Ext HD recognized but won't mount

Trying to use my firewire/usb ext HD. It is recognized in disc utility and system profiler, but won't mount. I honestly can't remember whether the HD was disconnected or turned off before unmounting, but that's my suspicion. Tried connecting through usb---nothing. I've tried repairing with disc utility, but still nothing. I even had my neighbor plug it into his pc which wasn't any help (but nevermind that). Any advice?

Hi, Jason. Is the drive powered by its own AC adapter, or is it a bus-powered unit? If the latter, its power requirements may exceed what the bus can provide, and the solution will be to power it externally (or if there's no place on it to plug in an AC adapter, replace its enclosure with one that can be powered externally).
Spinning up but failing to mount is classic behavior for a bus-powered drive that exceeds the bus's power budget. That your drive won't mount when connected either through a FW or a USB port strongly indicates that it isn't your connecting cable(s) at fault, since the likelihood that both types of cable are bad is very small.
You don't say whether the drive was recognized by the PC you connected it to. Was it?
Has this drive ever mounted properly on your Mac's desktop, or is it a new drive that has never been formatted on a Mac? Is Disk Utility able to format it (as Mac OS Extended) or not?

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External drive partition is recognized but won't mount.

I've searched the support forum and I can't seem to find this problem... MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz Intel Core2Duo. External LaCie 500GB drive. I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive. Everything went smoothly and no errors occurred. So, I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore will is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair. Using Tech Tool to rebuild the volume checks out as well. I'm stumped!! Any ideas? I'm sure it's some silly thing I've just never heard of, but I don't have any ideas left in me. Thanks for any info.

Kujawa wrote:
I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive.
I'm curious why you didn't try to use Disk Utility to do this.
I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore will is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair.
In Disk Utility, when you select that volume in the "sidebar", under the "File" menu is the "Mount ..." menu item available? If so, what happens if you invoke it?
I'm not suggesting that you use this approach every time, but it might provide additional information that would help others solve your problem.

External drive volume is recognized but won't mount.

I've searched the support forum and I can't seem to find this problem... MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz Intel Core2Duo. External LaCie 500GB drive. I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive for 3 partitions. Everything went smoothly and no errors occurred. So, I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair. Using Tech Tool to rebuild the volume checks out as well. I'm stumped!! Any ideas? I'm sure it's some silly thing I've just never heard of, but I don't have any ideas left in me.
other checkpoints.... In Disk Utility: the drive is in the sidebar, but there is no "Mount" option available for the drive, since it is, apparently, already mounted.
Also... If I use the Finder menu item Go -> Go to Folder and enter "/Volumes" (without the quotes), I can see all 3 volumes on the external drive.
There is about 28GB of data on this volume, but I do have it backed up.
Thanks for any info.

Kujawa wrote:
I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive.
I'm curious why you didn't try to use Disk Utility to do this.
I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore will is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair.
In Disk Utility, when you select that volume in the "sidebar", under the "File" menu is the "Mount ..." menu item available? If so, what happens if you invoke it?
I'm not suggesting that you use this approach every time, but it might provide additional information that would help others solve your problem.

EZ Quest Firewire 400 ext drive works in 10.4 (PPC) but won't mount in 10.6 (Intel)

I have an EZ Quest external FireWire 400 drive. Was working fine on my MDD Mac running OS X 10.4.11. NOW, when I hook it up to my iMac running OS X 10.6.8, it will not mount. Tried different ports. Tried device on and off at boot. Doesn't show up on desktop or in sidebar of finder window or in System Profiler. Drive powers up, but won't mount. Please help. Thanks. Dennis

I have the same problem. Two different EZQuest Quad interface drives suddenly won't mount on my 2010 iMac (Core Duo) via the firewire 800 or 400 ports. If I use a USB cable, both drives mount as normal, but I need the Firewire 800 ports to stream audio samples for Logic.
Both of these drives were working fine for over a year until I upgraded recently to 10.6.8 on the iMac and then tried to use one of the drives yesterday with a new 2012 MacBook Pro (10.7.4). The drive mounted once on the MacBook Pro, then disappeared and now will not mount on either the MacBook Pro or my iMac.
I tried resetting the PRAM and SMC on the iMac, but the drives still won't mount via firewire. The fact that both EZQuest drives still mount via USB indicates this is a firewire problem particular to Mac OS 10.6.8 and 10.7 rather than an external drive problem. It also seems that many people are experiencing this regardless of the external drive brand. Does anybody know how to fix this?

