CDs won't mount or appear on desktop....says run "First Aid"

I have an iMac running 10.5.8.
Pre-recorded CDs will not mount or appear on the desktop. They will show up
under the CD drive in disk utility. But when I try to "mount", it says try running first aid on the disk and then retry. But you can't run first aid on it.
They eject fine thru disk utility. Blank CDs appear on the desktop in normal fashion.
Anyone know what's going on? I just updated to iTunes 10 today and am getting nothing. Prior to updating, I was having to "mount" most CDs thru Disk Utility, but they would mount.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Carl

Yeah, I did have the same experience, and lucky that I managed to solve it. I remember that I put my iPod in Disk Mode and pluged it with my Mac, opened the disk utility, but went to Tab "Partition" and clicked Delete, went back to "Erase" and clicked Erase. Once it had completed, opened the iPod updater and clicked "Restore". If you cant solve it this way, go back to your PC and do a format instead of Restore. It really does not matter the the Format get completed or not, as when you plug it (even better - without an iPod software) with a computer (in disk mode), it will recognize it as an external disk and ask you whether you want to format it then do a Restore and you will put it back to life. Bear in mind that the problem is the computer recognizes it as an iPod but does not allow you to do a Restore.

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Blank cds won't mount

Ever since I replaced my hard drive, blank CDs won't mount. Curiously, they are recognized by iTunes, but not for data purposes. I have to open disk utility to eject the disks each time I try. Any ideas?

I can grasp at straws as well as anyone.
Try changing the System Prefs/CDs & DVDs setting for blank CDs and determine if the computer responds correctly to any of the options.
I would also try logging out and back in. Or logging out and logging in as another user (create a new account if you have to).
If iTunes and Disk Utility see the CD when inserted, I am guessing you have a corrupted preference for System Prefs/CDs&DVDs. I'm not sure if there is a plist you can delete, or if even a PRAM reset might do it.

Disk Utility can't mount internal disk but tells me use First Aid?

I have a Western Digital internal 500 GB hard drive that has failed. At first, Disk Utility did tell me it was damaged but still was able to mount it - giving me partial use. I also ran Disk Warrior and was able to salvage some files.
My good news is that Western Digital is replacing it, no problem. However, I have to send this one back and I want to erase the contents. But now Disk Utility cannot mount it at all and give me this cryptic message: "The Disk, WD500, could not be mounted. Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting."
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Hello Noodle-head;
Disk Utility cannot mount it at all and give me this cryptic message: ...
So you're having a HD mounting problem, Hmm.
I have tried selecting both. Neither gives me any options.
If the HD shows up in the Disk Utility App then there's a way to toast it.
Whoa! ... Now if I can just find out what a magnetron magnet is...
Don't bother because the only magnets powerful enough to scrub data from a drive platter are laboratory degaussers or those used by government agencies to wipe bits off media. That's the reason why the Disk Utility App has a '35 Zero-Pass Security Erase' option.
So you have two choices ...
Your first choice is to just send it back and don't worry about it. I doubt that WD will try to access your data unless you want them to. It's very expensive to retrieve data on a dead/dying HD. All they will probably do is verify that the HD is dead/dying & send you a replacement.
Your second choice depends upon your knowledge of Unix, if you have more than one Mac, plus if you have a Windows PC.
Let me know if you want to 'toast it' or not.
Later ...
Buzz

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I've had an external Lacie Porsche DVD burner for about 11 months now. Two months ago, both CDs & DVDs stopped mounting on the Desktop. I've aleady verified that CD & DVDV mounting on the Desktop is selected in Finder General Prefs. All CDs mount fine when inserted in the internal CD burner drive.
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You ought to try this as well on the hardware forum as well.

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Additionally, if you must have them on CD or DVD, the only thing I would suggest is the rather expensive archive media:
http://www.verbatim.com/subcat/optical-media/dvd/archival-grade-gold-dvd-r/
I have burned some very important data as well as some one-of-a-kind foreign language movies to those DVDs. They as supposed to last 50 years or so.

