Exrernal drive not readable

I have a seagate 1tb external hard drive for time machine, itunes, etc. I upgraded to SL yesterday and I now get a message that the drive is unreadable. Any suggestions???

where do you get this message? repair the drive with disk utility (repair disk, not permissions). any errors?

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  • External Hard drive "not readable", does not show up in Disk Warrior either. Help me, please!

    I have a 500gb G Drive Slim that is almost brand new. I accidentally pulled the cord out when it was connected, and now when I try to open it, it says "not readable by this computer." This is what I see when I go into disc utility:
    I called G Drive, and they told me to download Disk Warrior 4. I did, and this is what I see when I open it:
    My hard drive doesn't show up...i'm not sure if i'm doing something wrong but I just paid $100 dollars for this and I'd really like some help. I read the manual and it wasn't helpful at all.
    Please help me!

    Make sure it's format is Mac OS Extended (Journeled).
    To check it's format, plug in the External HDD and search Disk Utility in the spotlight. Click the External HDD and go to the Partition tab. If it isn't Mac OS Extended change it and format it.
    You shouldn't need any of these external applications to use it. I have one and use it like a flash drive.

  • External Hard Drive not Readable & Input/Output Error?

    I was using my OWC 300gb external hard drive for a while and it's worked great. I had a bunch of files on it, but I recently transferred everything to another external HD I have, which worked fine, so I could erase this 300gb one. I can't remember what happened, but somehow my Macbook doesn't recognize this hard drive. I think erased everything and then unplugged it without ejecting it first. Anyways, nothing is on the the drive anymore and I get this error message:
    "The disk you inserted was not readable by your computer"
    This pops up when I restart my Macbook. When I try to use Disk Utility, it greys everything out on the partition and Disk Repair tabs. On the 'Erase' tab, it will allow me to select Erase, but then gives me the error:
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    Does anyone know how to get my Macbook to see my drive (so I can start to partition it)? For some reason only Disk Utility acknowledges it's there, Finder won't.
    Anyone have any tips of what it is or what I can try? I did try to use my OS discs booting up holding C, but that doesn't work either.

    Hi there. Everyone is saying on these forums that the hard drive is failing...suck. I went and bought a new when I got input/output error and found that the new one showed the same input output error, making it impossible to partition the disk. Then the guy in the apple service center told me the new one was bad too, after having seen the code that came up related to my new scorpio 250 GB drive. Instead of sending it back, I took it out and installed the old one..however this time with a slihtly more of pressure on the tape holding down the hard drive cable between the hard drive and the circuit board. Amazingly, this time it didn't even show any hard drive at all! Then I understood what was wrong. It was exactly what was indicated an "input/output errror"! ..the cable was broken. I bought a new cable, well the Powerbookmedic sold it as new but it was an old working one that arrived. Immediately, after change of cable the old hard drive and now also the new 250 GB works perfectly! I remember that some interesting symptoms prior to all hard drive problems appeared, such as not being able to start up properly, strange blue screens, flipping question marks etc. I remember that shaking the comp occasionally worked to get it going. No wonder, shaking occasionally made it work and i believe the damaged cable maybe changed position and started conducting. The cable is very sensitive and probably should not be taped down so hard as the first service center guy at apple had done with mine when he fixed it the comp a few years ago. Polymers/plastics bent heavily become fragile/brittle with time and are specially sensitive under pressure/bent. Note that my old damaged cable still conducted and showed the hard drives but didn't work fully. I hope this will help someone, it took me 2 month to figure out..