External Firewire drives power up, but won't mount.

I wanted to see if anyone else is having this problem. I recently upgraded my mom's laptop to OSX Lion after she experienced a lot of problems with Snow Leopard. All updates available from Software Update have been installed. Now 2 issues have arisen after the new install: 1) the FW 800 and 400 ports appear to be non-functional, and 2) the OS takes about 10 minutes to boot up to the desktop.
1) Regarding the FW ports: I have a couple external Firewire 800 hard drives that I use on other Macs so I know they're fully operational and mount without any issues. They're both 5400RPM drives that have been inserted into Macally external enclosures, and are of different capacities - one is 320GB and the other is 500GB. The enclosures offer FW 800, 400, USB 2.0 and mini-USB connectivity. But after upgrading the laptop I mentioned, neither of the drives will mount when using the FW 800 or 400 cables. They power up but won't mount, and they don't show up in the list in Disk Utility. However, the drives will power up and mount via USB.
I realize the laptop may have a hardware/port problem - but both 800 and 400 ports? Seems unlikely.
2) Any idea why it's taking the OS 10 minutes to boot up? I've shut down the laptop and rebooted it twice since the OS install, and both times took 10 minutes.
I may just install Lion on one of the hard drives, pull it and then pop it into the laptop to see if that makes any difference. Before I do that, can anyone recommend a hardware utility that can check the ports?
I welcome your suggestions.
Thank you.

Thanks for responding. Here's the info you requested. I'm not a systems guy so hopefully I've pasted in something that helps.
system.log report, after searching BOOT_TIME, here's one of the timestamps:
May 25 22:04:58 localhost bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1337997898 0
Here's a chunk of the log after that timestamp:
May 25 22:05:00 localhost com.apple.launchd[1]: *** launchd[1] has started up. ***
May 25 22:05:13 localhost com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd): Unknown value for key POSIXSpawnType: Interactive
May 25 22:05:13 localhost com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.sandboxd): Unknown value for key POSIXSpawnType: Interactive
May 25 22:05:18 localhost com.apple.pfctl[34]: No ALTQ support in kernel
May 25 22:05:18 localhost com.apple.pfctl[34]: ALTQ related functions disabled
May 25 22:05:18 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: starting CaptiveNetworkSupport as SystemEventAgent built May 25 2011 12:27:35
May 25 22:05:18 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptiveSCCopyWiFiDevices:388 WiFi Device Name == NULL
May 25 22:05:19 localhost com.apple.ucupdate.plist[28]: ucupdate: Checked 1 update, no match found.
May 25 22:06:14 localhost configd[14]: InterfaceNamer: timed out waiting for IOKit to quiesce
May 25 22:06:14 localhost configd[14]: Busy services :
May 25 22:06:14 localhost configd[14]:   MacBookPro3,1 [76967, 4375662836 ms]
May 25 22:06:15 localhost mDNSResponder[37]: mDNSResponder mDNSResponder-320.16 (Mar 17 2012 21:31:16) starting OSXVers 11
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: ERROR,Time,359690775.485,Function,"_Apple80211* CLWifiService::createApple80211()",Apple80211GetIfListCopy failed, error -3903 (Unknown error: -3903)
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,1   locationd                           0x00000001077fe583 locationd + 624003
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,2   locationd                           0x00000001077fe719 locationd + 624409
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,3   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00007fff85f46c79 _dispatch_barrier_sync_f_invoke + 33
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,4   locationd                           0x00000001077fe9b0 locationd + 625072
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,5   locationd                           0x00000001077fea10 locationd + 625168
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,6   libsystem_c.dylib                   0x00007fff85e96e06 pthread_once + 86
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,7   locationd                           0x00000001077fea47 locationd + 625223
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,8   locationd                           0x00000001077f33ac locationd + 578476
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,9   locationd                           0x00000001077f353f locationd + 578879
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,10 libsystem_c.dylib                   0x00007fff85e96e06 pthread_once + 86
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,11 locationd                           0x00000001077f3509 locationd + 578825
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,12 locationd                           0x00000001077b052a locationd + 304426
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,13 locationd                           0x0000000107791653 locationd + 177747
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,14 locationd                           0x0000000107791a08 locationd + 178696
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,15 locationd                           0x00000001077921b2 locationd + 180658
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,16 locationd                           0x00000001077c332c locationd + 381740
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,17 locationd                           0x0000000107767fd8 locationd + 8152
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,18 ???                                 0x0000000000000001 0x0 + 1
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.usbmuxd[27]: usbmuxd-268.5 on Jan 5 2012 at 03:34:01, running 64 bit
May 25 22:06:15 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptiveSCCopyWiFiDevices:388 WiFi Device Name == NULL
May 25 22:06:15 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: ServermgrdRegistration cannot load config data
May 25 22:06:15 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: get_backup_share_points no AFP
May 25 22:06:15 localhost systemkeychain[59]: done file: /var/run/systemkeychaincheck.done
May 25 22:06:15 localhost configd[14]: ioctl(SIOCGIFCAP) failed: Device not configured
May 25 22:06:16: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
May 25 22:06:16 localhost mDNSResponder[37]: D2D_IPC: Loaded
May 25 22:06:16 localhost mDNSResponder[37]: D2DInitialize succeeded
If you want me to post the kernal log, I can do that next if nothing in here points anyone in the right direction. FYI - the system booted normally this morning after shutting it down overnight.

