External Drive Disappeared from Devices

For some reason, my OneTouch drive just disappeared from the devices section of the finder window. The icon still exists on my desktop and works fine. I know it is not a problem with the drive because it shows up fine on my other Macs. I want it to show up like it used to. Please advise.

Hi Jamison777,
Try Disk Utility > Click on the icon of your HDD (left side) > Click on mount (blue botton on top menu of Disk Utility).
Rio.

Similar Messages

Why does my external drive disappear from my desktop?

I am switching from PC to Mac. I have 2 externaldrives. Both have been formatted in FAT 32 by the MAC. When I plug them in the desktop and finder see them, then with both of them they have disappeared from the desktop and from finder. Still can be seen in disk utility and system profiler. How can I find them and why does this happen?

If you daisy chained then try without. May not be enough power to handle both at sme time. Other than that read some info:
1. Shut-down your Mac, and unplug the power cord
2. Turn the power off on your external FireWire devices
3. Unplug the FireWire devices from the Mac
4. Wait for 5 min.
5. Plug the power cord to your Mac only
6. For PPC Macs: Restart the Mac while holding the Option-Apple-O-F, and keep holding until you get the ">" prompt, then release the keys
7. At the ">" prompt type:
      reset-nvram and hit the Return key
      set-defaults and hit the Return key
      reset-all and hit the Return key
the last command will restart your mac
8. Shut down your Mac
9. Connect all your FireWire devices to the Mac and turn them on
10. Restart your Mac.
All your FireWire devices should reapear, if not repeat the procedure
How to avoid the issue :
The only really proven way to avoid burning up a FireWire port is to connect all devices and to turn them on PRIOR turning on the Mac. Likely, one must unplug them and turn them off AFTER the Mac has been turned off. If you need to connect another device, then you're on for a shutdown of your machine...  It's a tad annoying but it guarantees that the FW ports won't be damaged.  Be careful when using self powered devices such as webcams, iPods, hard drives or hubs, as they can destroy the port pretty easily. Another thing is to avoid daisy-chaining hard drives.
When the FW port doesn't respond anymore :
In this case, peripherals won't be mounted upon plugging, and won't be displayed in Apple's System Profiler. The self powered devices will still be fed by the port, but won't respond either.  It happens that the PHY just hangs after a surge or a random problem. Once hung, the port will not respond any longer, it is possible to reset the component by going through the following steps :
1° boot the PPC mac in Open Firmware by holding [ Apple key - Option - O - F ] after the startup chime.  2° you'll get to a command prompt. the keyboard mapping will be QWERTY, so pay attention when you type the following :  RESET-NVRAM (enter)  RESET-ALL (enter)  3° Now the mac should restart itself and the port should function properly again.  If it still doesn't work, then it means that the PHY is damaged.
http://www.hardmac.com/articles/16/
From Kappy post:
922 is only used in dual drive cases to provide a "build-in firmware RAID support"
912 or 912+ is FW800, the "+" means USB2
911 is FW400
924 adds eSATA support along with FW400/800
MacSales, OWC Tech Support library is where I would go first, as they do tend to have or links to, firmware updates for Oxford.
From Wiebetech:
I just upgraded my Mac OS, and now I'm having trouble with my FireWire device. What can I do?
A: With nearly every OS update Apple releases, some external drives are not recognized after the update. The typical symptom is that the device will not mount but the volume is visible and grayed out in Disk Utility. This means that the device is working properly, but the OS does not recognize the volume as mountable. Sometimes the drive does not show up at all.
The first thing to do is to see if repairing Permissions with Apple's Disk Utility First Aid feature solves the problem. If not, try repairing the disk with First Aid. Another possible solution is to zap the PRAM. This is done with a keyboard command while rebooting. Restart your computer and hold down the Command, Option, P and R keys. Consult the Apple web site for details.
If this does not work, then try pushing the PMMU reset button on the logic board. Consult the Apple web site for locations of the button for your Mac. If the drive still does not show up, shut down, disconnect all peripheral devices, and boot from the Mac OS Installation CD. The later the OS version, the better. Do not reinstall the OS, but when the Installer is loaded up and ready to begin, go to the File menu and use the Disk Utility program. Connect the drive that is having problems, then start the Disk Utility application. If you see the external drive and it is not grayed out, you know the drive is okay. Run Disk First Aid on it anyway. Then run it on your internal boot drive while you are at it. When done, unmount the external drive and UNPLUG it! Then restart the Mac.
When the Mac has restarted and is running on the internal boot drive, reconnect the external drive.

