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

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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

How do you fix bad blocks on an external hard drive without using disk utility

so basically does anyone know how to fix bad blocks on a external hard drive without using disk utlility please

Oh...if you have data you are trying to save then its best to try cloning the drive to another one, which should save its data as-is to another drive. Hopefully you can do so without there being hangups around the bad blocks and keep at least most of your data intact. I'd recommend you try using Carbon Copy Cloner to do this, but you will need a secondary drive that is at least the size of the data on the problematic drive.

IMac Finder cannot see external hard drive but Disk Utility can

I have a WD external hard drive and it has been attached to my iMac for a year or two. About two months ago I upgraded to Lion 10.7.5 and hard drive still worked. Then suddenly about a week ago the iMac no longer sees the external hard drive in Finder.
I have connected the hard drive to the iMac with different USB cables and into different ports and it makes no difference so deduce there is no issues with the cables or the ports. I have connected the hard drive to an old Macbook and it can see the harddrive and read some of the info but I really need the hard drive attached to the iMac as I store all my music and photos on the external hard drive.
I read another thread and someone asked if you can see the hard drive in Disk Utility. I tried this and Disk Utility can see the hard drive.
What does this mean? Any suggestions as to how to get the iMac to see the hard drive so I can access the data on it?
I dont really know how Disk Utility works therefore if that is any help to me.
thanks

Open the Finder.
From the Finder menu bar click Finder > Preferences then select the General tab.
Make sure: External disks is selected.

External hard drive seen in Disk Utility, but will not mount.

My external hard drive has power and is spinning, but will not mount. It was fine yesterday. It shows up in Disk Utility and is verified and repaired. Tried the drive on 2 other macs with same result. Tried a new enclosure and that did not work. Tried all ports...usb and firewire. Any way to save my data?
I have screen shot of the partition info from Disk Utility for the hard drive included:

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

External Hard Drive showing in Disk Utility - but not desktop.

A little background:
Yesterday, I moved my shelf where I have my modem, Airport Extreme, Airport Express and an external HD connected to the extreme to be a wireless HD for all users to access. Everything worked great - no problems whatsoever.
Problem: I have reconnected everything exactly as it was and reconfigured it as it was and now the external HD is having issues. When connected to the extreme, I can see it in the airport utility, but cannot gain access to it in that way. When I connect directly to my macbook, it is recognized by the disk utility, but does not appear on the desktop.
I don't know if this may have caused the problem, but I carelessly, unplugged the power bar for which all the above mentioned hardware plugs into when moving the shelf. Now, everything works as it did, except I can't get the express to show up once it is configured (but this isn't surprising as I had to fight with it the first time I configured it - not uncommon I am told), and the HD is no longer accessible via the network, or when directly connected to my macbook.
Help! According to the utilities, the data is still on the disk, I just can't access it in any way.

From the Disk Utility, select the drive and click on the Repair Disk(not Repair Permissions) button. If the Disk Utility finds a problem it can't fix, DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro will likely succeed.
(24355)

Can't modify external hard drive partition with Disk Utility

Hi,
I have an external 750GB hard drive that I previously formatted as FAT 32 because I wanted to be able to plug it into Windows computers as well. I was not very thoughtful at the beginning and I just created one big 750GB partition. I currently have 450GB used and about 300GB free.
I would like to create a new partition in the free space without losing the data I have in the disk, and format the new partition as Mac OS Extended to use it for Time Machine backups. Presumably Disk Utility can do it, but when I go to the "Partition" tab it says "This partition cannot be modified" and the "+" sign below it is grayed. Can anybody help me repartitioning my drive without losing my data?
Thanks!!!

That would likely be because the drive is partitioned MBR and not GUID. You cannot repartition an MBR partitioned drive on the fly. What you need is a drive that is partitioned using GUID (GPT) with on partition formatted for the Mac and the other formatted FAT32. But to do that you must start the drive from scratch:
Drive Preparation
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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the entire partition in the rectangle by clicking on it (the lines will turn darker blue) and click on the [+] Add button. The volume will be divided in two. Select each volume and resize as your require.
5. Select one of the volumes you just created. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button.
6. Repeat Step 5 using MSDOS as the format type.
This will work with any PC that understands the GPT partition scheme which is Vista and Windows 7. Otherwise, you should just leave the drive as it is and forgo using Time Machine or purchase another drive for Time Machine.

Why won't my external hard drive mount in Disk Utility even when it shows up on the list?

Hey all,
For the last few years I've used a Samsung S2 1TB external harddrive to back up all my files, this includes photos, music and a vast amount of resources required for Uni. However I plugged it in for the first time in about two months and discovered that neither my Macbook Pro (late 2011) or my Mac Mini (early 2013) are able to mount the hard drive.
It shows up in Disk Utilty however the harddrive is greyed out and when I manually try to mount it I get an error message saying that it can't be mounted and to use the first aid 'Repair disk permissions' feature which would be all good and well were that not also greyed out.
I've read a fair amount on this forum that suggest that Mavericks has caused quite an issue with harddrives and although I don't know for sure, the harddrive did stop working at a very similar time to when I updated. I've sinced used the basic version of 'Disk Drill' on the harddrive and all the files show up perfectly which leads me to believe that perhaps the issue isn't with the harddrive itself but perhaps a compatibility issue.
I was just wondering whether anyone had any advice or had suffered a similiar issue, preferably in relation to the Samsung S2 harddrive. The partition type is a Windows_FAT_32 and it's a USB hard drive.
Thanks in advance!

