1TB WD Caviar Black SATA internal drive won't mount on desktop or Disk Util

I just installed this brand new drive in bay B of my G5 tower...it doesn't appear on the desktop, and not in Disk Utility. Can a 1 TB SATA3 drive be functional in a G5? The owner's manual only mentions a maximum 250GB (or 500GB drive, don't recall) ; maybe that was the biggest available in 2004/05?

Thanks, all. I found a link to WDC drive jumper settings (http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?p_faqid=1337&p_created=1112379341&p_sid=eST7ItDi&p_accessibility=0&p_red irect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NDg3J nBfcHJvZHM9MCZwX2NhdHM9MCZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2VhcmNoX 2ZubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PWp1bXBlciBzZXR0aW5ncyBzYXRh&p_li=&ptopview=1), and jumpered pins 5 and 6 to limit transfer speeds to 150 MB/s. On restart, the OS prompted me to initialize, which I did, and voila, the drive is mounted.
Question: it appears the jumper setting is to convert a SATA2 dirve to SATA1. Is there any reason to try (or jumper setting that would enable) converting my SATA 3 drive to a SATA2 configuration?

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External drive won't mount on desktop or disk utility

iMac w/optical drive, running 10.6.8
Using a 2 TB Seagate Backkup drive for Mac for Time Machine backups. Time Machine notified me that no backups had been made for 22 days. Drive icon does not show on desktop and is not listed in Disk Utility. Tried unplugging/plugging power and USB cable without success. I had shut down the computer before leaving for vacation (about 22 days ago), but am pretty sure I did not move the drive icon to trash. Could this be the basis for the problem?
How do I get this drive mounted again?

Eric, nifflerX and nbar:
That's what I was afraid of.
Thanks for your help.
Stonely

My WD hard drive won't "mount" it shows in disk utility but can't be repaired. I'm thinking this is a software issue since the disk is being recognized.

I
I have a WD drive that won't "mount". Tried repairing, turning off and back on, unplugging and nothing has worked. Can anyone help?

The WD Passport has no independent power supply, relying instead on getting power from a USB port on the computer. AS the drive ages it can need more power to spin the platter and many USB ports on notebook cannot provid that much.
Anther issue is the WD drive itself. WD uses an odd proproprietary formatting scheme that makes the drive not always behave like typical Mac drives.
If the drive contains nothing you need to access, use Disk Utility to reformat it to "Macintosh Extended (Journalled)"
If the drive contains important data, there are a couple of inexpensive ways to get more power to it:
1) Get a "Y" conenctor cable like this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/USB2AYMBPB/
It draws power from two USB ports and ofter that is enough to make the drive work.
2) Get a powered USB Hub:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/USB2HB7PRO/
It has its own power brick and that is usually enough to get an older USB external drive recognized.

Exernal drive won't mount but seen in disk utility

2011 Macbook Pro 2.3Ghz 8Gb on OSX 10.7.2 connected Maxtor One Touch 4 750Ghz firewire drive. Has been working perfectly for 3 years.
I'm runnign Pro Tools 9. I had some issues with IK Multimedia plug-ins being de-authorized earlier today. IK suggested repairing disk permissions (which I did). Seemed to be OK, but a few hours later when I booted up the MBP it no longer recognises the drive. The drive is booting up & I've swapped out the cables, so I can rule them out.
The drive was called "PT drive". It had 3 partitions: "Rough bounces", "Samples & loops" and "PT Session drive". Now, it doesn't appear on the desktop and Pro Tools can't see it.
However, disk utility sees the drive as "750Gb Maxtor" with 3 partions: "disk1s1", "disk 1s2" and "disk1s3". All of the disk utility options are greyed out (Verify disk permissons, repair disk permissions, verify disk and reair disk) so I can't do anything with them. When I try to eject the disk, I get an error message saying the drive can;t be ejected because applications are in use. I don;t have anything running in the background.
I don't have a backup for this drive, so really need to get the problem sorted urgently. Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Re-booted everything up again this morning & the extral drive has appreared again. Very strange. I've created a back up drive in case I have similar probs in the future. A lucky escape!