External Drive Disappeared!

My external drive is no longer recognized by my MacBook Pro. The drive is a SimpleTech, and I've used it for 3 years, on prior iMac and present MacBook Pro. Recently, I opened the external drive, and as I clicked on folders, the files in the folders would disappear. I restarted the external drive and computer, and everything was restored and could be opened. Ordered a new backup external, but before I hooked it up and transfered data from old external drive, the external drive disappeared from screen. Now can't get computer to recognize the old external. I can plug new external drive into computer, and it works fine, recognized, and Time Machine is backing up to new external drive. Unfortunately iPhoto library, and some other photos are still on the old external drive.
Armando

Armando,
If you have data you wish to retrieve from the old external drive, I would suggest getting a copy of DiskWarrior and using it to re-build the file system on the drive. This often fixes a drive that is not mounting or failing to transfer files due to directory corruption. Of course, if the drive has a hardware failure there is not much you can do to get to your data.
bd

WD My Book backup drive disappeared from desktop running Lion

WD My Book backup drive disappeared from desktop running Lion !0.7.5. Disk Utility recognized the drive and has repaired it, but it still does not show up on desktop or Time Machine. My Book also appears to hold zero data now (I've had it running backups for a couple of years). What's the problem? How to remedy?

I tried this but it did not help. I did confirm that the external drive is working by connecting it to another IMac computer running Mavericks. Not sure if the recent update to Yosemite that supposedly fixed issues with time machine has messed this up or not. Trying to work with WD as well to see which side the issues is on. I remember a similar issue with Mavericks was updated making time machine unusable with the external drive.

My external drive switched from g drive to f, my itunes won't change to drive f, and it says drive g is unavailable, what can I do?

This is not the easiest sight to sign up for and submit a question. However my external drive switched from g drive to f. As I downloaded the new version of itunes it won't change from g drive to f drive when I click the button to change. It just says g drive is unavailable to download itunes which I already aware of but it won't let me browse and find the right drive my external drive is on. It won't configure or anything what do I do?

Change the drive letter back to G:
See this -> http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-add-or-remove-a-drive-le tter

Z61m Integrated camera disappeared from Device Manager

Within the last two days the integrated camera just disappeared from Device Manager.
Uninstalled and reinstalled software, tried lenovousbwebcam.exe (including removing vsnp2std.exe from C:\Windows folder.)
(Kind of redundant since the hardware is simply missing...)
Updated BIOS to 2.27 in the hope that wouls fix it. - Did not work.
Surely it is possible this is a hardware failure. (I really hope not.)
Does anyone have the same issue or a possible fix for this?
Thanks for any comments.
Model: Z61M-9450-39U
OS: WinXP3SP3
RAM: 4GB

Did you press Fn + (key assigned to turn on your webcam)?
Best regards.
IPnaSh
First Spanish Community Guru - Colaborador ad honorem

External Disc Drive disappeared from Mac Mini Devices

Hi Forum,
my External USB2 Drive has disappeared from the devices list on my Mac Mini. When i was with the Mini i turned it off and on, Mini and CD Drive, unplugged and replugged the Drive, but i didnt appear. Ive had to come away for a few days and access the Mini remotely. It still doesnt show.
Is there anyway to make it find it? scan USB ports? look at what is connected? Remotely or when home?
Odd as its not done this before. And im still on OSX 10.8...

From your description I am assuming you have not instgalled any new USB, Bluetooth, Firewire, devices, drivers, hubs, etc.? If my assumption is correct then the logical place to start is with the drive and its connections...
Unplug and replug all USB connections. Surprisingly this may cure a number of different problems.
Try another USB cable.
Boot into Safe mode by holding down the Shift key after a cold boot. If the drive mounts normally then it is likley another USB device drive or device that is the problem.
If you are connecting through a hub, connect directly to the computer. If the drive mounts normally then your hub has probably gone bad.
If possible connect the drive to another Mac. Does it mount normally? If so then the USB port in your Mac may have gone bad. That requires a new logic board to fix.
Reset the SMC.

