My external hard drive is not detecting in my macbook air.

My Seagate backup plus ext hdd is not showing up on my screen. But, it runs well on my pc. How to fix this issue? Thanks in advance.

I have exactly the same problem. Seagate drive not showing up in finder or disc utility but is working on a pc. I've checked the usb ports and other devices are working when plugged in. This is since I updated to 10.10.3 but I can't restore as the Seagate is used for Time Machine.
Macbook Aire 13" late 2013 OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

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What should i do if my external hard drive is not detected by my mac

what should i do if my external hard drive is not detected by my mac?
need to have the files saved on it and be able to backup via time machine

Hi:
Here are some of the options I've read about on here that may or may not work:
1. Reset the NVRAM as it may need to be reset to recognize the drive. See below:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
2. If the drive is a USB drive, put a USB hub between the drive and the unit. As ridiculous as that may sound in some cases it works.
3. If you have some types of hardware problems and want to test them this works:
http://scsc-online.com/Scannerz.html
That's a test tool only. It isn't going to fix anything just diagnose a bunch of possible hardware problems and it costs money, too.
What format is the drive in? Is it a Mac native format like HFS or is it some other format, like NTFS or FAT?

My WD 2tb external hard drive will not unmount from my MacBook Pro.

My WD 2tb external hard drive will not unmount from my MacBook Pro. It no longer even shows up in finder, however it does show up in Disk Utility. I have tired so many of the suggestions on the internet all to a fail.
I keep getting the message to be sure that all applications are closed before ejecting the drive. I have no clue how to tell which appliactions are using the external drive to shut them off. I turned off Time Machiene to be safe.
I don't need anything on the external drive, I am just trying to erase it, save my current info, and migrate it to my new MacBook Pro.
I have been about four days now with this issue all over the internet, in this community, and watching videos on everything and nothing about this topic to a fail.
I think I am doomed and have lossed this external drive because of some wierd application that will NEVER close on my hard drive for it to disconnect correctly. It's annoying.
Does anyone have a solution?

Have you trie using another USB port? Can you test the USB ports with other USB devices to assure they are working? You may want to reinstall OS X in case there has been a driver glitch.
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

My external hard drive is not detected through my Thunderbolt port. How can I fix this?

I just purchard a Seagate GoFlex Portable Adapter for Thunderbolt. I have an internal drive from an old computer that I wanted to access information on. My hard disk is not detected on the disk utility nor can i hear the hard drive turn on and "hum" eventhough the adapter is connected.
Thanks for any help provided.
Items:
Seagate GoFlex Mac Portable Adapter for Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt Cable
http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/performance/gof lex-for-mac-thunderbolt/
Seagate 200GB Internal Hard drive

Here you go
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

New 27" iMac ejecting external hard drive and not detecting it consistently

I purchased my iMac from Best Buy two days ago and am wondering if I have a lemon. During the process of transferring files via an external hard drive I have noticed a number of issues. My old 2007 iMac had no problem reading the drive but my new iMac keeps ejecting the disk every couple of minutes. I will get a message in the corner of my computer stating that it was not ejected properly.
At one point, the new iMac would not read the drive at all. I plugged in my iPhone and it detected it at first but eventually ejected it and would not detect it again either, not even to charge it. I restarted the computer and it started detecting the iPhone and the external the drive, but now I am back to getting the same error message. I have tried to repair the disk using disk utility and it does not detect any problems. I also tried using every single usb port.
I would appreciate any suggestions and will be taking it back if it keeps having issues.
New 27" iMac
3.2 GHz Intel Core i5
8 gb 1600 MHz DDR3
Mavericks 10.9.4

You have 90 days of free AppleCare telephone support, call them today and report the issue. You can find the number in your country by clicking:
Contact Apple for support and service

External Hard drive is not detecting

I recently converted my external hard drive from FAT32 to NTFS using the Command Prompt as outlined on your website. Everything was working fine, I copied a 7GB file to it and everything worked. The next day I switched on my PC, I couldn't and still can't
find my external 2TB hard drive by my computer. When I plug it in, it is detected by my computer as an external USB mass storage device, but it doesn't appear in the my computer folder. I can also see it in the device manager and the disk management tab of
the manage settings. The system thinks that the partition is healthy. I just can't seem to access it. Please help. I have about 500 to 800 GB of data on it that I really don't want to lose. Its a Seagate back up plus HDD. It has no switch, it switches
on automatically when you plug in the USB. The light on the HD also turns on, and I can feel the disk working inside when I touch it. Thanks in advance. Any help would be appreciated.
P.S. I am using Windows 7 enterprise N edition on a 64-bit Lenovo tablet, if that helps at all.

Check out this video where you can find how to access lost data from hard drive using Windows Data Recovery Software.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr_ILgDR-fo&list=UULodHE9xBVuqW4ep5Mkxqmw

External hard drive documents not read on a MacBook Pro

Hi all,
I use my external hard drive to save a document from another PC computer last week when I plugged it back on my Mac the documents cannot be read on a Mac as it says they are not supports by apps software or search for application that will open those files.
I have all the documents which I copy from my previous Toshiba Laptop which was windows7 but is there way to clean the external drive on Mac without loosing all the document? or how do I format my external hard disk on MacBook Pro?
Jok2

You can copy these documents to the internal drive of your MacBook Pro and then, format the external drive. If you want to use the external drive on Macs and PCs, I recommend you to format your external drive on a PC to use exFAT, better than NTFS or FAT32. You can also use FAT32 but it isn't compatible with files bigger than 4 GB, and NTFS disks can't be written on Macs. If you want to use this external drive only with your Mac, you can use Disk Utility to format the external drive using "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". Read > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Depending on the application you used to create the documents on the PC, you have to install an application that reads these documents. For example, if you created these documents with Office, you can use Office for Mac, iWork or LibreOffice. Each one has got its advantages and disadvantages

The external hard drive is not recognized by my macbook pro (yosemite).

