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

Similar Messages

  • 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

  • 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 disappears when I start mpd

    I have my music all stored on an external drive, formatted exfat. Mounting the external drive works just fine - I can cd around, cat out files, whatever. When I start mpd, however, any filesystem operations on the drive give out "Transport endpoint is not connected" errors. The strange thing is, there's no output from dmesg like I would expect if it was a faulty drive enclosure, and it's consistent based on which ports I plug it into.

    It looks like the last filesystem operation before an error is thrown is an openat system call - I'm going to see if I can reproduce that issue by ls'ing that directory (once I figure out which directory it is)

  • DVD in external drive "disappeared"

    I am actually asking this question for a friend of mine who owns an external hard drive and is trying to use a DVD that my friend inserted into the drive. The DVD appeared on the computer for a second, then disappeared. Not even Disk Utility acknowledges the DVD's presence in the drive.
    The currently-running operating system is Mac OS X 10.9.5, and the iMac and external DVD drive are just a few years old. There is no internal drive on the iMac.

    Leave everything plugged in and Shut the machine clear off from the back wait a couple of minutes and then restart from the on off button on the back and it should work from then on.  If you ever have this type of problem I have found that turning off from the ON/OFF button on the computer lets the computer restart  in what I feel is the correct method.
    CHEERS
    DON

  • Partition on external drive disappeared

    I have an external firewire drive with multiple partitions.  One of them has disappeared - I can see it in Disk Utility (with a generic partition name) but cannot mount it or repair it.  Yes, I ran DU from Lion's recovery partition.
    I've scanned the archives and it looks like the general advice is to use DiskWarrior.  However, I don't want to drop $100 on this; losing this data would be an annoyance, not a problem.   are there any cheap/free recovery/repair tools out there that are worth trying? it's worth an effort before I toss it in and reformat.
    10.7, oldish MacBook Pro, terabyte iomega drive, if any of that is helpful.

    It is also possible that the drive has had the invisible bit set, this has become surprisingly common (a bug report was filed some time ago, but it still hasn't been fixed). Take a look at my article describing the problem and giving a couple of solutions:
    http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html
    See if that helps.
    Francine
    Francine
    Schwieder

  • 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?

  • 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.

  • USB 3.0 External Drive disappears

    Hello All,
    I am noticing an intriguing problem with my RMBP and FCP X 10.0.5. I have many USB Hard disks plugged to my computer (6 to be precise). Only one of those is a USB 3.0 (WD 1TB). When I open FCP X it shows in my event library for 2 seconds than disappear. I was planning on using this hard disk to be exactly the one holding my Final Cut Event since it's the only USB 3.0 that I have. I've read around saying that USB would not show up but all the other 5 drivers are being currently shown in my FCP X. All but my USB 3.0. It is formated to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) so that's not the issue. Any ideas to help me out? Thanks for any feedback!
    Erick Pessôa

    What Tom is suggesting is that there is some folder at the top level of the drive that fools FCP X into treating this as a camera drive. You can easily check if that is the case by trying File->Import from Camera. If your drive appears, there you have it. Then it is a matter of figuring out what the offending folder name is (in addition to the ones Tom suggested, it can be DCIM, Movies, AVCHD or other names).
    Here is a similar thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4116309?start=0&tstart=0

  • External drive disappears after installing NTFS-3G

    Hi I recently install NTFS-3G in an attempt to write to my external HDD. but after installation I received an error message so I uninstalled it.  Now when I plug my external usb disk on my mac it no longer shows up??? what can I do?

    I have had exactly the same problem with my Toshiba Laptop running Vista Home Premium for 5 months. I have continually tried updating and checking this site for a fix, but haven't had a clue. My Son-in-law works for Microsoft and uses iTunes extensively and he can't figure it out either. Toshiba has no answers.
    I am beginning to believe that Gates has scored one-up on Jobs by planting something in Vista that crashes the drive when you try to use Apple software.

  • Potential external drive conflicts?

    I'm trying to get an external drive connected to my iMac, but is intermittent and may be running into a drive conflict with a Network drive I have from the same manufacturer..
    I have a Network drive (Western Digital My Book World 2TB - based on the size, I suspect it has 2x1TB drives in it) but too slow for working on video with iMovie. So purchased another WD drive 1TB (a Caviar Black 1001FALS), put it in a drive enclosure (Vantc NexStar 3) so I could get a Firewire 800 connection.
    When first connected, worked like a charm. showed up, formatted the drive with the Mac, copied some files to it. Deleted files from it. Started moving iMovie files to it.
    I came back 1/2 hour later to find the icon gone from my desktop and unable to get it back. Tried other cables, (firewire 400, USB, etc.) Rebooted the Mac. Rebooted the external drive, the network drive, etc.
    Ended up taking the drive out and swapping out the drive for another drive - worked great - again. switched back to the WD 1TB drive and no luck.
    Took the drive to the store I bought it from and asked if there was a problem with the drive - negative. Diagnostics were all fine.
    brought it back and put it all back together. worked again. This time I noticed the network drive was not working. So, rebooted the network drive. As it was booting, I saw the external drive disappear again. Again not finding the right sequence to get it recognized again.
    shut down the Mac and both drives. let sit for a while. rebooted the Mac. Then rebooted the external drive (1TB) and it showed up. Rebooted the Network drive and both were live for a while. Seemed stable. (Started moving files again.)
    Came back again a little later and the External drive is gone again. And trouble trying to get it recognized again.
    Any ideas MOST welcome!!