External Hard Drive disappearing from desktop

I recently bought two external USB drives to use with Time Machine, one for my PowerBook G4, and one for my iMac.
The one that I connected to my PowerBook at home works without a problem, but the other one, not so much.
I use my iMac in the classroom, and I set everything up to work with Time Machine. No problems. The drive was recognized, I reformatted it, and the initial backup finished without a problem. Then, later, I noticed that the hard drive was no longer showing up on my desktop, and checking Time Machine showed that things hadn't been backing up hourly as they should have been.
I launched Disk Utility, but the hard drive didn't show up, so I couldn't mount it that way. Plugging and unplugging the USB cable didn't help, so I shut down the computer and turned off the hard drive. I turned the drive back on and then restarted the computer. It was back, and Time Machine immediately started running again.
But then later the drive disappeared again! I went through the same process as before, but this time I switched the USB ports before I restarted. It was back.
But then later, it was gone again.
The other strange thing is that even when I restart the computer, the drive doesn't reappear unless I've turned the drive off.
Any suggestions? Is there some auto-unmount and never come back again option in Leopard that I'm not aware of?

Does the drive even show up in Disk Utility? If so, run Disk Utility and verify (and repair if necessary) the drive:
[Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214]
[Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672]
if it doesn't show up in Disk Utility and you don't have any other copy of the files you will need to try a stronger utility such as [Diskwarrior|http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior> to try to repair the drive. Otherwise you can try to copy off the files using a utility such as [Data Rescue II|http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php] or [FileSalvage|http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1]. Both have free trial versions that let you see if the software will help before you decide to buy.

Leopard - External drive disappeared!

Hi, I'm really puzzled here. After 5 days of normal use, the external drive where I do my back ups with Time Machine simply disappeared! It's non to be found!
I rebooted, restarted, disconnected, reconnected...nothing! Now when I connect the drive (a new Iomega 500GB) to my imac or my wife's macbook, the computers can't see it!
Any idea on how to manage this weird situation? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks

Me too! I have a 500GB WD My Book 'Studio Edition'. It is formatted using HFS+ (Journaled). Upon initial hook-up, it showed on my desktop and prompted user action for enabling Time Machine. A few days after, the 'My Book' icon that shows on the desktop after mount does not exist. I've looked at 'Finder Preferences' and all are check marked. at I tried Disk Utility, and it shows 'My Book' as mounted properly. I tried verifying then repairing the HD, and Disk Utility shows my HD as functioning properly. I even went into Script Editor and keyed in some prompts to enable my desktop icons to 'true'. I then disconnected my firewire 800 cable from my iMac as well as the other perepheral's. I then unplugged the HD and the iMac. I let sit overnight to reboot the firewire ports. I then plugged everything back in and the icon still, refused to show in the desktop. I called Apple to report the issue as I feel it's a bug within Time Machine. At the time of my call, they wanted me to speak with their 'Chronic Specialists' (or something of the sort) but they were closed for the night. I plan on calling asap in the AM to report the issue. Time Machine has a minor flaw I'm afraid.
In the meantime, create an alias for your external HD as it will be an easy way to access your drive until the issue is resolved.
-Nic
PS- Some might still be able to access files from the missing external hd. If you can recall a folder title within the hd, finder will retrieve it.
Message was edited by: Anjunafreak

Internal RAID Drives Disappeared from Desktop & Finder

A few days ago, one of my two internal mirrored RAID sets no longer showed on the desktop or in the Finder Sidebar. A day later, the other internal RAID set disappeared from desktop and sidebar. The two remaining internal non-RAID drives show up as do two external drives. All internal and external hard drives still show under Disk Utility and Photoshop Bridge CS3.
I checked Finder Preferences and boxes are checked to show internal and external drives on the desktop and sidebar. I looked at the drive detail under Disk Utility and nothing looks wrong with the two RAID sets ON-LINE. I unmounted one RAID set and re-mounted without any change. I tried unchecking the two preference boxes to not show the drives and rebooted, rechecking the boxes and rebooting and nothing changed on the desktop or sidebar.
Does anyone have any suggestions to resolve this?

Well our invisible drives problem is resolved but it's not the solution that I'd hoped for.
We visited the Genius Bar at a local Apple store and they denied any knowledge of problems with invisible drives in Macs and discounted my reports from Mac forums.
I went home and ordered a new 1tb Seagate drive. When it arrived, I installed it in bay 2, copied each invisible drive to the new drive one-at-a-time, broke my two sets of internal mirrored drives, erased all the affected drives and reloaded them. Now all drives are visible on the Desktop and Finder again.
I'm hoping that the disappearing drive problem doesn't surface again but view this as an unresolved Apple issue. Now I can look at other mass storage options for future growth.

Why does my external drive disappear on restart and i have to keep unplugging and plugging it back in

i just purchased an iMac. i plugged in my external usb drive with all my data and images on it and it shows up on the desktop. It opens and I can see all my files. If I restart the computer for any reason, the drive icon disappears from the desktop and finder. I have to unplug it and plug it back in before it can be seen.