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This becoming more of a problem as time goes on.
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Any insights before I bite the bullet and buy a new superdrive?
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At this point because your Super Drive is still working, a lens cleaner might also help...?
For example: > Amazon.com: Memorex CD/DVD-Player Laser-Lens Cleaner: Electronics
It also might help to clean and polish the CDs that are no longer reading in your Super Drive.
see > How to Clean a DVD or CD Disc ?
and/or > Video: How to Clean CDs | eHow.com
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Intermittently, but becoming more frequent, I have been having problems burning CDs. I am burning my own recordings, so there is no copyright problem. When I burn the CD in iTunes, everything seems to go OK at first. Afterward, it mounts the disk image in iTunes and I try to play it. This usually causes iTunes to go to the spinning beachball indefinitely. I have to force quit iTunes to get it to stop. When I relaunch iTunes, the disk does not appear in it. Nor does it appear in Finder. Disk utility can see it, but I can't do anything there besides eject it. If I eject the disk and reinsert it, it still doesn't mount, although it will cause iTunes to launch. I am wondering if this is a problem with iTunes or if it could be a sign that my optical drive is problematic.
I am using the setup below. iTunes is up-to-date.

Hello Hoover411,
It sounds as though you are experiencing freezes with iTunes, and complications with your optical media. I have located an article that may help you with this situation. The article includes a number of troubleshooting steps for apps that freeze or quit:
OS X Yosemite: If an app freezes or quits unexpectedly
There are several suggestions to try.
If the app is frozen, force quit the app. Click the app’s window, then choose Apple menu > Force Quit. You can also press Option-Command (⌘)-Esc, select the app, then click Force Quit.
When you force an app to quit, you may lose unsaved changes.
If the app quit, reopen it by clicking Reopen in the dialog that appears.
Restart your Mac. For more information, see Restart your Mac.
Read the app’s documentation to check if it’s compatible with your version of OS X.
Open another file in the app. There may be a problem with the original file.
Check for updates to your software.
Disconnect any peripheral devices you just connected (for example, a printer). They may not be compatible with your version of OS X.
Uninstall any app plug-ins or enhancements from other manufacturers.
If you recently updated the app or OS X, a plug-in or enhancement you installed may no longer be compatible.
Use Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test. These tools can tell you if hardware you installed, such as additional memory, is incompatible, improperly installed, or defective.
Restart your Mac in safe mode. For more information, see Restart your Mac in safe mode.
Thank you for contributing to Apple Support Communities.
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Audio CDs won't mount

Briefly, the problem is this: Audio CDs inserted into a drive will not mount, and the system refuses to eject them. DVDs and data CDs mount/eject properly. This isn’t a hardware problem, nor a problem with the CDs themselves. Problem disappears when the Mac is booted off a system install DVD.
*More details:*
• The CDs don’t show up as icons in the Finder.
• Disk Utility doesn’t see them either, but offers the eject button on the drive. When pressed, Disk Utility hangs for about 30 seconds, them comes back with an error: +‘Eject Failed. The disk “PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-109” could not be unmounted.’+
• The Terminal.app version of Disk Utility fails as well: +drutil tray eject+
• The keyboard eject button and the eject menu also fail.
• The only way to get the disc out of the drive is to reboot and use one of the various disk ejection techniques (e.g. holding down the mouse button).
• Discs inserted into an external FireWire drive behave the same way. The disc is locked in the drive by Mac OS X, and tray eject button on the drive is disabled. (Power cycling the drive, and hitting the eject button before Mac OS X scans the disc will eject it.)
• From Terminal.app, doing a +ls /Volumes/+ displays only the boot HD. df also fails to show audio CDs
• Logging out and into another account reproduces the problem (i.e. it isn’t a user preference file problem).
• When booted from a DVD, the problem goes away; returns when booted from HD. This suggests a problem with one of the Mac OS X system files.
• May be related to the fact that audio CDs usually mount with the generic name "Audio CD”
• fsck -f has been run
This problem occurred while ripping music CDs in iTunes. All of a sudden, the iMac refused to mount a music CD. After rebooting and freeing the CD from the drive, i discovered the iMac would no longer mount any other music CDs, including ones i had mounted only minutes before. So it isn’t a bad CD causing these symptoms. And since i have two drives, and the problem began occurring on both drives simultaneously, it’s not a drive hardware failure.
I believe Jay Chow, in this post, may be on the right track. But he doesn’t seem to know what’s causing the problem.
Has anybody solved this problem?
Please don’t suggest repairing permissions, resetting parameter RAM, and the usual “cure alls.” Clearly this is related to a system file on the HD. The drive checks out fine.
Thanks in advance.