The external hard drive that was recognized by my older iMac (snow lion), is not recognized by my new macbook pro (yosemite).
Can anyone help me with this? Thank you!

Can you see the drive in Disk Utility?
See mount section in 1st linked article.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

New Seagate 1TB external hard drive is not being selected by MacBook Pro

My new Seagate 1TB external HD is not being identified by the MacBook Pro (10.7.5 Mac OSX). Whereas the same being recognized by a WIN8 OS based PC. I need a format wherby the external HD should be recognised by both Mac OS and Win.
Kindly help.
Pls note my system is being run on safe mode, as there is a problem in the left shif key. Hence, while booting, it is automatically being shifted to the safe mode. I need to format the external HD, so that I can transfer to store my data.

If you want the drive to be able to both read and write on OS X and a Windows machine, you should format the drive as exFAT on the Windows machine. As to why the drive is not recognized when you boot into Safe Mode, that may be because the drive is formatted for another OS and it MAY BE that it's disabled when you run in Safe Mode (which disables a long list of things: see -> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564?viewlocale=en_US).
If you format it as exFAT on the Windows machine, you MAY BE able to have it mount on your Mac. No guarantees, though.
Good luck,
Clinton

I recently bought an external hard drive and plugged it into my Macbook Air and it won't let me save any files onto it, how do I fix this?

Please help me!

Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

External hard disc is read only on my MacBook air and I can't safe and export files on it, how can I change that

My external hard drive is read only on my MacBook air and I cand safe or export files to it. How can I change this so I can use the external hard drive to export my files and work on an other pc.

Eject and disconnect the drive (and its power supply, if it has a separate one) for a few moments, then restart it. Restart your Mac, then reconnect the drive.
If that doesn't help, the directory structure may be damaged. See if you can Repair it, per #6 in Using Disk Utility.

My Lacie external hard drive will not back up on Time Machine. Says there's not enough space. This has happened with every single external I've purchased. Thought TM was supposed to delete old backups??

My Lacie External backed up on Time Machine after the first back up but now says there's not enough room. I thought TM deleted old back ups to save new versions. What am I doing wrong. This happens to me constantly. Every single external hard drive I've purchased for the MacBook Pro (5 of them) has not worked either initially or at the second back up. It either isn't formatted properly so I have to go to Genius bar to help me set up for the first back up, or after the first back up, it says there's not enough space and I have to go back to Genius Bar. Is there a way I can fix this on my own?

I just purchased 2 external hardrives. a LaCie Minimus and a G Drive. Each 1 TB. The guy at Apple told me that would provide 2 good TM backups for me. My internal HD has 750 GB capacity, of which I'm using 700 GB. Perhaps the ratio is not great enough. I do wish they would have told me this before I purchased the two Bummmmer! I even had them format and get the first back-ups going because of issues I've had in the past. I also just bought a 750 GB for photos.
So, I won't be able to buy another bigger external since I've just purchased 3. Ugh. Well, I'll just exclude some files and divide things up. Eventually, I just want my 20,000 iphotos on one of the 1TB externals, and a TM back-up on another so that iphoto will function once more. It really hates how many photos I have and is brutally punishing me for it.I seriously need to do some housecleaning!
Thanks for the advice. Just moved from US to Australia last week and was hoping to upload a few photos and the domino effect has lead me to this. Just went to Genius Bar in Perth today and they told me how to reformat drive to transfer iphoto library over, but I got stuck at trying to back-up my TM.

I have copied videos onto an external hard drive. to free memory on my macbook. When I try to delete these I am warned that I will not be able to use this video in existing projects How do I point iMovie to events in my external hard drive so I can pl

I have copied videos onto an external hard drive. to free memory on my macbook. When I try to delete these I am woarned that I will not be able to use this video in existing projects
How do I point iMovie to events in my external hard drive so I can play projects which use them?
MacBook, iMovie 9.0.4

Hi
You can do this - by not doing it the way You describe as it will not work.
a. the external hard disk - MUST BE - Mac OS extended (hfs) formatted -
UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange - will work for most things - BUT NOT FOR VIDEO (iMovie, iDVD or FinalCut doesn't matter)
b. Do not alter or move any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - at all
All moving's of Events and Projects must be done within the iMovie Application - then connections will not break.
(move them back and see if iMovie remembers them - then do move as described above)
Yours Bengt W

My external hard drive is not working on my mac.

I have tried all options available such as going on finder and making my hard drives visible and disk utilities

Basically my external hard drive would not eject so i force quit it and the hard drive does not come up at all anywhere on my mac pro OS X version 10.9.4 and it isn't visible in disk utilities no and it doesn't say format either and i have tried it on a windows computer it does not show on their either. the format is Fatdos i think so i can use it on windows and mac and i cant see anything in system reports and yes it is connect by a USB. also it isn't making any noises either

My external hard drive is not recognised on my mac book pro

my external hard drive is not recognised on my mac book pro

Hello all -
similar situation. Unplugged external hard drive and all to take the laptop on a trip. On return, I plugged everything back in and keep getting this message:
Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Iomega_Ext_Drive”.
Files can’t be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read-only.
You may need to repair or reformat the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can’t be repaired, you must use a different disk for backups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a different backup disk.
open time machine preferences. -
I tried this and tried "repair" but that didn't work and I still get this message. Any advice? thanks

My external hard drive is not detecting in my macbook air.

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