External hard drives not appearing on Desktop

I have three external hard drives, none of which are showing up on my Desktop. All three drives are mounted, and I can navigate to them through the sidebar in Finder windows, and the contents of the drives are all fine and intact. In Finder preferences under "Show these items on the desktop", "External disks" is ticked. I've tried unmounting the drives using Disk Utility, then mounting them again, but they still don't appear. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Create a new admin user account, log into it, setup Finder's prefs to show all HDs, and see if the issue persists.

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External Hard Drive Not Appearing on desktop

My external HD has disappeared from my desktop. If I connect it via FW it does not appear in disk utilities or system profiler but if I connect it via usb it appears in both. I've switched out the cables, tried different ports and reset the PRAM and NVRAM. Can anyone offer any suggestions as to a fix?
Thanks in advance

Scott:
I take it from your explanation that even though it appears in all three of the utilities that my only remaining option is to use DataRescue II. Correct?
Let's say that it is the only one that occurs to me at this time of night
The demo version will at least show you that the data is still there. Another option might be to use SuperDuper to see if you can clone the User's Folder, or indeed the entire volume to an external firewire HDD, then using DU to reformat and erase the HDD (post for directions if needed) and clone back from external firewire HDD.
Yes, the drive does show up in sidebar in all three of the utilities I mentioned.
Is it possible to run Repair Disk in Disk Utility and see how it comes out? Or if you have done it already, what does it say?
While in Disk Utility, select the Manufacture ID of the external HDD and then look at the look at the icons at the very top. Is Mount dimmed or active? If active, click on it to mount the HDD.
Also, what happens if you try to Option boot?
If anything else occurs to me I will post back in the morning.
Cheers
cornelius
Message was edited by: cornelius

External Hard Drive not appearing on my desktop...

I am encountering a major problem with my Maxtor external hard drive. I have had the drive a few weeks, and everything has been sweet, swwet enough for me to trust it enough to back up 10 years of professional work and irreplacable photos. Today however it has decided to not show up on my desktop, and instead give me the option of initialising it, ejecting it and ignoring because 'my computer can not read it'!!!
I have tried disk utility but get get end of messages and am unable to repair the disk eeven though it says it needs fixing.
My next step has been to download TechTool, which seems to be sticking a 3rd of the way through a disk surface test?
I am pretty desperate as I REALLY don't want to loose what I have on it, so any light anybody can shed would be HUGELY appreciately.
Thanks in advance
s

Some people recommend erasing a drive (write zeros) before using which may pick up and mapout most bad blocks. Then benchmark the drive over various areas with something like intech speedtools QuickBench 3 and Zone Bench.
I like to load some test data to fill the drive to 90% and then erase and start using. but always keep two backups, one of which is off-line so if something happens you still have the alternate, as a minimum.
Are you using TTPro 4.12? there were problems with earlier versions and FW, and, FW is not immune from problems itself, as each OS X upgrade has attested, and updates to Oxford 911/912/922 chipset.
Also, you would not be alone in having trouble with Maxtor One-Touch. A search on http://www.macintouch.com for one, yields some hits. Another good place to look would be
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com
you can also good for Diamond Max 10/11 or Maxline III.
While you can access the data, backup. Maybe look into external SATA, or build your own FW800 912/922/924 drive and case.
I'm no longer a big fan of 3rd party tools, but Disk Warrior is good to have on hand.
And never, ever, fill a drive beyond 80-85%. After 75% you start to lose performance and high fragmentation can be a problem.

External Hard Drive not appearing on Macbook Pro or 2009 Macbook

Hello,
I have a G Technology G-DRIVE External Hard Drive, that until now has worked perfectly.
I plugged it in today to try and back up my macbooks through Time Machine, like I have done for the last year - and on ether of the computers, the Hard Drive is not appearing in Time Machine or Finder. Having browsed online, I found that it is showing in Disk Utility and in System Information - but other than that I cannot do anthing with it. I even tried to Repair the drive, by erasing it and reformatting it - and I cant do it - I keep getting the messgae 'Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.'
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I use this hard drive as a Time Machine Backup, and I'm unable to do so.