    Hi, I had a similar issue with a WD ext HD..I tried a different connecting cable (wd/iMac-heavier gauge)Works like a charm..
    Make sure it has the little resistor fitted...

  • 30GB of space disappears on External Drive after failed DMG copy via USB

    I have a 298.1 GB external Western Digital hard drive connected to my iMac by a USB 2.0 cable. It is formatted in NTFS-3G so I can use it with both my PC and Mac. Yesterday in Disk Utility I created a 50GB 256-bit encrypted DMG and told Disk Utility to save it on a folder in my external drive. It got to about 20GB and then my house's power went out. A few hours later when the power came back on, I turned on my computer, and the available space on my external hard drive went down from about 100GB to 68.21GB.
    The first thing I thought was that the DMG transfer ended prematurely so I should just find and delete the incomplete DMG from the hard drive. So I went to the folder I saved it in and it was not there. I checked all the folders and I couldn't find any DMG in there. Then I went to the root of the external drive and used Get Info to find the space each folder took up. It adds up to 194.12 GB. So I subtracted 194.12 from 298.1 and got 103.98. If I'm supposed to have 103.98 GB, why do I only have 68.21 GB available? I double and triple checked the size of everything on the disk and I still should have about 30GB more than I do. The 30GB just disappeared.
    I tried verifying the disk in Disk Utility and got:
    2009-06-14 11:12:33 -0400: Verifying volume “SHADUSMEDIA”
    Starting verification tool: 2009-06-14 11:12:33 -0400
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for LOG_LEVEL: 2
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for UBLIO_ENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for PROBE_DISABLED: 0
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for MOUNTRDISKSENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for NFCONV_ENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for ALWAYS_RECOVER: 1
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ntfs-3g script invoked with command line "/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs/ntfs-3g.util" "-v" "/dev/disk1s1"
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Invoking user: MP
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Entering function Verify.
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ** No NTFS file system checks have been implemented yet.
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ** Reporting that the volume is fine without checking anything.
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Reporting that the volume is fine, even though that may not be the case (no fs checks performed).
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Returning from function Verify.
    Verifying tool completed: 2009-06-14 11:12:42 -0400
    So it appears that it's only telling me that it's fine without even checking. I then tried repair disk and got the error message:
    2009-06-14 11:14:25 -0400: Verify and Repair volume “SHADUSMEDIA”
    Starting repair tool: 2009-06-14 11:14:25 -0400
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for LOG_LEVEL: 2
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for UBLIO_ENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for PROBE_DISABLED: 0
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for MOUNTRDISKSENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for NFCONV_ENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for ALWAYS_RECOVER: 1
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ntfs-3g script invoked with command line "/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs/ntfs-3g.util" "-y" "/dev/disk1s1"
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Invoking user: MP
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Entering function Repair...
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Marking volume to be checked at next Windows boot.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] "/usr/local/bin/ntfsfix" "" currently disabled.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ** /usr/local/bin/ntfsfix has been disabled because of volume corruption issues.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ** If you still want to try fixing your volume, use /usr/local/bin/ntfsfix from the command line...
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Returning from function Repair with FSUR_INVAL.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400:
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Disk Utility stopped repairing “SHADUSMEDIA” because the following error was encountered:
    Filesystem verify or repair failed.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400:
    I tried restarting my iMac and disconnected and reconnecting the cable and that didn't work. I plugged it into my PC and it still says that all the files on my external drive add up to 194.12 GB. Which still means I should have 103.98 GB of free space instead of 68.21 GB.
    So I'm stumped now and not quite sure what to do. Here is the information about the external drive from Disk Utility:
    Name : SHADUSMEDIA
    Type : Volume
    Disk Identifier : disk1s1
    Mount Point : /Volumes/SHADUSMEDIA
    File System : Windows NT Filesystem (NTFS-3G)
    Connection Bus : USB
    Device Tree : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/USB7@1D,7
    Writable : Yes
    Capacity : 298.1 GB (320,070,288,384 Bytes)
    Free Space : 68.3 GB (73,348,239,360 Bytes)
    Used : 229.8 GB (246,722,048,512 Bytes)
    Number of Files : 145,472
    Number of Folders : 0
    Owners Enabled : Yes
    Can Turn Owners Off : No
    Can Repair Permissions : No
    Can Be Verified : Yes
    Can Be Repaired : Yes
    Can Be Formatted : Yes
    Bootable : No
    Supports Journaling : No
    Journaled : No
    Disk Number : 1
    Partition Number : 1
    You can see on there it says I've used 229.8 GB, when I've actually only used 194.12 GB. Here are the specs from System Profiler for my iMac:
    Model Name: iMac
    Model Identifier: iMac5,1
    Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
    Processor Speed: 2 GHz
    Number Of Processors: 1
    Total Number Of Cores: 2
    L2 Cache: 4 MB
    Memory: 1 GB
    Bus Speed: 667 MHz
    Boot ROM Version: IM51.0090.B09
    SMC Version: 1.8f2
    Serial Number: QP6450GKVUX
    I'm running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6. If you need any more information just ask, I'd really like to get my 30GB back. Thanks in advance.