Hard drive will not mount shows up in Disk Utility

I have an external drive with a bootable OS X 10.6.8. I was in a transition between building up a SSD swapped drive. The SSD is installed in the CPU box but I have my old installation running from an external.
I have several external hard drives. They are all Firewire. Some have USB 3.0 and or eSATA options but my MacMini only talks to Firewire and USB 2.0.
I understand that you daisy chain Firewire drives and turn them on and off in sequence as they fall from the CPU box/case.
Firewire is a power source. I run the external with the OS using an AC adapter but one Firewire drive is powered through Firewire.
I have had as many as 4 external drives running along with the internal drive without a glitch while I was reorganizing files.
Today I booted off the external drive. It was running fine. I turned on one Firewire drive (the one that runs on Firewire power). That drive stumbled. I recognized the sound when there is an interruption in power. This cause the external boot drive to stall. I had to force a reboot.
Now the external boot drive will not boot up. It does not mount but Disk Utility sees it. The drive itself is bright and clear in Disk Utility but the partition (single) is faded out. I can run Verify and repair in DU. DU says it doesn't see anything to repair. It will not mount on its own or when I click the Mount button in DU. It does not produce an icon on the Desktop (because it is not mounting).
I also have SpeedTools. But although it sees the drive I cannot do anything with it. None of its tools run more than a spli second before they fail.
This drive has USB 3.0 and I see everything through USB that I see through Firewire. Connecting the other way did not get around the problem.
Of course I will buy an AC adapter for every external drive and never run them using Firewire again but the horse is out of the barn.
I have the original installation disks and could run the Archive and Install option but it would require physically swapping drives with the internal. I'd like to avoid it if possible. It is a MacMini and tedious.
Any suggestions?

I took the problematic hard drive and installed it in my Mac Mini so I could attempt a Safe Boot and then Archive and Install if necessary.
Safe Mode didn't work. The drive produced the circle with a slash symbol.
I reset the PRAM which was part of a list of steps to work through I found created by Apple Support.
I was able to boot up to Verbose Mode and view the text of the boot process. I wrote it all down. I can answer questions about the content better than typing it all out exactly. It includes, "...journal magic is bad..." "...failed to open..." and ends with "...cannot mount root, errno = 19"
I attempted Archive and Install however when it went to show what target drives were available it was a blank box and all buttons were grayed out.
I rebooted and opened Disk Utility from the DVD. The drive appeared the same with the top main line bright and the partitioned volume faded. Still was unable to mount. I ran Verify and this time a red line of text appeared "Invalid content in Journal" and at the end I ran Repair. When running I could read line by line and at one point it showed "checking volume information" then the following line "Repairing volume" the following line "Rechecking volume" more line of checking then it ended with "The volume was repaired successfully."
It still would not mount. I ran Verify again and again said "Invalid content in Journal" and this time it stopped midway saying "The volume was found corrupt and needs to be repaired. Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk."
I clicked Repair and it ended with The vol. was repaired successfully."
Still unable to mount I began repeating Repair over and over. Each time it found something to repair and ended with a success message. After several more Repairs I tried Verify and it stopped midway saying to Repair the disk.
Question: Does running Repair multiple times continue to correct bits and pieces little by little or is this a generic message and we should treat it as a problem Disk Utility cannot pinpoint and is just beating its head against the wall?
The step by step instructions I downloaded mentioned running Repair more than once but it did not say that running it 20 times would erode some problems and eventually lead to a fully repaired disk (if the problem was something DU could take care of in the first place). At this point I have run Repair about 20 times total with a series of 10 back to back skipping Verify. I keep seeing the lines about invalid content in a journal and that it repaired something successfully. Yet I still cannot mount the disk.

External Hard Drive won't mount on desktop!

Hey, guys.
I ran into a problem this morning that I've never ran into before and I wasn't sure where to write it but I thought this is best.
Here it goes...
Last night I had a power surge and when I restarted my computer, my external hard drive did not mount on my desktop. I than proceeded with restarting my computer, I relinked all my connections and I cant seem to get it fixed. I have a lot of material on my external drive that I dont have backed up (I know, a stupid move) anyways, I dont want to lose that information. Also, when I open up disk utility, the icon for my external drive is there and the partition I made for my external drive shows up also but the title of my partition for my external hard drive is not in bolded font. I tried to click the button to mount my external drive cause the specs tell me that it is not mounted but when I press the mount button, it does nothing. I than tried clicking the unmount button and than restart my computer and still nothing.
What problem am I facing and how can it be fixed?
Thanks.