At best, it sounds like this HD is flakey so even if you were able to get it working again, I would not trust it.
PlotinusVeritas gives some great suggestions for purchasing external hard drives in this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5602141?tstart=0

External hard drive not appearing when entering time machine.

Why does my external hard drive back up on time machine ok, but when I enter time machine (and the external device isn't plugged in) i can't see it?
It appears in time machine fine when the external drive is plugged in, but just not if it's been ejected or
I want to have the ext drive backed up in case I lose it or it corrupts....and if that happens I won't be able to plug it in to see the drive in TM - does that make sense?
I am running OSX 10.9.3 on a Mid 2010 Mac Book Pro. The external drive is a samsung and is formatted to Mac OS Extended (journaled). Time Machine is a standard Apple one and has been working fine for a couple of years

Try holding down the Option Key when selecting the Time Machine menu, then select Brows Other Time Machine Disks. See if you can then browse the backup of that drive. The normal Time Machine display is kind of a “live” restore point thing, if that makes sense.
I’m not sure if there is anything in Pondini’s FAQ, but you might peruse it and see if he discusses that issue: http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Iomega external hard drive not appearing in Disk Utility

I have a MacBook Pro (from 2011) and I'm running OS X 10.9.5. I have an old Iomega external hard drive. I'm not certain but this thing might be about 3-4 years old? When I connect the drive to my MBP, it shows up in Finder under Devices. But what appears is the Windows disk utility that is pre-loaded on the drive. The actual drive does not appear and I can't move files onto it in Finder.
When I go into Disk Utility and try to format the drive for Mac use, it doesn't appear.
Is there anything I can do or am I stuck with this old drive that doesn't work with Macs?

Try following tips.
USB and FireWire Quick Assist - Apple Support

External Hard Drive not showing on desktop

Hi,
I'm using a macbook pro, 15", and have been using it with my external hard drive for the past 2 months.
This afternoon, I was using the external, where i have all my music and photos stored, and it was working fine. I left the computer on sleep for about 2 hours (all programs that have stuff on the external I made sure to quit before), and when I got back the "icon" for the back up disk was slightly more "invisible" on my desktop and time machine informed me that the latest back up failed. When I tried to eject it (nothing on the disk was being used) it said it couldnt be ejected because the disk was in use.
I tried to eject again, same thing, so I restarted the computer. When I restarted the computer the external harddrive icon did not show up on my desk top. I tried pulling it out and plugging it in a few times, the disk will start up, but not load onto my desk top.
HELP!!!
the external hard drive is a Western Digital "my Passport"
Thank you!

Danja.schluter wrote:
if I repair the disk, will i lose everything on it?
Running Disk Repair will not harm your data, the idea is to repair and make it functional again.
If successful I would make a back up of that data because you may be skating on thin ice.

Projects from external hard drive not opening on desktop. Please help.

I use my external hard drive to create, edit and save all my imovie projects. In this external drive I have all my raw clips, events, projects etc.
My home computer is my primary place of work, and I am now trying to open a half edited project from my external hard drive on my daughter's mac. Note this project was saved in imovie 8 and she has imovie 9, although I cannot see this being an issue.
Can anyone else suggest why imovie only opens my events, but doesn't open the project in the project library. I have tried copying the .rcproject from the external hard drive to the desktop along with the events, but to no avail. Any further suggestions, I have a pending deadline.
Thanks.

You should be able to get this to work.
I would suggest the following:
1) Move the RCPROJECT file from the desktop to the Movies/iMovie Projects folder.
2) Use the Events on the external drive. Your project will be pointing to the external drive. It will not know how to find anything on the internal drive.
Then restart iMovie.
This should work, as iMovie is forward compatible. However, once you open the project in iMovie 09, you will no longer be able to open it in iMovie 08. (Of course, you could make a copy of it in its current state.)
I am less sure about your events. Your events will be converted to iMovie 09 format. I don't think you will be able to still open them in iMovie 08. You might if you delete all the cache and thumbnail folders and let iMovie 08 regenerate these, but I am not sure. Your best bet is to upgrade to iMovie 09 or better yet, iMovie 11 on your home computer.