    Can anyone help?

  • I have multiple libraries on an external drive. Somehow all the iTunes library files i.e. iTunes Library.itl, xml, itdb, Media folder, etc disappeared! Only the music files remain. Now when I start iTunes w/option it can't find any of the old libraries!

    Help! I 'm using an old G4 powerbook, Mac OSX 10.5.8, iTunes ver 10. I have multiple iTunes libraries on an external drive. Everything was fine for a while, then all of the iTunes library files, i.e. iTunes Library.itl, xml, itdb, artwork folder, Media folder, etc mysteriously disappeared! Only the music files remain (thank god) So now when I start iTunes w/option key to choose a library, I can't choose any of them because iTunes won't recognize them. Because all the library stuff is missing. So can I re-create the library files? (I don't care if I lose my ratings)
    Or should I create a new empty library on the external drive, then manually move all the music files to the Media folder in the new library?
    I tried some stupid ideas like creating a new library just to start iTunes, then going into prefs and advanced, then under iTunes Media folder location, selecting the location of the old library on the external, to see if iTunes would then find all the music which is still there, but no workee.
    I'm out of ideas, and I searched the archives.
    Help! anyone?
    Scott

    I don't know if this is me adding files to iTunes when the external wasn't connected
    it is.
    is it OK to just keep deleting that library on the Air?
    i wouldn't - at least not until i
    mount the external
    point iTunes media folder location back to the external via preferences > advanced
    consolidate my library via file > library > organize library
    The ntfs hasn't seem to be causing any problems, but I've always wanted to know.
    in order for your Mac to write to NTFS drives, it needs some help by installing e.g. the NTFS 3G driver. apparently that or something similar is installed on your Mac already. preferably, it would be formatted for Mac but then windows machines would need to have e.g. MacDrive installed to recognize the drive.

  • My iphoto library disappeared. i am trying to restore my library from time machine -- from an external drive -- but everytime it tries to copy my library it tells me it can't do it because i don't have access to my iphoto library??!!!  help!!

    My iphoto library inexplicably disappeared! i am panicked but i do back up by time machine to an external drive and also to JustCloud.  I am trying to restore my iphoto library from a back up on feb 28, 2014 and it says it's copying but then gives me a message that it can't do it because i "don't have authorization to access iphoto library"?!  what does this mean?  i really want to get my library back on my mac.  Also if anyone knows why this happened or where my photos might be on my computer, i'd appreciate help with that, too. 

    Thank you Terence for your help.  I was able to restore my backup from my time machine ext drive to a new 1tb seagate ext drive.  so i felt sort of ok.  but yesterday that older ext drive i used for time machine wouldn't open! i called applecare and they trouble shooted with me and said it's probably a goner and data is probably corrupted.  it's only a few years old and i'm very careful with it.  my husband accidentally dropped my new drive last night -- i know, unbelievable, i was SO upset, poor guy -- but I'm so stressed with all of this.  i have 10 years of photos and videos.  so now i only have the one newer drive with a backup.  i have to buy another one today to backup again so i at least have two backups.  i tried to delete a ton of files last night to free up the 30 gb of space i need to get my full library back on my mac. i have 90gb free and deleted 7 years worth of photos i had on picasa that were in my "pictures" folder and also a ton or random photos and videos i had in that same pictures folder and thought that would give me the 30 gb but it hardly freed up any space at all!  do you know why that is?  all of this stuff is really a pain and really stressful.  thank god i did have a backup in the first place but now i am panicked the one i have left will somehow crash.  especially after my husband dropped the drive lastnight! it didn't fall far and fell onto a wood floor and seems fine, but after my older ext drive crashed yesterday -- and i lost my entire iphoto library a fewweeks ago off my mac -- i feel cursed.  any answers you have would be great. thank you.

Maybe you are looking for