Cannot mount external but if I run disk verifty it mounts

I'm just wondering why: I have an external firewire drive (Porsche) than will not mount if I unmount it saying I should run disk first aid.
When I run Repair or Verify it will mount without finding any problems.
If I unmount I have the same situation again. Has anyone had this happen?
alan

This seems to be a bug. You may be able to work around it by booting from a Recovery system on another storage device.
If you have a "clone" backup on another drive — not a partition on the same drive — boot from it by holding down the option key at the startup chime and selecting its icon in the Startup Manager display. Launch Disk Utility and repair your primary startup volume — not the one you're booted from.
If you have a Time Machine backup on a locally-attached storage device — not a network device such as a Time Capsule — there should already be a Recovery system on that device. Boot from it and repair in the same way as above.
Otherwise, use Recovery Disk Assistant to create a Recovery system on a spare storage device, such as a USB flash drive, and boot from that device. All existing data on the Recovery device will be permanently erased.
Make sure you have a current backup before doing anything.

Similar Messages

HT3275 I am using an external drive for backup. I am now getting a message that the drive needs a disk repair, but when I run disk repair it just seems to freeze.

I am using an external drive for back up. Yesterday the backup failed and I received a message that the external drive( a passport drive) needed a 'disk repair", when I ran disk repair nothing happened it seemed to freeze. Suggestions? should i simply erase the external drive and start over-my computer is fine.

Get a different drive for backup.
In the meantime, once you are backed up some drive safe, then you can attempt to repair the backup drive using the repair the directory link.

Cannot see external hard drive except in disk utility

when i open it in disk utility, all the buttons are grey, and i cannot verify or repair the disk. This happened once i updated it to mavericks.

Hi Dominic,
If this is still not mounting, it may be worth trying a PRAM reset...
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
Ben

External drive gone bad...how to mount it?

Power went out last night. When I got up this morning, one of my Lacie 160 GB FW (800) drives was making a horrible clicking/beeping noise. I shut everything down and booted back up. Error message said disk(the external drive) needed to be initialized. It won't mount so I can't run Disk Utility or Disk Warrior on it.
How can I get it to mount?
thanks...Nancy

You may need a replacement drive case. Even more important, a UPS to protect you better for outages.

Warning when running Disk Utility

I installed Snow Leopard without issue on Friday, but when I run Disk Utility on my hard drive, I get the following message:
Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent" has been modified and will not be repaired.
I never received this message under Leopard. Can anyone tell me if it is a problem I can overlook or a more serious issue? Anything I can do to fix it? Thanks so much!

Everyone is seeing this message. Don't worry about it.
Search the boards for more threads, if you'd like.
~Lyssa

10.9: cannot mount westerndigital drive usb3 external, but in 10.8 yes

please why is my text shown on white background? can i change this?
i could not mount my 2 external wd drives (mypassport 2,5" 2TB)
(USB3.0) since install of 10.9 on my 2 brand new macs. (imac 27" i5 late 2013 and mbair i7 mid 2013)
before, with 10.8 it worked fine!
i thought the wd drive is faulty, so i got a new one by warranty, and sent the "old" back. it took only 5 days to get the swap by wd.
i could not mount the new drive either under 10.9
but today i installed techtool pro 7.0.2, did nothing but a reboot and after that, i plugged it into my imac with 10.9, it mounted correctly on my imac, the first time ever! and showed a techtool symbol as drive symbol instead of the orange colored usb symbol.
appearantly techtool pro 7.0.2 installed something into 10.9 which helps the system mount discs?
- i never did lock the drive with the wd security app
- before that, i tried to remove all wd related stuff and uninstalled every single wd app and driver, still no mount !
- before that, apple disctools under 10.9 did not show the drives in the left column, as no other harddisc app did. (drive genius)
- i can mount both drives on the old mbair with 10.8, my wife´s mac
- wd drive utilites would show the disc, but not mount, if i tried to format it, it showed an error after 1min: cannot format disc,
as it cannot be mounted. (or so..)
- now, after install of techtool pro 7.0.2, when i plug the drive into my imac, it is mounted correctly, but there is
always another volume mounted by default "wd drive unlock volume" which says "your wd drive is not locked, so you can not unlock it)
weird?
i still cannot mount the wd drive on my new macbook air with 10.9,
etre check lists as difference:
imac:
Kernel Extensions:
com.wdc.driver.USB.64.10.9 (1.0.1 - SDK 10.9) (today mount possible for the first time since weeks)
macbook air:
no wd driver at all (and no mount possible)
any idea?
thanks
Message was edited by: peppermint