Pismo, OSC 10.3.9, VST Media Bay superdrive sees but won't mount 1.4mb flop

This worked a while back, likely earlier version of X, just tried it and it sees but won't mount or format a floppy that works fine in a Mac Mini (10.4.11 with a Teac external floppy drive)
About to travel, would rather take the Pismo with the VST drive in the 2nd bay --anyone recognize this problem?
Here's what the Profile sees:
Name :
S,1 0 S
I
4 0 H l,p y
Type : Disk
Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : M L Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : ATAPI
Connection ID : Device 0
Device Tree : mac-io/media-bay@34/ata-3@20000/@0:0
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : Internal
Total Capacity : 1.4 MB (1,464,832 Bytes)
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0

Ok, using Yasu to flush all the caches, nothing else, and rebooting
-- did work for the VST ZIP module, which works, mounts a ZIP disk ok.
-- did not work for the HS-120 VST floppy module, but it's different.
Before it did not detect a floppy, just showed up on System Profiler as the drive being present.
Now, Disk Utility did detect a floppy as soon as I inserted one (as unreadable, though it's a Mac-formatted HD floppy; OSX (10.3.9) offered to format it). I tried letting it be formatted, it made all the right noises, but nothing changed. "Mount" is not an option. Tried DOS, no difference.
Well, one working VST module out of two isn't half bad in this case; I can stand traveling with an external USB floppy, they're small enough, and it's very handy to be able to use the VST ZIP where hauling around an old ZIP drive would be, in today's terms, just too much. But for a few extra backups, it's good to have.
Thanks! And I'll check back between trips in case anyone has other suggestions over time.

External HDD (for Time Machine backup) detected but won't mount on desktop

I have been using this external HDD as my Time Machine backup for many months now. No desktop display settings have been changed (I checked), but now it won't mount on my desktop. I suspect one of my kids was banging around on the keyboard, as they have done in the past, and renamed it. Unfortunately it appears they renamed it to NULL this time around. I didn't think that was possible, but I've plugged it into 3 different Windows and iMac machines, and in all cases the external drive gets detected, but then in all cases it doesn't mount. The Volume Label does appear blank in the device properties.
Is there a way to access my drive again to rename it? Will that allow it to mount again? Or is there a way to access it to just reformat the whole darn thing?
Thanks!
Tom

I don't think it's possible to have a null name for a drive so i suspect there is a problem with it. open disk utility. does it show the name of the drive? try repairing it (repair disk not permissions). if that doesn't help you can always reformat it with Disk Utility. select the whole drive ( model, not name) and use the partition tab.