Solved!
I made a costly mistake in my troubleshooting: Logging out, then into another account reproduced the problem, but rebooting and logging into a different account — without logging into the tainted account† — didn’t. A subtle but important difference (as that does imply a user preference/data problem, and exonerates the system files).
The culprit ended up being the Gracenote Media Database file: ~/"Library/Preferences/CD Info.cidb”
Here’s my guess about what’s going on: When an audio CD is inserted, the currently active user’s Gracenote Media Database is consulted. If the database is corrupt, it can poison system RAM. From that point on, "all bets are off" for all users until the system is rebooted.
For reasons i don’t recall, i also replaced the file: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.Gracenote.plist (I only mention this in case someone else having similar difficulties is reading this, and replacing the CD Info.cidb file alone doesn’t solve the problem.)
† I think you have to log into the tainted account and try to load an audio CD before the problem actually arises.

Mini won't mount disk on the desktop

I have two disks, a cd-r and a dvd-r. Both were burned
on a windows pc, but contain files that are in formats that I
can use on my Mac.
The problem is, neither one of the disks will show up on the desktop.
It makes all sorts of noise, reading the disk when I insert it, but then just gets quiet, and no image on the desktop.
If I go to disk utility, the disk is there, but I know of no way to open it from disk utility. Is there a way to do this?
I have also heard of utilities you can download that supposedly will mount the disk on the desktop. Can someone please help?
Thanks!

Hi! Thanks so much for trying to help. ^_^
Yes, I have cd's, dvd's and ipods checked.
I haven't had this happen with any other disks that I own.
I hadn't tried 'mount' from disk utility, but gave it a try.
When I went to Disk Utility, I could highlight the disk, but I can't click on
mount, as it is not highlighted, even after I click on the disk.
These files should be playable, I just can't make the disk show up.
Would there be any other way to get these disks to show up?

DVDs & CDs won't mount on my Macbook.

I have a 2008 Macbook that will no longer play DVDs or CDs. When the disc is inserted, the drive makes some funny noises (more than just the usual crunching sound and whirring) then after about 10 seconds the disc is ejected. I have tried several different discs all with the same result. I have tried inserting a laser lens cleaning disc and it gets ejected too. These same discs that I am trying to play worked just fine last week. I have tried modifying some settings in Preferences and I have restarted the machine as well as shut down and restarted. Nothing seems to help. Any suggestions? The OS X I am running is Snow Leopard if that makes any difference.