Because there's a problem with the disk's directory structure; these are often the result of improperly unplugging drives or forcing a computer to shut down. Proceed as instructed, or try using a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior to repair it.
(111975)

Can't find External Hard drive in Finder / Disk Utility.

I have a Seagate 3TB drive that I have split between Time Machine and general storage. The drive is no longer able to be found in Finder or Disk Utility. I've restarted the drive, reset the PRAM and SMC (another thread suggested this) and it still has not worked. Any idea how to view this drive?

Is it a USB drive? Is it detected in another port?
Do other computers detect it?
If you boot to recovery (hold cmd + r) does disk utilities see it there?

How long to erase 3TB external hard drive 7x with disk utility?

Just wondering, started Sunday afternoon and its still going 2 days later.

The 7x erase formatting was added to Disk Utility because of government agencies who have it as a requirement for their security. For most people a 1x erase and zero all data is sufficient. Do you really need to do the 7x?
Best of luck.

IPhoto cannot see external storage drive

Very unusual freeze-up while "repairing" iPhoto required a forced shut down. Now cannot see external hard drive with photos on it. Can you help please.

Have no idea the format of the external disk. It plugs into the back of my big monitor and has worked perfectly until I upgraded to Yosemite and iPhoto 9.8 in late December. I had difficulty setting up iPhoto at that time, and you fine folks walked me though the process in mid January. All photos were there and in the proper albums. External disk is a Seagate Free Agent GoFlex, and it is backed up on Mozy and also on an iPad Air 2.
Problem started when I simply plugged in my iPhone and iPhoto told me I had to repair my database, which I did -- it took some time. Then I had to do something with Permissions. That never ended and a Word document froze on screen while I was working on it, and when I couldn't close any tabs in Safari -- couldn't do anything, actually -- iPhoto was continuing to spin with Permissions. Finally after about 15 minutes of that, I did a hard "push the start button" shutdown. The restart took a very long time.
Since I installed Yosemite and got iPhoto working -- when it was working -- the entire computer has been a bit sluggish and slow. And for the first time ever --and I've used Macs since the 1980s -- I had a freeze yesterday. Likely unrelated, but just a data point.
(BTW, is there any way I can find the discussion I had w/you folks back when I setup this iPhoto in mid-January? Anyway to search and find it in Support?)

Time machine not seeing external hard drive in time line

can anyone help
time machine not seeing external hard drive in time line
before 2013
information say in 2009 is not accessable to view this
i must select external drive from finder
the time machine icon not recognising

thanks for reply
when i open time machine the time line on right side of page
has date ranging from 2014 back to 2010 but only highlight date from 2014 back to 2013
anything before 2013 is greyed out and cannot not be selected
when i touch the pages they only rush towards me a limited amount then stops
also why it shows date as 2014 is strange

HT3231 Migration assistant doesnt see external hard drive

Mac OS 10.7.5 Intel 2 gHx Core 2 Duo. Just replaced a crashed hard drive. Migration assistnat doesnt see external hard drive, although it is on desktop and working fine. Connected by USB. I have a backup on the external drive. Too large to place on internal hard drive. So frustrating! I looked at forums online, no help. Any ideas?

1. Definitely 10.7.5
2. I'm not convinced it is a TM drive. It has been used as such, but I am not sure of its current status. Of note, Time machine is currently using it, but I get the sense that it only uses part of the drive. The file I want to use is in a seperate directory of the external hard drive than backups.backupdb, where Time machine is currently writing. The file I want to use is called "Untitled - 2012.01.16-10.17.00.766.FullBackup" and the file type is package. Of note, Time machine let's me have the option to restore the stuff it has been writing for the last few days. Migration assistant, however, is not so cooperative.
3. I have been opening migration assistant, putting in password, choosing "from a Time machine backup or other disk", and then it shows only "Mac OS" as an option under "select your system".
Thanks for your interest and help!

Can I move cache to external hard drive to save disk space for photoshop and bridge?

Can I move cache to external hard drive to save disk space for photoshop and bridge?

So could I take everything off my external hard drive, save it to my Mac, then re-format it for my Mac and move everything back to the external hard drive?
Yes. Keep in mind that you need to back up all data, including the data on an external drive. So if you're going to use the external drive to store original data, as opposed to backups, then you really need another one to back up the first one. You also need to back up the data on your internal drive, of course. This isn't optional. You must do it, or you'll lose everything sooner or later. All disk drives fail eventually, often with no warning.
If I do that how do I format the external hard drive for my Mac?
Launch the Disk Utility application and search the built-in help for "erase."
Would it be easier to just buy a external hard drive that is for a Mac?
All external hard drives work with Macs. Some might come pre-formatted for use with Macs, but it only takes a few minutes to do that yourself.

How do I set up an external hard drive as startup disk?

How do I set up an external hard drive as startup disk?

Install OS X onto the external drive. Then:
Boot Using OPTION key:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the
"OPTION" key.
3. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
4. Select the external disk's icon from which you want to boot.
5. Click on the arrow button below the icon.

Cannot see external hard drive except in disk utility

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