first, you should try reinstalling 10.5.4. download the [combo update|http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/macosx1054com boupdate.html] and run it. If that doesn't fix the issue, you can use full system restore from TM to go back to a time before the troubles started. to do that boot from the leopard install dvd, once past the language screen go to the Utilities menu at the top and choose "restore from backup".

Yosemite cannot mount external disks

Since I upgraded to Yosemite my IMAC does not mount external disks, even the bright new one I bought
I have also a Macbook Air that I upgraded to Yosemite and these same external disks can be mounted on the Macbook Air.
I have searched on the Apple support community and on the internet and quite some people whom upgraded to Yosemite have the same problem.
I checked the USB specs on both the IMAC and the MACbook Air
IMAC :
     Hostcontroller : builtin userinterface
     OS hostcontroller : AppleUSBEHCI
     PCI- code : 0x3b34
     PCI revision code : 0x0006
     PCI factory code : 0x8086
     Busnb : 0Xfd
MACBook Air:
     Hostcontroller : builtin userinterface
     OS hostcontroller : AppleUSBEHCI
     PCI- code : 0x0d9d
     PCI revision code: 0x00a2
     PCI factory code : 0x10de
     Bus Nb : 0x24
Needless to say that I need the data stored on the external disks.
Thks for helping me out.

I have read that if you turn Spotlight off you will have no problems. Open Spotlight, choose "privacy", click the "+" at the lower left and add what you do not Spotlight to search. Worked for me. I have 2 internal Seagates formatted OS X journaled in an external case.

Cannot access external NFS mounts under Snow Leopard

I was previously running Leopard (10.5.x) and automounted an Ubuntu (9.04 Jaunty) Linux NFS mount from my iMac. I had set this up with Directory Utility and it was instantly functional and I never had any issues. After upgrading to Snow Leopard, I set up the same mount point on the same machine (using Disk Utility now), without changing any of the export settings, and Disk Utility stated that the external server had responded and appeared to be working correctly. However, when attempting to access the share, I get a 'Operation not permitted' error. I also cannot manually create the NFS mount using mount or mount_nfs. I get a similar error if I try to cd into /net/<remote-machine>/<share>. I can see the shared folder in /net/<remote-machine>, but I cannot access it (cd, ls, etc). I can see on the Linux machine that the iMac has mounted the share (showmount -a), so the problem appears to be solely in the permissions. But I have not changed any of the permissions on the remote machine, and even then, they are blown wide open (777) so I'm not sure what is causing the issue. I have tried everything as both a regular user, and as root. Any thoughts?
On the Linux NFS server:
% cat /etc/exports
/share 192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync,nosubtree_check,no_rootsquash)
% showmount -a
All mount points on <server>:
192.168.1.100:/share <-- <server> address
192.168.1.101:/share <-- iMac address
On the iMac:
% rpcinfo -t 192.168.1.100 nfs
program 100003 version 2 ready and waiting
program 100003 version 3 ready and waiting
program 100003 version 4 ready and waiting
% mount
trigger on /net/<server>/share (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
% mount -t nfs 192.168.1.100:/share /Volumes/share1
mount_nfs: /Volumes/share1: Operation not permitted

My guess is that the Linux server is refusing NFS requests coming from a non-reserved (<1024) source port. If that's the case, adding "insecure" to the Linux export options should get it working. (Note: requiring the use of reserved ports doesn't actually make things any more secure on most networks, so the name of the option is a bit misleading.)
If you were previously able to mount that same export from a Mac, you must have been specifying the "-o resvport" option and doing the mounts as root (via sudo or automount which happens to run as root). So that may be another fix.
HTH
--macko