Dear Jason,
Gary's advised is, IMHO, a very sound one.
The only thing I can think of about your problem, given the information you have provided us, is to run Disk Warrior on your external HD.
In fact, DW is particularly indicated in events, like:
"...you should run DiskWarrior when you suspect that there is directory damage on one of your disks. Directory damage can result in the disk not mounting (not appearing on the desktop when the computer is started), missing files or folders, an inability to move or copy files, or crashes when files are used...".
You could actually buy your copy of DW Licence on-line and download it directly onto your internal HD, starting from this "Information you must read before you make your purchase" page. A hardware copy of the software you have so purchased, will follow by postal service (or currier, if so you choose), shortly.
Follow all the instructions you will find in the download to install the DW software onto your main internal HD and then run it on your external hard drive.
DW has saved my data several times and in similar situations as you are experiencing. IMHO, you should seriously give it a try and, even in the unfortunate event it does not manage to solve your problem, it is one of those Mac OSX utilities which ANY Mac power user MUST have handy at all times.
So, no matter what, my opinion is that it is always well-spent-money those used to purchase your copy of DW: in the long run, you won't regret it.
In the event that even DW is unable to retrive your precious data, my suggestion is to contact Micro Com data recovery. It's going to cost you some money, but if you make a leaving out of the data you've lost on your external hard drive, it's going to be worth it.
All the best.
Costa

External hard drive suddenly won't mount, but shows in Disk Utility.

Running OS 10.6.8... Disk Utility sees it and there's no issues when verified or repaired. The partition is grayed out and won't mount through Disk Utility. I've also tried mounting via Terminal, but same result. I've connected other drives, so I know it's not the wires or ports. When I turn the power on, it spins up and seems to be working properly. I don't have another mac to test it on. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Here's the info from Disk Utility:
Name :     BACKUP
    Type :     Volume
    Disk Identifier :     disk1s10
    Mount Point :     Not mounted
    File System :     Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    Connection Bus :     FireWire
    Device Tree :     IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/RP05@1C,4/FWBR@0/FRWR@0/node@30e0f4e010a9d6/sbp-2@c000
    Writable :     Yes
    Universal Unique Identifier :     C3BC8998-F686-3A0F-A1AF-11260799EABA
    Capacity :     319.94 GB (319,937,773,568 Bytes)
    Owners Enabled :     No
    Can Turn Owners Off :     Yes
    Can Be Formatted :     Yes
    Bootable :     Yes
    Supports Journaling :     Yes
    Journaled :     No
    Disk Number :     1
    Partition Number :     10

You don't have a PowerMac if you have a Mac Pro. You don't have a PowerMac if you have Mac OS X 10.6. PowerMac is the name for the desktop professional Macs prior to mid-2006.   Two possibilities, the drive is dead, or the drive has a bad directory.   For a fee you can isolate either on my FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html
* Links to some of my pages may give me compensation.

External USB drive won't mount without running Repair Disk

I have a Seagate external USB hard drive. It's a 1TB FreeAgent drive that's USB powered. I use this to share data across several computers. Every time I connect the drive to my MacBook Pro, it does not mount. If I try to mount it, I'm told to "try running first aid".
So, I run repair disk, and then it will mount. I just did this, and Repair Disk reported "The volume /dev/disk1s1 appears to be OK".
Any help on this matter would be appreciated. It is formated NTFS, and I have an NTFS driver installed, if that makes any difference.
Thank you!

Is the drive's icon on the desktop (perhaps behind another icon, which is possible if Finder > View > Cleanup is enabled)?
If not, is the box Finder > Preferences > General > External Disks checked?
Is the drive listed in every Finder window's sidebar?
If not, is the box Finder > Preferences > Sidebar > External Disks checked?
Are Time Machine backups to the drive happening on schedule?
If not, does the drive appear in System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Disk?
Can you open /Volumes/Mac-Mini 2/Backups.backupdb using Finder > Go > Go to Folder...?
Does the drive appear in Disk Utility? Is it (or can it be) mounted there?
Have you tried to plug it in to a USB port on the Mini (not a hub) or into a different USB port on the Mini?
Have you tried this: shut down; unplug the drive; boot the Mac; after you have logged in and the Finder is done populating the desktop and menu bar, plug the drive in?

External hard drives won't mount on desktop

I've had a Western Digital My Passport HD attached to my iMac computer for a few weeks now. Today however I disconnected it and when I went to plug it back in it failed to mount on the desktop. The light was on, but it was a steady light and it usually blinks when its communicating with the computer. I put my hand on top of it and could feel the drive turning. I also noticed that my SanDisk Memory Card Reader wasn't powering on either. I plugged in other devices to sort out what was having the issue. I plugged in my Wacom tablet to each of the ports that the HD and MMCR had been plugged in and it powered on and worked with no issue.
I then plugged in the HD and MMCR and checked them on Disk Utility, and neither one showed up there. Finally I plugged in a different WD MyPassport HD that I owned and it mounted on my desktop. That's when I started to get panicky. I did one final test to confirm whether my drive was kaput. I plugged the HD into my Time Capsule. I entered TC and there was the drive, mounting within TC and completely accessible.
Whaddya make of that?
iMac 21.5 Late 2012
2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
Western Digital My Passport 1TB

This can happen with any USB BUS powered drive. For some reason the USB ports on Mac computers do not always put out enogh power to fully power up these USB BUS powered drives. You should try using a Y USB cable that connects to 2 USB ports at the same time to supply more power to the drive.