Time Machine See's...but won't "mount" time capsule

Bought 1TB Time Capsule 1 week ago. Did initial backup direct ethernet and all subsequent via WiFi. Everything works fine. However, today I noticed my 7AM backup failed. I am told it can't mount the hard drive. I go into SYS PREF to reselect the time capsule as the Backup Disk, it shows the Time Capsule, I select it, enter password, but about 2 minutes later get the message:
Time Machine Error
No backup volume has been selected
To select a backup volume, open Sys Pref and choose Time Machine
I do..and the loop of futility continues.
I have no problem getting into the Time Capsule through Finder and have successfully moved a file from my desktop to the capsule so I know I am connected and it works.
Also doesn't return anything when I click "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" from the Time Machine menu bar menu. I see my sparsebundle through Finder.
Any ideas on how to get it to recognize the time capsule? It sees it, but won't let me mount it after I enter password.
Have tried rebooting, powering everything down, etc. Everything else is working fine ...the wifi and the ability to access via finder. Basically I have a very expensive wireless router.
Thanks.
24' iMac Dual Core Mac OS X (10.5.2) PROCESSOR: 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, MEMORY: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Did clean Archive and Install and now it works. Been ok for a few weeks now.

Drive Visible Thru diskutil list But Won't Mount

I'm attempting to recover information on a hard drive that won't mount. I can see it in Disk Utility and through the Terminal, but everything I do to access the drive contents is met with some sort of roadblock. Here are a couple of things I tried:
sudo diskutil mount disk3s10
... results in "unknown special file or filesystem
sudo diskutil mount disk3s10
... results in Unrecognized filesystem
sudo dd bs=512 if=/dev/disk3s10 of=/dev/disk2[location]/recovered.dmg conv=noerror,sync
... results in Permission denied
Using Disk Utility (through the Finder) I can "see" the drive and Verify/Repair the disk.
... The volume External FW -150GB appears to be OK.
Also in Disk Utility, when attempting to mount,
... The disk "External FW -150GB" could not be mounted. Try running Frist Aid on the disk and then retry mounting.
Ideally I could get the drive to mount. But short of that I'd be incredibly happy copying the data to a disk image and pulling out whatever still appears to be intact. If anyone has ideas what to try next I'd really appreciate the direction. Thanks.

Hi
Possibly a fault on the drive controller card? Mechanically it seems OK because at least you can see it in DU and it does seem to be spinning.
In cases like this I have used DataRescue:
http://www.prosofteng.com/
With some success. DataRescue can scavenge for data without the need for a valid directory. As long as the drive is spinning you stand a chance. Might be worth a shot?
If you have DiskWarrior you could use that? Sometimes it can restore/replace a directory for long enough to allow you to get desired data off it. If it can manage it then the drive should mount. You will have to be quick though as you will probably only get one chance at it.
Tony

Disk utility: Disk without errors but won´t mount after testing

I have a strange problem with disk utilities. I tested an external FW drive and disk utility says that the disk is oK. Unfortunately after testing the disk and closing disk utility the disk won´t mount again. I did this several times but without success. Any hints whatßs going wrong?
Thanks for your help
Best regards
Wolfgang

Power down and disconnect the FWHD, Restart, zapping the PRAM as detailed in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379 and restart. Reconnect the FWHD and power it up. That should do the trick.

Will Burn CD-Rs but Won't mount burned or blank DVD-R

Suddenly my drive won't mount DVD-Rs and won't play burned DVD's but it plays fully authored pro DVD's fine. Do I have to replace my MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-845E. Cause this really *****--I am an editor and I need to burn DVD's.
PowerBook G4 1.67 Gig Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1.5 GB RAM

Have you specifically tried different media? My Powerbook won't play ball with a particular batch of blank DVDs but is fine with others.
Powerbook 1.5GHz 17" Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Snow Leopard formats but won't mount exFAT USB stick

I upgraded my 2009 Mac mini to Snow Leopard this weekend, and applied the 100+ Gb update to 10.6.8. I plugged in a PATRIOT 64GB USB thumb drive that had been formatted to ExFAT under Windowss 7, but Finder wouldn't mount it. I launched Disk Utility, and on the Erase tab, is shows the unmounted drive as with an exFAT volume, but also refuses to mount it. I reformatted it with Disk Utility to exFAT, and it still won't mount it! Meanwhile Windows 7 mounts the drive no matter which OS formats it.
What gives?