Cannot mount external USB drive

During a recent update I remember pacman asking about replacing some package with another package to handle disk mounting. I think the added package was "gnome-volume-manager" or "gnome-disk-utility" (or both). I didn't see any postings describing problems with doing this, so went ahead and allowed the change. Now it's a few days later and I find I cannot mount an external USB hard drive anymore. It has an entry in fstab, and although I have tried mutiple edits of the device to associate the drive with, nothing works.
The disk used to associate with /dev/sdb1. Now this device no longer exists. Here is what has happened to my /dev/sd* entries:
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 2009-10-27 11:08 /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 3 2009-10-27 11:08 /dev/sda3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 2009-10-27 11:08 /dev/sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 2 2009-10-27 11:08 /dev/sda2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 4 2009-10-27 11:08 /dev/sda4
brw-rw---- 1 root storage 8, 16 2009-11-04 13:00 /dev/sdb
Trying to force association with "/dev/sdb" "/dev/sda5" (or some other number not in use) or "sdb1" (or 2,3,4, whatever) just yields "special device ... does not exist".
Does anybody know how to deal with this?
Does anybody know what package(s) I replaced when the update in question took place? I think I'd like to reverse whatever happened.
And on another note, I think another gnome-based package also recently replaced a package relating to printing. Yesterday I discovered I have printing problems too:
At first there were no printers found. Although cups is supposed to start according to rc.conf, cupsd was not running. I started it manually and then all the printers showed up again, though I cannot print duplex (again, worked fine before). What is going on with these gnome packages?!? Anyone know which package(s) I need to remove (and then what to put back) to make printing work like it used to also?
thanks much.

oddly, fdisk -l shows nothing, even for disks which are mounted (eg. /dev/sda4). when I insert a standard USB thumb drive, the following show up properly:
brw-rw---- 1 root storage 8, 32 2009-11-05 10:50 /dev/sdc
brw-rw---- 1 root storage 8, 33 2009-11-05 10:50 /dev/sdc1
and I am able to mount and use the drive as usual.
The external drive I've been struggling with has xfs for filesystem type. After using the thumb drive, /dev/sdb showed up spontaneously, but no /dev/sdb1. attempting to mount gives:
mount: /dev/sdb is not a valid block device
or
mount: special device /dev/sdb1 does not exist
depending on which device is specified in fstab.
I am thinking that either a) my ability to mount xfs filesystems has somehow been hosed, or b) there is something wrong with drive, which must have spontaneously failed very recently (it is less than 1 yr old, but this happens from time to time).
If the drive is okay, any ideas about how mounting xfs filesystems could have been broken by recent upgrades?
btw, the fstab entry (which worked fine until a couple days ago) is: /dev/sdb1 /mnt/external_1 xfs rw,noauto,user,exec 0 0

Upgraded to 10.4.9 on MBP 15", now, I can't mount external hard disk!

Hi all,
I have a LaCie 500GB drive that I've been using perfectly since I've gotten it, but alas, I upgraded to 10.4.9 and it no longer mounts either by it's USB interface or by its Firewire interface.
My machine is a MBP 15" (2.16 GHz, 2 GB Ram), which works perfectly in all other respects and is now running 10.4.9.
The symptoms are that when I plug it in, I usually get the message, "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" with the options "Initialize...", "Ignore", and "Eject". So far, I haven't pressed any buttons except Ignore or Eject. Sometimes, I do not get this message, but it still doesn't mount, it just silently does nothing.
So, after pressing "Ignore", I've opened Disk Utility and had a look. The physical drive appears and there is one volume named "disk2s6" which for all purposes is probably my normal, logical volume (partition). However, last time it mounted on this machine, it was named "Archive". This logical volume is grey and will not mount no matter how many times I press the "Mount" button. It just does nothing.
OK, so, while I'm in Disk Utility, I ran Verify Disk and, after the normal routine, it comes back with "No Repairs Necessary". I've also tried "Repair Disk" and this comes back "No repairs were necessary", again after the full, normal processing of the various things.
I also performed a Fix Permissions on my startup-volume, but this didn't help either.
Next test was to mount the disk on my MacMini (PPC) instead, also running 10.4.9. It mounts perfectly and it properly comes up with the name "Archive" as expected.
I've then tried to mount other devices on my MBP including a USB memory key, and another external Firewire drive. These both mount perfectly on my MBP.
While I was at this, I've also tried new USB and Firewire cables, this didn't affect my results in the least.
I've finally verified that there is nothing in /Volumes out of the ordinary that might prevent it from mounting by doing a "sudo ls -la" whilst in /Volumes/. There's not a thing that would affect the mount-point.
I then disabled my folder actions that I've been running on the directory /Volumes *I had an action used to backup my USB key). Unfortunately, I still have the same issue.
Finally, I downloaded the Combo 10.4.9 installer, booted into Safe Mode (to trigger an automatic fsck), then rebooted and installed the 10.4.9 Combo installer, in case there was some weirdness in the Software Update upgrade to 10.4.9.
What stone have I left unturned? Why won't this drive mount, but it works perfectly elsewhere? I want to get back to using Aperture on my MBP and my entire photo Library is on this disk (well, and backed up on another external drive, but it lives normally on my MBP).
MBP 15" 2.16GHz + LaCie 500GB Ext Firewire drive Mac OS X (10.4)
Mac OS X (10.4)