  • External Drive Not Readable/Intermittent

    I have a Toshiba HDD that was extracted from a Windows PC for data recovery and the drive is being connected via USB 3.0. As soon as I connect the drive the following message appears:
    "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
    As the drive is corrupted, this is understandable. However, soon after ignoring the message and proceeding to use the recovery software (Ontrack EasyRecovery Professional) the drive is disconnected and reconnected again. This triggers the same error message as before and then the cycle begins again. When trying to initialize I can see the drive connecting/disconnecting every 3-4 seconds.
    I tried connecting the drive to a different computer (Sony Vaio with Windows 7) and it had no problems, so it is not the USB cable or the drive itself. Even tried the demo version of the recovery software and all the data is still intact, but the license is not transferable.
    I really need to recover the data from this drive so formatting is not an option. So, if anybody knows how to prevent the drive from being intermittent I would really appreciate it.
    Working with a MacBook Pro 15in Retina Early 2013, OS X 10.10.1.
    Thank you!

    To boil it down...
    This behavior only happens on your MBPro / Yosemite running 3rd party App "Ontrack EasyRecovery Professional" DURING the recovery process?
    Drive is readable on two Win PCs?
    I would say that the "Ontrack EasyRecovery Professional" is having trouble with Yosemite, but it seems that it would simply fail to run at all, rather than fail in a process(?)
    I will ask our Hosts to move this to MBPro / Yosemite for more targeted help.
    ÇÇÇ

  • USB external drive not readable by mac but readable by windows

    Hi, I have a usb external drive (Seagate FreeAgentDesktop Media) which works fine with windows xp but cannot be read by the mac. I reinstalled the mac a couple of days ago because it was being very slow and I had a bunch of junk on it. Anyway, after that, it won't read the external drive. It will give me an error message saying that the disk is not readable by the computer. Sometimes it will give me the message saying that the drive was unmounted improperly by windows and for me to unmount it correctly. When I go back to windows, it's there, then I restart and go back to mac, it'll give me the message that the disk is not readable. I have 2 of these drives and both of them have this issue. I also tried disk warrior but it says that the file system cannot be rebuilt. I tried USB flashdrives and they work. I got all the data off of one of the external drives into the other and I couldn't format or even erase the drive because it says that the permission was denied. However, I could format it and erase it with the installation DVD. But I had the same result no matter what format they were in. I have very important data on these drives and I really need to be able to use them with both operating systems. Thanks a lot!

    Hi Schmerz Meister;
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    This will of course destroy all data on the disk so make sure you have copies of the data elsewhere,
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  • External Hard Drive not readable - please help!

    Dear All
    I use an intel imac, running snow leopard, backed up to a 2TB Time Capsule.
    In order to create more space on my imac, I decided to use a seagate hard drive (that has faithfully served me for backups over a couple of years, pre time capsule) for storing my ever expanding home movie selection.
    To avoid problems (and to make a clean start with this disk), I deleted everything on the drive via disk utility. I then ran a single partition on the drive using the settings of GUID partition with Mac OS Extended Journaled (i.e. so I selected partition so there is only 1 volume) . Everything went smoothly. I then copied my film collection to my hard drive. I then tested it - the films were on there and I could play them.
    Now when I reboot, I get the message "the disk you inserted was not readable by the computer. Initialize / ignore / eject"?
    What have I done wrong? Have I erased / formatted my backup drive incorrectly? How can I fix this?
    I have another backup drive (that I keep offsite) that still is readable by the computer, so I do not think it is a hard ware problem.
    I'm not in diaster zone yet. My movies are still on the imac, on time machine and backed up on the offiste external drive. However, in the need to create more space, I just need to be able to store files on external drives and then use them!!
    Any help much appreciated
    cheers
    Paul

    Most likely the drive is partitioned in NTFS format. Macs can read that format, but not if the disk is corrupt. You should do two things. First, immediately make a backup of the data on that disk. Obviously you'll need a PC to do this. Then, also using the PC, run the Windows chkdsk program to repair the disk. If it can be repaired, it should then be readable on your Mac.

  • External hard drive not readable anymore after a blackout.

