Drive Not Appearing on Desktop or in Finder

Hi,
My computer has been off for a week while I've been off on vacation and I just turned it on for the first time today only to find that my external Seagate backup drive doesn't appear on my desktop or in the finder. However, when I open Time Machine settings or when I plug the USB cord in to the computer, the drive spins and seems like it wants to connect to the computer, but still doesn't show up. Any help or solution is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

It sounds like your drive may be failing.
Try the Disk Utility app, in your Applications/Utilities folder. Does the drive appear in it's sidebar? If it does, try to do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on it.
If it doesn't appear, try different ports and cables. If Disk Utility can't see it at all, there's probably not much you can do with it. If you have a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app, like Disk Warrior, it's barely possible it can see and fix it, but don't spend the $100 for DW, as it will most likely not work.
Was the disk powered-on while you were gone? Is it on a U.P.S. or surge protector? Could there have been a power surge or brownout while you were gone?
How old is it? I think most Seagates have a 5-year warranty, if that's any consolation.

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I have 4 disk drives:
2 internal
1 external (FireWire) divided into 2 partitions
Only 3 of 4 drive icons appear on my desktop or in the Finder.
I have this info from Terminal:
<pre>DavePowerMac1800:/ davebarnes$ ls -aol /Volumes
total 16
drwxrwxrwt 7 root admin - 238 Feb 22 17:34 .
drwxrwxr-t 39 root admin - 1428 Feb 22 17:34 ..
-rwx------ 1 davebarn admin - 82 Aug 18 2005 ._MARKETINGTACTIC;DAVE1833
drwxr-xr-x 19 davebarn davebarn - 748 Oct 3 21:57 Daves_280GB
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin - 1 Feb 22 17:34 Daves_80GB -> /
drwxr-xr-x 19 davebarn davebarn - 680 Jan 21 09:54 DavesGTech173GB
drwxrwxr-t 34 root admin - 1258 Feb 22 14:30 GTechBootable60GB</pre>
The missing icon belongs to DavesGTech173GB.
As a side note, Path Finder (from CocoaTech) has no trouble finding this drive.
Disk Utility finds the drive and returns this from Verify:
<pre>Verifying volume “DavesGTech173GB”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume DavesGTech173GB appears to be OK.
Mounting Disk
1 HFS volume checked
Volume passed verification</pre>
So, how do I get my icon back onto the desktop?
thanks,
dave

Not sure I have a "magic answer" but from what you've said, and the fact that it does open just fine with the "open" command, my guess is that the invisible bit for the drive has mysteriously been set. It is there, there is nothing wrong with it, it has mounted just fine. It is just invisible to the Finder. Don't remember seeing a volume with the invisible bit set before, but I have seen many other things, including one poor guy's Applications folder.
There are several ways to fix it, if that is indeed the case. The one I'm most familiar with involves using the Terminal, and the Developer Tools GetFileInfo and SetFile commands. If you don't have them, you can download them here:
http://homepage.mac.com/francines/.Public/setgetfile.zip
Unzip and either put the two commands somewhere in your PATH or, if you don't know how to do that, you can just drag and drop the command into the Terminal. So if you did that, you would do something like this:
DavePowerMac1800:/ davebarnes$ /Users/davebarnes/Desktop/setgetfile/GetFileInfo /Volumes/DavesGTech173GB/
Hit return and see what the Terminal reports. I have the commands in my PATH, so when I run the command on a partition I have named OXey, I get this:
-bash:~francine$ GetFileInfo /Volumes/OXey/
directory: "/Volumes/OXey/"
attributes: aVbstClinmed
created: 08/05/2006 20:08:50
modified: 02/17/2007 12:00:10
The part you are interested in is the attributes. You'll see the second one is an upper case "V"--meaning it is invisible (I made it invisible for the purposes of this demonstration). To bring it back into view you use the SetFile command, with the attribute option and a lower case "v" to unset the invisible bit:
-bash:~francine$ SetFile -a v /Volumes/OXey/
or yours would be something like this (again presuming SetFile isn't in your PATH, but was downloaded and unzipped on the Desktop):
DavePowerMac1800:/ davebarnes$ /Users/davebarnes/Desktop/setgetfile/SetFile -a v /Volumes/DavesGTech173GB/
You'll need to relaunch the Finder or log out and back in to see the change.
Of course, if the invisible bit hasn't been set, and GetFileInfo shows the normal lower case v to start with, then this definitely is not the magic answer!
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

External Hard Drive Not Appearing on desktop

My external HD has disappeared from my desktop. If I connect it via FW it does not appear in disk utilities or system profiler but if I connect it via usb it appears in both. I've switched out the cables, tried different ports and reset the PRAM and NVRAM. Can anyone offer any suggestions as to a fix?
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Scott:
I take it from your explanation that even though it appears in all three of the utilities that my only remaining option is to use DataRescue II. Correct?
Let's say that it is the only one that occurs to me at this time of night
The demo version will at least show you that the data is still there. Another option might be to use SuperDuper to see if you can clone the User's Folder, or indeed the entire volume to an external firewire HDD, then using DU to reformat and erase the HDD (post for directions if needed) and clone back from external firewire HDD.
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Is it possible to run Repair Disk in Disk Utility and see how it comes out? Or if you have done it already, what does it say?
While in Disk Utility, select the Manufacture ID of the external HDD and then look at the look at the icons at the very top. Is Mount dimmed or active? If active, click on it to mount the HDD.
Also, what happens if you try to Option boot?
If anything else occurs to me I will post back in the morning.
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Message was edited by: cornelius

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Hi Guy, see Niels how to here...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2087835

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Start your '''Computer''' in safe mode. Then start Firefox. Try '''Safe''' web sites.
'''[http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Linux+Safe+Mode Starting The Computer In Safe Mode;<br>Free Online Encyclopedia]'''
Sometimes a problem with Firefox may be a result of malware installed on your computer, that you may not be aware of.
You can try these free programs to scan for malware, which work with your existing antivirus software:
* [http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/default.aspx Microsoft Safety Scanner]
* [http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/ MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware]
* [http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350 Anti-Rootkit Utility - TDSSKiller]
* [http://general-changelog-team.fr/en/downloads/viewdownload/20-outils-de-xplode/2-adwcleaner AdwCleaner] (for more info, see this [http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/ alternate AdwCleaner download page])
* [http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro/ Hitman Pro]
* [http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/ ESET Online Scanner]
[http://windows.microsoft.com/MSE Microsoft Security Essentials] is a good permanent antivirus for Windows 7/Vista/XP if you don't already have one.
Further information can be found in the [[Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware]] article.
Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

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A.CHAMP wrote:
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Message was edited by: macjack
Message was edited by: macjack

Drive Not Appearing on Desktop or in Finder

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