You may try a SMC reset, maybe do it 2-3x.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.

External Drive Disappears

I am having the same problem that i had in leopard with my external HDD.
I have the drive plugged directly in the Imac via firewire. Powered by external power. It will work fine for a day or so then It disappears. The only way to get It to come back is by unplugging power and firewire then plugging back in. It happens with both firewire and usb drives.
Plugged into the computer now is The mac keyboard. Plugged into the keyboard is a microsoft wireless mouse, and an ipod dock.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks,
Robert

I had this issue as well where my partitioned external hard drive (part of which is used as Time Machine) would seem to randomly disappear from my desktop ever since the day I installed Snow Leopard. I'd find it in Disk Utility but "Mounting" it wasn't an option, nor did it show it partitioned, rather it was only 1 entire drive, without indication of a Time Machine partition...regardless, the only way I would get it to reappear would be to restart the iMac.
However, I am beginning to think it was due to the System Preferences-->Energy Saver--> Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible being selected. Ever since I've unchecked this, I haven't had it reoccur. It has only been a few days now, so if it reoccurs I will hope others have a better solution. Until then, I'll keep my fingers crossed. Perhaps this will help you, too?

Can I move all data from time machine backup to another external drive & work from it?

Hi all, the harddrive on my macbook died (2nd time in a year) & I had a new one put in that's much smaller than the old one. Can I move everything from my time machine backup onto a seperate external drive and work directly from that on my laptop/imac? At the mo. I don't think time machine will recognise my computer as it's a new drive etc. Thanks Jenny.

What exactly do you want to do?
Is it that you wish to extract an older version of some documents to edit, but leave the original intact?
You can Restore an older version from TM and choose not to replace the current one.
Or, do you wish to install the OS on your new drive, and migrate all the information from the TM backup to the new isntallation?
EDIT: Ok, re-reading your question, I think macjack probably has the right idea.
However, see Pondini's Time Machine FAQ # 16

CD-RW drive disappears from entire system while using iTunes

I just installed a new CD-RW drive (master), removed all old CD burning software, and have installed the latest version of iTunes. I'm able to use the software without issues, Install CD's and Burn CD's, but after about 4-6 installs or burns my CD-RW drive disappears! iTunes will no longer recognize the drive and the drive no longer appears in My Computer or elsewhere.
I've tried physically reinstalling the drive and I've performed the steps in Microsoft Support Article ID 320553 repeatedly: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320553
After following those steps and reinstalling iTunes each time, everything appears normal and I can use iTunes for about 4-6 burns/installs and then the same issue happens again.
Note, for what it's worth, I have an old CD-RW drive also installed, but as a slave that I do not use with iTunes or for anything else. It just exists.
Is this leaning toward an iTunes problem or a burner drive problem? I don't know where else to look.
-jk
My current iTunes drive report (when working properly):
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
HP Pavilion 04 P5267A-ABA 7935
iTunes 7.0.2.16
CD Driver 2.0.6.1
CD Driver DLL 2.0.6.1
UpperFilters: GEARAspiWDM (2.0.6.1),
Video Driver: S3 Graphics ProSavage 8A26 (Microsoft Corporation)\S3 Compatible Display Adapter
IDE\DiskMaxtor_4D040H2__________________________DAH017K0, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [0,0]
IDE\CdRomCD-RW_CDR-9V52__________________________2$GB____, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [0,0]
IDE\CdRomHP_CD-Writer+_8100______________________1.0g____, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [1,0]
If you have multiple drives on the same IDE or SCSI bus, these drives may interfere with each other.
Some computers need an update to the ATA or IDE bus driver, or Intel chipset. If iTunes has problems recognizing CDs or hanging or crashing while importing or burning CDs, check the support site for the manufacturer of your computer or motherboard.
Current user is an administrator.
D: CD-RW CDR-9V52, Rev 2$GB
Audio CD in drive.
Found 20 songs on CD, playing time 64:46 on Audio CD.
Track 1, start time 00:02:00
Track 2, start time 02:46:23
Track 3, start time 05:53:17
Track 4, start time 08:51:55
Track 5, start time 11:54:60
Track 6, start time 16:35:36
Track 7, start time 20:42:61
Track 8, start time 24:43:41
Track 9, start time 27:29:21
Track 10, start time 30:33:73
Track 11, start time 34:20:41
Track 12, start time 36:56:09
Track 13, start time 38:43:21
Track 14, start time 41:43:40
Track 15, start time 44:25:27
Track 16, start time 47:34:53
Track 17, start time 50:22:60
Track 18, start time 53:06:16
Track 19, start time 56:53:69
Track 20, start time 59:59:73
Audio CD reading succeeded.
Get drive speed succeeded.
The drive CDR speeds are: 4.
The drive CDRW speeds are: 4.
E: HP CD-Writer+ 8100, Rev 1.0g
Drive is empty.
Writing CD text is turned on in the preferences. If you're having problems burning CDs, try turning this preference off.