    We had a blackout yesterday and now my external drive comes up as not readable, it has all my iTunes as well as photo's that are not replaceable. When I attempted to repair permissions, it would only allow me to delete and re-format the hard drive, which I haven't done as I don't want to loose all my stuff. I can't even access my time machine to go back to before the black out. Please help.

    Do not attempt to perform a permissions repair. That is not related to the problem you are experiencing.
    Do you have that external hard drive set up as a single partition or multiple partitions? If multiple partitions, are all the partitions failing to mount?
    Regardless, you are going to have to move to a more robust (and expensive) method of recovering your data than is available with the tools provided by Mac OS X. Your best chance of recovering your data without spending an inordinate amount of money is DiskWarrior:
    http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/
    If the data is very valuable to you and you really really can't lose it, then you might care to try a profesional data recovery laboratory. It is extremely expensive – thousands of dollars whether they are successful or not. There are many good labs; here's one:
    http://www.datarecoverylabs.com/
    In the future, you simply have to learn to keep redundant backups. Keeping active files on the same device as your backups makes no sense at all; you might as well not bother creating the backups if you're going to do that. Read here for good advice on backups:
    http://www.mac-essentials.info/?page_id=213

  • External hard drive not readable

    I have a Seagate 60 GB  and a WD 120 external hard drives that have been using on my macbook for about a year and it's formated to work on a mac. Recently, whenever I plug it in, it says that the disk is not readable. It shows up on disk utility, but nowhere else. It says not supported after SMART status. verify disk is not available. nor are repair disk, verify disk permissions, or repair disk permissions.
    I've never traveled with them before, I dont know if maby something happened in the airports or something.
    Please help.

    So I guess this means I've lost this information??
    There's a good chance that that's true, but there is still hope of recovering it. Assuming you have your Mac working, download one or both of these data recovery utilities and see whether they tell you that some or all of your data is recoverable. Both utilities are offered in free demo versions that will show you exactly what you'd be able to recover with the full, purchased version. Note that everything you recover must be saved to a different disk from the one it's being recovered from. If your Mac's internal drive is large enough to accommodate everything you may want to recover, that will be OK.
    Data Rescue 3: http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
    FileSalvage 7: http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1

  • External drive not readable

    I have a La Cie external drive that I use to store my video on. When I plugged it in to either of my two computers today, it says this disk is not readable by this computer, Does anyone know how I can recover or read the data ( mostly by FCE HD projects ) ? thanks joanlvh

    Try a different cable, though it's possible the drive has failed. Does it spin up? Is it making any noises?

  • Hard drive "not readable by this computer"

    I have a MacPro Retina and soon after the latest Yosemite update (not sure if this is the cause) my Transcend 1.5TB External hard drive would no longer mount, it would come up with the message " the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer". The disk however does show up in disk utility but i can not verify nor repair the disk as these options are greyed out! i have two other hard drives and they are still working fine. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

    Erase the drive and reformat using your Mac (Disk Utility)

  • New G-Tech Drive "Not Readable by Computer"

    Please help !
    I bought a brand new G-Tech 1TB drive just 3 months ago. I used it once. No problems. Just fine. Then we moved across the country and this is the first time in 3 months I am revisiting my hard drive. But when I plug it in, all it says is "Not Readable by your computer." When I go to disc utilities, this is what I see:
    I am NOT very tech savvy. I don't know where to go from here. I believe I had just a couple of photo files on the hard drive. But I can't get into the drive for the life of me! What happened? How do I get this brand spankin' new hard drive to start working again!?
    Thank You!

    Unplug the drive, reboot the Mac and try again.