Here's some additional info...
When executing a manual mount: I get this:
sudo mount -v /dev/disk1s6 /Volumes/Archive
/dev/disk1s6 on /Volumes/Archive: Incorrect super block.
During a normal plug-in-the-disk-and-expect-it-to-mount-automatically, this is what diskarbitrationd reports:
22:45:40 iokit [0] -> diskarbitrationd [41]
22:45:40 created disk, id = /dev/disk1.
22:45:40 created disk, id = /dev/disk1s3.
22:45:40 created disk, id = /dev/disk1s4.
22:45:40 created disk, id = /dev/disk1s6.
22:45:40 created disk, id = /dev/disk1s2.
22:45:40 created disk, id = /dev/disk1s1.
22:45:40
22:45:40 diskarbitrationd [41] -> diskarbitrationd [41]
22:45:40 probed disk, id = /dev/disk1s6, with hfs, ongoing.
22:45:40
22:45:40 diskarbitrationd [41] -> SystemUIServer [289]:13363
22:45:40 dispatched callback, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1s1.
22:45:40 dispatched callback, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1s2.
22:45:40 dispatched callback queue.
22:45:40
22:45:40 SystemUIServer [289]:13363 -> diskarbitrationd [41]
22:45:40 dispatched response, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1s1.
22:45:40 dispatched response, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1s2.
22:45:40
22:45:40 diskarbitrationd [41] -> diskarbitrationd [41]
22:45:40 probed disk, id = /dev/disk1s6, with hfs, failure.
22:45:40 probed disk, id = /dev/disk1s6, no match.
22:45:40
22:45:40 diskarbitrationd [41] -> SystemUIServer [289]:13363
22:45:40 dispatched callback, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1s6.
22:45:40 dispatched callback queue.
22:45:40 dispatched callback, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1s4.
22:45:40 dispatched callback, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1s3.
22:45:40 dispatched callback, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1.
22:45:40
22:45:40 SystemUIServer [289]:13363 -> diskarbitrationd [41]
22:45:40 dispatched response, id = 914042DE:00000000, kind = disk peek, disk = /dev/disk1s6.
22:45:40
Mac OS X (10.4)
Mac OS X (10.4)

Cannot see external hard drive in finder even though listed in Disk utility

I have a major problem with my G5 after file vault became corrupted and I had to erase the user account with all my data after consultation with an Apple Store Genius.
I have an external Iomega external back up but the finder does not list it anymore and it does not appear on the desktop. It is seen by disk utility however and I have run disk repair which says its fine. When it is not mounted, the icon next to the hard drive name (in disk utility) is a firewire external drive, but when I do mount it it appears as the unrecognized file type icon (the icon with the piece of paper with a bent corner). It also doesn't show up when I enable hidden folders.
It does however mount on my son's iMac. All my data is on this external disk and its my only copy left.
Please can you help me or point me toward a previous thread. I have tried ejecting it and remounting the HD after turning it off but no luck.
Yours
Mr Desperate

USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151?viewlocale=en_US
What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire device
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88338
Dealing with FireWire problems (drives not mounting, devices unrecognized, etc.)
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20041221081432908
 Cheers, Tom

My install of maverick failed as disk is damaged and cannot repaired. I tried to erase disk but got error that disk cannot be umounted. Please help! Thank you very much.