b,
Well the issue happened again. Below is the DVD/CD Diagnostics. I then closed iTunes. I opened Device Manager and saw no ?'s or error messages. The D drive was missing again so this time I just tried the option "Scan for hardware changes" and it easily found the D drive and added it to the Device Manager. I then reopened iTunes and burned a CD with no problems. The plot thickens. Any clues?
-jk
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
HP Pavilion 04 P5267A-ABA 7935
iTunes 7.0.2.16
CD Driver 2.0.6.1
CD Driver DLL 2.0.6.1
UpperFilters: GEARAspiWDM (2.0.6.1),
Video Driver: S3 Graphics ProSavage 8A26 (Microsoft Corporation)\S3 Compatible Display Adapter
IDE\DiskMaxtor4D040H2_________________________DAH017K0, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [0,0]
IDE\CdRomHPCD-Writer+_8100______________________1.0g___, Bus Type ATA, Bus Address [1,0]
Some computers need an update to the ATA or IDE bus driver, or Intel chipset. If iTunes has problems recognizing CDs or hanging or crashing while importing or burning CDs, check the support site for the manufacturer of your computer or motherboard.
Current user is an administrator.
E: HP CD-Writer+ 8100, Rev 1.0g
Drive is empty.
Writing CD text is turned on in the preferences. If you're having problems burning CDs, try turning this preference off.
HP Pavilion 7935 Windows XP

Network Drives Disappear from Finder Intermittently

I'm periodically having problems with my Mac recognizing an Iomega Home Media Network Drive. Everything's connected together using an Airport Extreme. Usually the drive will show up under the "Shared" category in the Finder, and I can connect and use it normally.
Every once and awhile, it disappears from that list. I can still connect manually using Go->Connect to Server, but the Finder doesn't pick it up on its own. After a few days or weeks, it'll just show up in the shared list again. No amount of restarting/repairing permissions will fix it. For example, my drive has been missing for about a week now, and after doing nothing special it decided to show back up while I was typing this post.
I've seen this topic come up periodically on the boards, but I couldn't find anything recent or with a solution. Has anyone encountered or come up with a fix for this?
Thanks,
-Jason

I have an Iomega drive that is also fidgety on the network, either in Leopard (when problem arose) or SL (when I found my solution). I actually had to view my drive under the sidebar path ComputerName> Network> AirPortEx> Iomega Drive because I kept getting errors when I tried to view in column view from the shared section despite having the drive set to ignore permissions.
Firstly, this is what I call a workaround, not a fix, as recognition of the drive doesn't work seamlessly in Finder as advertised, but required these extra steps in order for me to always see the drive in the sidebar. Secondly, it may not be absolutely necessary to do all these things, and I am assuming you have the authority on your network to do all these things, but here's what I've done to get my satisfaction:
1. Make sure you set servers to mount on the desktop in Finder prefs and that connected servers and bonjour computers are set up to show in the sidebar
2. Use connect to server if you have to and mount the drive to your desktop
3. Once the drive is on your desktop, open system prefs and go to your login items under Accounts & Authenticate by clicking the lock on the lower left and entering your password
4. Drag the network drive into your login items (and dock, sidebar, or window toolbar if desired)
5. Restart
This may not be the fix you hoped for. You do seem to have to keep the drive mounted, etc. But I do always see it in my sidebar under sharing now, and have no problems viewing anything on it from wherever in the Finder I try to access it (whether from the sidebar in the shared section or under the network area of my computer, in the dock, or from the toolbar). At the very least you never have to Connect to Server again. Hit the drive icon in the dock and it will connect if you get disconnected.
FYI: Make sure you always choose the "ignore" button when/if alerts pop up to tell you that you have been disconnected from the drive because you'll have to remount otherwise. These alerts occur to me only when waking my MBP from sleep. I wait 2-3 seconds, and click on the icon of my Iomega drive that I have in my sidebar, toolbar, or dock and it shows contents just fine, still connected after all.
Message was edited by: snowsister

External Drive Disappeared from Devices

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