The gist of the topic surrounding compatibility of the Apple USB SuperDrive (recent version) with older models of MacBook/Pro, /Air, iMac (intel) that had built-in optical drives, is that the older models would see their internal drive as the correct boot drive for an OS X disc. And not see the newer optical superdrive, due to changes, as one. The older Apple USB SuperDrive model was different in this regard; as was the early model intended for MB/Air.
However, I've heard of brands such as LG who make a generic USB superdrive that is less costly and it has been said these can be used as an external USB boot drive for OS X discs.
In either situation, a superdrive's compatibility for simply playing or recording to media discs is one thing; being able to boot an OS X system on DVD media is another. So there is a gray area when interpreting this. I'd suspect a generic USB superdrive may be worth the effort due to the lower cost; should it not work out exactly, it will still work as a good player. It may also do OK even if the OS X may balk at recording media (had not read that it causes issues) in so much as a work-around would be to use other recording software to use the drive.
A standalone drive, if you talk to the vendor about your issue or need for compatibility, may be an answer; especially when the original internal superdrive has failed. This OWC page has a few different options; of course internal options need to match the computer specs. External options could work, however that's why I'd ask directly, by email or phone...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/
There are a few items to note in this iFixit guide regarding the newest Apple USB superdrive that could make it worth consideration as a replacement, due to some kind of patch that may (or may not) work. Looks as though it could. Details and a method are referred to here:
http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Apple_USB_SuperDrive -- with more details about a workaround:
http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/23023/Can+I+use+the+AirSuperDrive+as+an+Exter nal+Drive+the+Mac+laptops
The method discussed in the above thread suggests a possible workaround, but may be too narrow to reasonably buy a new retail Apple USB Superdrive, to try it. The topic is interesting.
{Of course, there also are companies whose business is to repair and restore function to older Mac portables, and some are quite good at that; if you need an older model to continue use of software investment of a vintage era, compared to the latest newest models. OWC site has a few on occasion, & wegenermedia does, too; inventories vary. Or they could fix yours. There are times when it is good to have an identical spare computer; a backup device.}
There are a few options noted in following page, where LG, Samsung, & a few others are listed:
http://www.macmall.com/n/Best-External-DVD-Drive-Mac/macMainMenu-2286?q=macMainM enu-2286
Some users in the ASC discussions had good result from LG and Samsung models as external USB superdrives for use with older MacBook/iMac models whose internal optical drives had failed. Since the newest MacBook/Pro or /Air do not have optical drives, nor do the iMac or Mini, the newest Apple USB Superdrive would require a workaround to see if it could work. Some have done that, but I doubt they went out and bought the Apple model to modify it. First, it costs more than the other brands; and second, it is not recommended to modify the product because that likely would void Apple warranty.
Anyway, I'd consider a third-party name brand for the older product external superdrive replacement path; but the LG and Samsung may be able to work OK for burning discs, and to boot the computer from an OS X install disc. Some other brands of burners would prefer another brand of software to burn discs. •If you contact macsales/OWC, ask if they have a product that can use the OS X included drivers (so you install nothing) to burn DVD/CD, and about compatibility with commercial recorded discs; and also the question of importance with original install-restore or retail upgrade DVD, if they boot Mac System DVDs and support OS X like the original-internal optical superdrive.
Hopefully you can get a workable solution for your old MacBook.
Good luck & happy computing!

DVDs / CDs Won't Mount

Recently after burning DVDs - via DiskUtility and iDVD - burned DVDs will not mount: Instead after inserting and waiting the DVD simply is spit back out. Yes, I've run Disk Warrior; did fsck -y; Onyx.
What can I do now?

I've had the same problem. My SD will spit out the DVD-RW
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(Only burns at 2x though)
I can use the drive to update/grade software using the CD
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Arrrrggh!
800mhz G4, 256MB, 60G, 15"

Macintosh HD won't mount

Hi, I'm fairly new to Macs, just got my first a year ago and I'm not familiar with the system. So I have a Macbook pro with Bootcamp installed. The mac side crashed and wouldn't boot, so I tried all the solutions for a fix but nothing worked, so I was going to simply reformat it. I copied the disk image onto an external hard drive earlier this morning so data recovery shouldn't be a problem I'm hoping.What happened was I went to reinstall mac os x Mountain Lion and the Macintosh HD was locked. So i went ahead and looked up some stuff and I got a bit hasty and erased my Macintosh HD partition. However, that caused it to unmount and when I open up the reinstall screen the drive doesn't even show. Now, it won't mount. It tells me to try first aid. When I try to repair it with first aid, it says it can't and to back up and reformat, which was what I was trying to do. I'm headed off to college really soon, so I need to get this fixed fast, any help would be appreciated!

No, it's there. It's there on all my backup images. I used to be able to mount it. 10.9.4 won't let me mount it, for some reason. Even tried to mount from the recovery partition. No joy. It's just grayed out. Try to manually mount and it says could not mount. Use First-Aid and try again. First-Aid can't find anything wrong. Still won't mount.

External drive stuck in limbo - no errors, data intact, still won't mount?