  • HDD in Optical Drive Not Readable

    Hello. I just installed a 1TB HDD in my optical drive. When I turn on the computer a screen pops up and "the disk you insterted is not readable." Thus, the disc is not in the list of devices in finder. However, when I open disk utility, I can see the disk but cannot verify the disk, repair the disk or anything else. I can partition the disk or something like that. It says under "partion map scheme: unformatted." I can hear the hdd spinning as well. I dont know if this has something to do with anything. If anyone knows anything about what I should do or what the problem is I would greatly appreciate it.
    Thanks in advance.

    sure, create folders and drag and drop or export your collections, it behaves internally the same way an external HD does.
    create and structure your files for easy finding of your data.
    If I can manage 40 Terabytes this way over many diff. HD, anyone can do same on a single HD.
    There are other ways to structure files, and fancy APPS for same,
    look into an extremely useful tool called PATHFINDER for Mac.

  • External drive not readable on new iMac

    Hi, I recently bought a NEW iMac with USB 3 and Thunderbolt. I am upgrading from an OLDER iMac with firewire 800 and 400. The OLD iMac was operating on OSX 10.58. The NEW iMac is operating on Mountain Lion OSX 10.82. I have been using 4TB G-Drive for about 6 months on the OLD iMac. I connected the G-Drive to the NEW iMac via and I get the message: "the disk you inserted is not readable by this computer."
    I go back to my OLD iMac and the drive mounts fine. So I backed up the G-Drive to another external, connected it to my NEW iMac (via USB 3) and re-formatted it. Now it mounts on the desktop and is acting normal on the NEW iMac. However, when I connect it via firewire to the OLD iMac it no longer mounts on that computer and I get the message "the disk you inserted is not readable by this computer."
    What is going on?
    Whichever computer I format the drive with, it wont mount on the other. I've never encountered something like this! It is important that I am able to use this drive on multiple MAC computers as I am regularly moving between editing systems and collaborating with other people on various Mac computers. I don't think it is a firewire / USB 3 issue as it works with both cabels (once it has been formatted by either the old or new iMac). I am thinking it has something to do with Mountain Lion?
    Any ideas and expertese appreciated.

    Yes. The G-Drive required a firmware update which was provided to me by G-Drive Tech Staff.
    I downloaded the update and then after re-formatting the drive it now works with all computers (Firewire, USB 3, etc). The problem was connected to Firewire and USB 3.
    The file they provided was called: G-Drive USB 3.0 Firmware Update Utility.
    -Ben

  • External Hard Drive not readability

    I'm very very disappointed and frustrated to see that my iMac doesn't recognize my external hd anymore. I tested it on PC, it could recognize but some files are not readbility. I took all files out of the hard drive and see if I can read the files on my iMac, it turned out that some files are corrupted, it said "UNIX exectuable file". I don't know what it means or what really happened.
    I tried to use disk utility on my hard drive; tried to mount it, it won't work. I tried to repair it, it said "Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit." What does it mean? I really don't want to lose all my data information especially my PHOTOS and my SCHOOL WEB/GRAPHICS PROJECTS that means so much to me.
    PowerBook G4 laptop & iMac 2GHZ Intel Duo   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

    First have a backup hard drive available. you may need Disk Warrior and Data Rescue to help. If you click on Support and search, you will find Apple has an article on what "underlying task" error is about.
    Some files on Mac won't be readable. All the system files and application packages. 'Took all files out' - you mean copied to PC? I assume it can read mac files and knows about data and resource forks?
    Core Duo systems format FW drives with a different scheme. I assume you had it partitioned so you could share a partition between your PB and iMac?

  • New external hard drive not readable, don't want to erase data

    Recently, my old external hard drive's USB port had broken, so I'd taken it to a tech shop where he replaced the motherboard in my old hard drive and slotted it into a new one.
    However, my Mac does not recognise it, giving me this message:
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    Trouble is, every question I've seen so far on here that gets it recognised results in erasing the data on the drive first. All of my information is on the hard drive, so I don't want to erase anything at all on there. Is there any way I can get my Mac to recognise the drive without me having to erase all the data? I'll be eternally grateful to anyone who can save this for me.

    The second screen shot suggests that the disk has already been reformatted (and not even in a Mac format). Did you make it clear to the tech shop folks that you needed to retain the data on the disk?

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