External Drive HFS+ format Crash?

Hi,
I'm had an external harddrive formatted as HFS+ for the mac.
Yesterday I was trying to zip up an huge folder, which failed with a zip error, but created a zip file, which i tried to drag it to the trash. When I did that my computer when on a wait state - the spinning cursor - and i did not get any reponse from my iMac.
Mistake - I just powerdown my external drive, I got the external harddrive disconnected warning - in a moment i got back my cursor, then i rebooted the mac also.
Now when I'm trying to connect my external hard drive, nothing happens, i don't get any errors and my external hard drive does not mount, when i go to the diskutil i could not even see the hard drive.
I may have crashed, i've lot of data on it - it was my backup store - is there a way to restore it
Regards
Sajid
When i

Hopefully. First inplugg the external and try resetting the SMC: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303446
Next try resetting the P-RAM by holding down the Option/Apple/p/r keys while booting until you hear the boot chime at least 3 times. Afterwards you will need to check your date and time and also make sure your startup is selected in System Preferences/Startup Disk.
If this works once you get your drive mounted open up Disk Utilities and Repair the Disk.
George

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Formatted for Mac is not a format - for iPhoto you MUST verify that it is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled)
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Message was edited by: Kangaroos on the prowl

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Must have done something wrong..
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Try trash the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file from the HD/Users/ Your Name / library / preferences folder.
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What's the plist file?
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Using Disk Warrior on external drive causes MacBook crash

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I work on MacBook System 10.6.7, I back up to LaCie external drive, which I partitioned so that one partition is only for backup, the other is bootable. On this partition I have a clone of Disk Warrior (4.1), to use on the MacBook .
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i want to reformat an external hard drive recently bought to use with a mac....its an iomega prestige 320gb...the instructions are clear enough, i could do with advice though....
i have used it once with a pc to put some some music files on it...how can i erase the music files as they are no longer needed....i don't really want any partitions......just for macs...
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its in the left hand column twice as:
the orange icon plus 298.1 GB ST932032 5AS M....
below it is an indent then the orange icon plus disk1s1
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i can't select from this menu...but the above option i want is already there...what does this mean?
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Message was edited by: David Barker7
Message was edited by: David Barker7

You should use +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+ as the format type, no matter what you select as the +partition map scheme+. Format and +partition map scheme+ are two separate settings.
I can see how that wording may be confusing. What it is really saying is that
GUID Partition Table - This option is preferred if your Mac is Intel. However, you can use the disk on a PowerPC Mac, as long as it runs Mac OS X 10.4 or later AND that PowerPC Mac does not need to boot from the disk. To be bootable on a PowerPC Mac, the disk must use Apple Partition Map.
Apple Partition Map - This option is preferred if your Mac is PowerPC. However, you can use this disk on an Intel Mac. An Intel Mac can can even boot from the disk (but the Installer will only install Mac OS X on a disk that uses GUID Partition Table).
Master Boot Record - Use this option only if you need to use the disk on both Mac OS X and Windows computers.
Not sure if that is actually more clear or not. I'm sure Apple spent more time on the wording that I just did. The bottom line is, either GUID Partition Table or Apple Partition Map will be fine if the drive is just used for storage. Apple Partition Map may be the better choice, because you may want to make the external drive bootable later on (and there is no downside to using Apple Partition Map on a PowerPC Mac). In either case, the format type needs to be +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+.

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*"is there a format that can be used to both read and write by both Mac and XP?"*
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Are you indicating that you don't get this window when you hold down the Option key while launching iPhoto?
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OT

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Hey elprincipe22,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities! If you backed up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive, follow these directions to restore the backup:
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Quit iTunes.
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Mac: On the Desktop or Finder sidebar.
Windows: In My Computer
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Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\
Windows Vista: \Users\username\My Music\
Windows 7 or 8: \Users\username\Music\
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via:
iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1751
Cheers,
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External Drive HFS+ format Crash?

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