External Hard Drive not mounting on Desktop

Hello,
I use a 250 gb Lacie external hard drive (firewire) for backup. For the past week, the external hard drive has mostly not been mounting on the desktop.
I don't think it's a power issue, because after turning the unit on both the light indicating power turns on and I can hear the motor operating.
As indicated on the Lacie web site, I went to disk utility in system preferences and repaired disk permissions for my Mac's hard drive volume. That doesn't seem to have made a difference.
Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what I should do?
Thank you,
Manny

Hi gavvx, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Feel free to start a new topic of your own will get more individualized attention, and many more helpers!
It can be hard to sometimes find where to start a New Topic, so here's the link...
http://discussions.apple.com/post!default.jspa?forumID=758
Did you try highlighting them, then the Mount button in Disk Utility?

External hard drive not appearing in Airport Utility

I have connected an Iomega eGo portable hard drive to my airport extreme but i cannot access it from my airport utility or airport disk utility.
In fact it doesn't appear at all, even though the disk seems to be powered up and working.
Do i need a separate power supply for the disk or is it a compatibility issue?

not to worry, played around with the cables and it's sorted

Time Machine- external hard drive not appearing

I'm trying to set up Time Machine. However, the Maxtor one touch 4 plus drive is not appearing as an option to choose to set as back up drive?
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Make sure it's not formatted as FAT32?

External hard drive not mounting on desktop or being accessible - help!!!

Hello,
I use an Iomega 160GB external hardrive to store my iTunes and a load of video files as well as back up to but at the moment I can't get it to mount. It is visible in system profiler but I can't access any of the files. I tried verifying it and repairing it in disk utility but both of these failed. If any of you could help me out I would really appreciate it - I do have another copy of all my files on my iMac at home but i am currently studying in Spain and won't be going back till Christmas so need to get this drive up and running!

welcome to macbook forum.
try to reset PRAM to refresh your macbook port.
check the power adapter, if it comes with it, use it or check if the power adapter still good and supplied the power properly.
connect your external to other mac (you can connect to PC if it formatted as FAT32), if it succedd, back up your data and repair / reformat using that other mac.
Good Luck.

Why is my External Hard Drive not showing in Aperture 3.6 Import?

Why is my External Hard Drive not showing in Aperture 3.6 Import?
Only my computer hard drive is and I want to import from an external drive. I have always been able to until I updated to Aperture 3.6 and Yosemite.

Only my computer hard drive is and I want to import from an external drive. I have always been able to until I updated to Aperture 3.6 and Yosemite.
I had the same problem. On the folders on the drive with the Aperture library did show in the Import panel. After I clicked the computer icon in the upper left corner of the Import panel, suddenly all drives appeared.
You can also try to drag the folder you want to import into the Import panel, to point the file chooser to the drive.

External hard drive not mounting

external hard drive not mounting

I fixed mine by uninstalling the software that came with the harddrive such as Tuxera and reinstalled it now myharddrive works again and i did not have to delete the harddrive and reformat it.
I tried a lot like reseting the Pram And connecting other harddrives but by unstalling the original software it works all over again. I hope this works for you because i was getting pretty frustrated myself.
Im running a 2012 macbook pro with 10.9.3
boom mind blown

I am planning on using my time capsule as a network and essentially an external hard drive - not just back up, is this ok?

I am planning on using my time capsule as a network and essentially an external hard drive - not just back up, is this ok?

Most users should use the Time Capsule for backups. This assumes that "original" copies of your data are on the computer and backups of this data are stored on the Time Capsule.
If either the Time Capsule or the hard drive on your computer fails, there are at least copies of your important data on the other drive.
If you are asking if you can place "original" files on the Time Capsule, do you have a plan to backup those files?
If the Time Capsule drive has a problem....and your only copy of your important data is on the Time Capsule....you will lose everything.
If you are asking if this is OK, the answer for most folks would be "no".
Can you clarify if this is what you are asking?

External hard drives not appearing on Desktop

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