My install of maverick failed as disk is damaged and cannot repaired. I tried to erase disk but got error disk cannot be unmounted. Please help. What can i do? Thank you very much.

First have you got a backup of your data? If not try to get one now while you have some access to the drive. The drive is probably faulty and will need to be replaced, without the backup you risk losing the data.
Have you a bootable external USB drive with Mavericks on it, if so boot from that and try and repair or erase the drive and reinstall Mavericks.
If you don't have Mavericks on an external drive, boot from you Leopard DVD ( I am presumimg your profile is correct) and run Disk Utility from there, you may be able to erase the drive and reload Leopard. You can then install Mavericks. Even if all that works you will most likely need a new drive in the near future.

External disks will not mount on new OS install

Hi,
I just had to reformat and reinstall all the OS and applications on a imac g5 for a friend of mine. I have updated all the os to 10.5.8 and have installed user software iWork, iLife, Microsoft office and Roxio's Toast 10 and a family history software called Reunion. That is all that has been done to this new install.
I went to transfer her personal files back and I can't get any external disks to mount. They will all show in disk utility but will not mount the desktop. I have tried 2 different drives formatted in Mac OS Exteded Journalled as well as MS-Dos Fat32. I have also tried flash drives formatted in each of these formats. All of these drives are readable on several other computers I have here, including a 2008 Macbook Pro running Lion, 2010 iMac running Snow Leopard as so on.
When inserted in the iMac G5 I can see all the drives in disk utiltiy and was able to even erase and reformat a drive to differnt format ( mac extended to Fat32) without issues to mount on the other computers.
Cd's mount just fine.
Anyone have any clues as to what's going on? Any thoughts are most welcome.
Thanks
pax

BDAqua wrote:
What exactly shows in System Profiler>Hardware>USB for those drives?
Boot from the Install Disc & see if they show up, not grayed out in Disk Utility.
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
We were thinking along the same lines. While at home I dug up a firewire enclosure and put a bootable GUID formatted drive in it (that I had in one of the usb enclosures) and started her computer holding down the option key and then chose to boot from the external firewire. All usb drives are now mounting upon connection. I asume that her drive has bad sectors on it (even though the SMART status says it's OK) and is not loading all the drivers properly for USB to mount. I was suspicious from the beginning that the OS was corrupt when she first had me look at it. It was at that point that I booted it in target mode, connected to my Macbook Pro, and then CCC'd to a usb drive that I had. I then had a couple of difficulties installing the new OS. Should have known......
I am now going to put a new drive in it for her and she'll be up and running.
Thanks so much for your help and thoughts that got me thinking as well.
pax

FRUSTRATED! Cannot access Seagate external HDD - message is "the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer"

I get the message "the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" when trying to access my Seagate external HDD.
Disk Utility lists both the Seagate drive and volume but all options (verify disk, repair disk) are greyed out.
It says the volume is unmounted and Windows_FAT_32.
(The external HDD used to be formatted for NTFS, but when I moved across to Apple last year, I reformatted to FAT32).
I haven't accessed the drive for a few months but the last time I did, it worked fine.
I'm running OS X 10.9.5 on MBA bought last year.
I've spent 2 hours trawling through blogs/mac forums/apple support and nearly bought Disk Warrior out of frustration, but surely there must be a simpler solution?
I don't think I'm dealing with a corrupt drive, just an inaccessible one!
Any help greatly appreciated, even if it is to pay the $$$ for DW...!
Thanks, Jay

See mount section in 1st link.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

I have an old G3 I would like to donate, but I have forgotten my password and cannot erase the two partitions on my disk.

I have an old G3 I would like to donate, but I have forgotten my admin password and cannot erase the two partitions on my disk. I have the CD for 10.3.9 that one partition is running but when I boot from the CD, it wants to set up by connecting to the internet and I cannot connect on the old machine.
I've tried several schemes by logging in with command s and carefully typing directions, but when I reboot it just gives me the old admin.
It keeps trying to connect to network which I do not want to do.
I guess no one really wants an old G3 but I used it for years and I hate to destroy it.

Sure you can.
Drive Partition and Format
1. Boot from your OS X 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.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, 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.
No password is required for this unless you set up a firmware password.

Cannot mount external but if I run disk verifty it mounts

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