Background story:
-I had an external enclosure with two drives (one Hitachi, one WD, both SATA) running seperately inside as storage. Things were good.
One day something went wrong, because I turned it on and weird clicking could be heard and the drives wouldn't mount. I tried them in another enclosure I had lying around (that was apparently borked too), panicked and brought the drives to a data recovery center.
The next day, the recovery center called me to let me know that they were able to read data off both drives and that scans showed no problems. I picked them up (and since I was already in Akihabara I bought the supplies needed to build a RAID5 bay that I've been planning for a while), got a new enclosure for them, went home.
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The disk "Photos" could not be mounted.
Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting.
I then click "Verify Disk" and the following comes up:
*Verifying Volume "Photos"*
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
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Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
+The volume Photos appears to be OK.+
The plot thickens! After some fiddling around I discover that I can make a disk image out of this unmounted partition and proceed to copy it into my shiny new 2.7TB RAID5 unit. A few hours later, I have a 600GB .dmg, which pretty much corresponds to how much data I had on that drive. When I try to mount it?
+The following disk images failed to mount: Photos.dmg (no mountable file systems)+
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Josh
Sadly, I offer no help, only commiseration and another problem. I too had the big checkmark, for similar reasons. If you want, see my posts in iPod usage-"Restore won't restore." However, I did get past the checkmark eventually (I think by running update several more times, then saying no to the last one).
Now I have a new dilemma. It seems mounted. I see it in iTunes. But when I drag songs to it, they just disappear! Poof.
I just ran Disk Utility, which also "sees" it but and it tells me, the disk ipod cannot be unmounted. This is getting very old.
noodle--head ...dis... gust...ED

Windows Partition Won't Mount in OS X

Hi,
I just used Boot Camp to install Windows. I had Windows XP installed on my MacBook Pro awhile ago, but after I got it back from a hard drive repair I didn't put Windows back on. I recently downloaded the Windows 7 RC from Microsoft's site and used boot camp to install it. The install seemed to go fine, and I was in Windows setting up stuff for awhile. When I booted back into OS X, my Windows partition would not show up on the desktop, and would not appear in the Startup Disk preference. In Disk Utility, it shows up as grayed out with the generic name "disk0s3". When you try to mount it from there, it gives the error "The disk "disk0s3" could not be mounted. Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting." Since I formatted it as NTFS (no other choice for Windows 7), I can't do a verify or repair on the disk.
Going into Terminal and doing a "diskutil list", I see the 50 GB windows partition labeled as "Microsoft Basic Data." I've been looking around for a fix but can't find anything. Many people were complaining about this issue on these discussion boards back in 2007 but there was no real solution found.
While I can still boot into Windows by restarting and holding option, it's very frustrating to not see the disk in OS X. Does anyone have a permanent fix for this? I know it can't just be something with Windows 7 because people were having this issue years ago. Could really use some help with this. Although I don't really have anything installed beyond Safari, Firefox, iTunes etc it would just be a hassle to have to reinstall, and it may end up doing the same thing.
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Adam

Alright, well I finally made progress! I had heard from other people who had this issue that installing NTFS-3G and MacFUSE didn't help, so I didn't bother before. However, I tried it just for the **** of it, and it definitely improved things. When I first restarted after installing both NTFS-3G and MacFUSE, I got a message saying that the Windows partition was unmounted "uncleanly" or something to that effect. I was given two options: to Ignore, or to Force the partition to mount. When I chose Force, it actually mounted successfully. The name on the partition was for some reason "Untitled", even though when I boot while holding option it shows the partition as "Windows". But it mounted fine, and I could write to it. I booted back into Windows, and found that under Windows the drive was also unnamed. So I named it Windows, went back into OS X and the name stuck.
The only remaining issue is that OS X still doesn't recognize it as a startup volume in the Startup Disk system preference. So in order to boot into Windows, I still need to restart with option held down; however, that's not a major issue. I was mainly concerned with being able to see files on the Windows 7 partition and transfer files from OS X to Windows and vice versa. So I'm basically happy, although I'd still be a bit happier if Startup Disk would see it as a bootable volume.
I'd still be interested to hear any other thoughts about this issue. It must be a known issue by now, since there was a very similar thread about this back in 2007, and still not fixed in Leopard seemingly. If anyone knows what may have caused this issue, or how one would have gone about fixing it without installing ntfs-3g/MacFUSE, I'd be interested. Still hoping the issue will be fixed under Snow Leopard.
Adam

CDs won't mount or appear on desktop....says run "First Aid"

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