External Hard Drive doesn't mount, not showing in Disk Utility

I have had this Western Digital external hard drive for a few months now and until this evening it worked fine. It won't show up on my Macbook Pro and it is not present in the Disk Utility section. The light on the external hard drive is on so it doesn't appear to be a power issue. I have another of the same exact hard drive and it works fine. I tried switching USB cables and even power supplies and I can't get it to work. Does anyone know how to recover the files or is the hard drive toast?

Something's wrong inside the case; it's either a problem which is preventing the computer from properly connecting to the drive or the drive itself is dead.
Data recovery from a failed drive can only be done by a professional service, which can charge hundreds or thousands of dollars.
(93717)

Problems with External Hard drive, will not mount and errors in disk utilit

i have a powerbook g4 aluminum. i have an external hard drive for it. a simple tech 100gig portable drive, almost brand new. i dont know what happened to it, but one day i was starting my computer up with it attached. it wounldnt fully start up, said "waiting for local disks" so i uplugged the external hard drive. now it wont mount and will only show up in the disk utility of my friends macbook. i tried to verify and repair, and this is the message i got.
Verify and Repair disk “UNTITLED”
** /dev/disk1s1
could not read boot block (Input/output error)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 non HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Im in mexico writing a book and so i really need help on this one guys.

Hi, hjbugs, and welcome to Apple Discussions. Disconnecting the drive while your Powerbook was accessing it probably caused your problem. It may be repairable using DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro, but if you don't have access to one of those and aren't going to buy one, reformatting the drive with Disk Utility may be the only other way to make it usable again. If it contains data you need to recover first (i.e., data that isn't also stored on your internal HD or other storage media), download the free demo version of one of the data recovery utilities mentioned in this thread and use it to see what is recoverable. If the files you need are recoverable, buy the full version of one of the utilities and recover them.

External RAID0 won't mount in Finder or Disk Utility

Hi everyone,
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
I have a Western Digital Passport RAID0 that I connect to my 2008 Mac Pro via Firewire 800. It has worked for years. I switched out one of the drives about a year ago after it went bad, but when I did that, Disk Utility was still able to see the two separate drives when plugging it in the first time after switching them out.
This time, when the RAID0 wouldn't mount in Finder, I opened up Disk Utility and neither drive showed up. So I opened up the enclosure and tested both drives in a USB dock. One mounted fine, the other said it was unreadable. So I set the unreadable one aside and switched it out with a same-size replacement drive that I had partitioned as MacOS Extended Journaled (non-case sensitive) with GUID partition table (same as the other drive and all drives on my system).
Reassembled the enclosure and plugged it back in. Still, neither drive is recognizable by Finder or Disk Utility. Verified it has power and that the cables are seated correctly. I also tried USB connection just to be safe.
I do not believe the RAID controller in the enclosure is bad—at least it seems very illogical that a drive and the controller would fail at the same time, as I have it well protected against power surges.
Any thoughts as to something I may be missing or known issues? I upgraded to Yosemite at its public release but successfully used the drive between then and now.
Thanks again!

Eric, nifflerX and nbar:
That's what I was afraid of.
Thanks for your help.
Stonely

