5 VINTEL Core i5-2500 (Sandy Bridge) Quad-Core 3,30 Ghz GPU integrata HD 2000 socket LGA 1155SAPPHIRERadeon HD 6850 1 Gb ddr5 Pci-E Dual Link DVI-I Single Link DVI-D HDMI Display PortWESTERN DIGITALCaviar Blue 500 Gb Sata 600 Buffer 16 Mb 7200 rpm x 2LG DVD 24x Sata Double Layer M-Disc Black BulkBENQ RL2450HT Monitor 24 LED Full HD 2ms 1920 1080 DVI HDMII’ll tell you what I’ll do and maybe bother you for some help in case it happens I’m not so smart (very easy).Thanks again

  7. STEP 1: Download/install Android Terminal Emulator, open it and type: su (to grant superuser permission)
    then type setprop persist.sys.usb.config mass_storage,adb and execute the command

    Step2: and Reboot phone typing reboot

    • Nkanormal says:

      Here I am, thanks to your sggtesus I succeeded!I had some troubles (my mistakes with Lion Multibeast at the end) but right now I’m writing with my new Mac Pro 3,39 Ghz Intel Core i5 Processor, 16 GB 1600 MHz RAM, ATI Radeon HD 6xxx 1024 MB, Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E53) GREAT. Just had to revert to ALC8xxHDA and AppleHDARollback for sound, though I’d tried the Patched AppleHDA since I got the DSDT but it didn’t worked.Have to set the keyboard (Logitech MK 710) and a few more things but it rocks.I’ll not update anything now without suggest (lol).I would like to send you some pics( if you like) of my brand new Hackintosh.Thanks again and tell me if I can help somehow. Ciao

  8. Mutha says:

    i have motherboard D945GCPE and intel dual core 2.0 GHz peosrscor.I installed lion using iatkos L2. Everything goes fine during installation but after installationit got stuck with grey screen with apple logo even my dvd drive does not work.Help me plzzzzzzzz.Thanks in advance ..

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