I'm not sure I can be of much help except to note that my exFAT drive still mounts just fine, so I don't think there is anything particular about the update.
A couple of things to try: Use the partition tab to get to Options and set the partition table to mbr or GUID. I believe Windows7 and Vista can boot a GUID PT. I've seen where OS X doesn't like some of the preformatted drives because of the partition table.
Or, download and install the update combo.

PCIe USB 3.0 Card appears in system report, but won't mount drives

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro running Mavericks 10.9.2
Bought an Orico PME-4U USB 3.0 4-port PCIe card with the Sata power cable.
Installations seems to go okay -- the card is powered by one of the empty hard drive bays. The card appears in my computer's System Report as follows:
NEC USB 3.0:
Name:          pci1b73,1100
Type:          USB Superspeed Bus
Driver Installed:          Yes
MSI:          Yes
Bus:          PCI
Slot:          Slot-3
Vendor ID:          0x1b73
Device ID:          0x1100
Subsystem Vendor ID:          0x1b73
Subsystem ID:          0x1100
Revision ID:          0x0001
Link Width:          x1
Link Speed:          2.5 GT/s
When I plug in external drives, they receive power from the card, but nothing will mount.
Is it a faulty card? This is the second USB 3.0 card I've tried unsuccessfully.

Orico tech support had nothing to add beyond installing "GenericUSBXHCI.kext" and trying out different PCI slots.
I've tried two brands of PCIe USB 3.0 cards now and neither work.
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Anybody have any ideas?

Ipod recognized but won't update

I am getting a new error message on my ipod when I connect. It is recognized but then it says"the Ipod cannot be updated. An unknown error occurred (-50)" Can anyone help?
Jim

First try resetting the iPod. Do it a few times to make sure everything reset properly (per Apple's recommendation). If that doesn't work, then you might want to try a Restore on the iPod.
Instructions for both can be found by clicking on the Support tab above, then you should see a section about the "5 Rs". One is reset and the other is restore.
Patrick

80 G Video iPod (1.3) is recognized but won't sync with iTunes 8

After updating to Mac OS 10.5.5 and iTunes 8 my 80 G Video iPod (Software version 1.3) won't sync with iTunes 8 at all. That is, it starts syncing and within seconds the dreaded spinning ball appears. After that, the only thing left is to force iTunes to quit.
My iPod is in fact recognized, and I can adjust the settings. But it simply won't sync. So far, I have had no problem syncing my iPhone 3G (2.1).
I've repaired permissions, cleared caches, etc. etc., the works. I've re-apllied the 10.5.5. Combo Updater, re-installed iTunes 8 and as a last resort even resetted my iPod, all to no avail.
Please advise. So far I've seen many similar complaints but, unfortunately, very few answers.
Rob Hogendoorn
the Netherlands

One last thing I can suggest as sort of the Hail Mary pass in case the issue has something to do with the USB ports being messed up...
Do a reset the FW & USB chip sets on the mother board. Unfortunately, when you power down the computer there is always a bit of power still applied to the motherboard to keep things alive and this usually includes the ports to do stuff like detect when a device wants to wake up the computer. The downside of this is when a bus/port chipset goes into a weird state, locks up, etc., simply power cycling (shutdown & restart) the computer won't work.
So first thing to try is resetting the chipset and to do this you have to power down the computer and completely unplug the computer from the wall power (unplug the power cord to your Mac) and also remove the battery from your laptop. Also unplug everything from the Mac's ports (USB, FW, Ethernet, etc.) to make sure no parasitic power is still there to keep the chipset alive. Now let it sit for a minute (give those big power caps in there time to discharge). Now reattach the battery pack, plug the power cord back in, & start up the Mac. Now check and see if your USB ports & iPod work together any better.
Best of luck!
Patrick
What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire or USB device
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US

Ext HD recognized but won't mount

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