External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

Hello Everyone,
I am hoping that one of you fine mac experts may be able to assist ~
Problem: External Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB external hard drive
won't mount on desktop=ie: no access to my important files.. Please Help!
Details:
External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
(using for document / file backup-not as a startup disc)
on my Mac G3 350 MZ Blue & White Tower /768 ram/ running OSX 10.1.5 & OS9.2~
~
Problem: Started using the external 500 GB HD 2 months ago -with no problems-until this morning. Tried to double click to open it to access files
and got the "beach ball of death" and needed to restart.
My trusty G3 started up fine, however, the external HD was now
not showing up on the desktop as normal. I troubleshooted -by restarting,
trying different a/c plugs/ different USB ports , ran disk utility..called
seagate -not much help . Seagate said to try the HD on another mac-which I did-
a G5 tower- same problem.
~
The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
and when click "mount" same two messages keep showing:
message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
mount.please use disk utility to check the disk"
~
message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
restart:" you have inserted a disk containg no volumes that mac osx
can read to use unreadable volumes,click initialize to continue with the disk inserted ,click continue"
~
( I really need access to these files- and do not want to re-initialize the HD!!)
I ran Disk Utility /first aid "verify & repair , the following info came up:
Repairing disk "main backup 2007 ".
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length ( <<<IN RED )
Repair completed. "
~~
Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
still comes up when re-running disk utility...Hard drive would still not
mount on desktop-even after restarting .
~~~~~
If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
appreciated. I have tried to call seagate several times in the last several hours-
1st time-they disconnected me after being on hold 10 minutes-2nd call
I was put on hold for 40 minutes ..Finally spoke to someone ( they are not mac users or mac experts!)and he said I would need to send it to Seagate's Data Recovery-... for a fee of course!
~~~
At this point, I am hoping to just get the files and photos off
the hard drive- I heard about Disk Warrior-should I use that and if so
what version?
Thank you very much!
L

Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
If you boot from the CD and run it from the CD, absolutely yes. If you attempt to INSTALL it from a download or a CD, probably not.
Have you ever used Disc Warrior and is using it complicated?
I own and use Disk Warrior. You select the drive to be rebuilt, it builds a proposed new directory from the information and file fragments available.
When complete, it will provide a list of problems encountered, tell you what files have been placed in the "Rescued Items" folder, and allow you too look at your drive using the proposed new directory. Your only decision is whether the new directory seems to be an improvement over the old \[in your case, hopelessly corrupted] directory. You then tell it whether to replace the old directory with the proposed new directory, or to abandon its work and leave your Hard Drive unchanged.
Is there a good chance that the ext HD will still have my files on it- or do you think from what I've described that they are gone ?
From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
My other thought was to take the external HD there and have them try to recover the files.
Make sure you completely understand the costs involved. File recovery using a service like DriveSavers can run into many hundreds of dollars. They are prepared to disassemble your drive in a clean room and replace controller boards and read/write heads to achieve success. Your drive has serious, but not fatal, Directory damage. The Hardware, and most of your files, are likely just fine.

G4 MDD supports SATA internal drives or ATA/IDE

hi all
I'm looking to add more internal hard drive power into my G4 MDD and was curious if it supports only ATA/IDE drives or can I add SATA internal drives? I was told it can handle larger than 120GB hard drives and will I need to get a fan to cool them down? Thanks, Web dude

you talk about putting larger hard drives on rear bays only
I looked over what I wrote and don't see where I said that. Can you clarify?
Maximum theorectical data transfer rates for ATA100 (aka ATA-6) are a little faster than ATA66) aka ATA-5) but only if the hard drive is fast enough to take advantage--most new ones are more than that at ATA133. One Wikipedia article I read says that, in the Windows world, ATA66 commonly has drive size limitations of 137GB due to the OS and drive controller limitations. I've not seen this in Macs. Nothing I've seen here or elsewhere says you can't put big drives in the front bay.
I personally like to keep the boot drive in the rear bay in case that drive is fast enough to take full advantage of the faster bus. As 2 x 250G is enough space for me today, I tend to use the front bays as temporary mounts when pulling data off drives from some of our older Macs. Those often end up being smaller, older drives between 10G and 120G.

Hard drive won't mount - but only on one Macbook Pro

Hi guys
So I have a brand new Macbook Pro 2.4 with retina and 8gb (like 2 days old). I'm on Mavericks. This question also concerns a Lacie Rugged USB3 1TB drive, it is bus power only.
My lacie won't mount on my new mac. An identical lacie will, as will a few older other lacie drives I use for archiving and occassional long term backups. I've checked this unmountable drive on 8 different macs (friends, work, mothers) everything from other imacs, to old G5 power pcs, and even my mums ancient ibook g4. They'll all mount it. My macbook pro wont.
* It's nothing to do with ports (all ports work and power various devices) and cables (different cables also do not work, and they work with other drives).
* It does not appear in disk utility
* It does not appear in the system profiler/report even though the ports show up no trouble
* the drive powers and spins up
* i've even just formatted the drive on another computer in extended journal and it still does not appear yet will still mount on another machine
I'm tearing my hair out. Help me! Does anyone have any idea's what the **** is up with this thing?
Thanks

Liam Maloney1
They'll all mount it. My macbook pro wont.
typical behavior of a SATA bridge dying
80% likelihood you have a dying SATA bridge card
see here for all info on same:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD

1TB WD Caviar Black SATA internal drive won't mount on desktop or Disk Util

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