External drive icon not showing in finder

Still trying to get an answer to this one. When I plug in a usb or other external drive to my Powerbook (recently upgraded to Leopard), nothing shows in the flinder window (a 'no name' icon usually appears under the 'hard drive' icon).
When i remove the hard drive I get a warning message about removing the external devise properly.
Ive tried other usbs and same thing, so Im guessing it is a problem on the mac side. However, the external drives show up in Disk Utility.
Is there any other way of accessing external connections and opening them, and quitting properly?
JohnC

You were absolutely right Camelot. I found a 'sidebar' in Finder preferences and the external drive box was unchecked. All fine now.
Many thanks
johnC

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Hard Drive icon not showing in Finder

Noted this problem prior to SL. Spent a considerable amount of time on phone with Apple technician, nothing he suggested worked. He agreed that installing SL due out in few days would probably solve the problem. It did not. Another long session with an Apple Tech troubleshooting, including a re-install of OS 10.6.1. Nothing. In fact I noticed afterwards that now that not only was the HD not showing, but I could not make the external drive icon and CDetc icons disappear via Finder preferences . Trashed the finder.plist and restarted and that solved that problem but still no HD icon. Well, so what? but I wonder why and if it is indicative of a bug in the system or with MY system and what can be done about it.

If you own DiskWarrior, you can try running it.
Each file and folder has Finder settings in its entry in the directory. One of the settings is to make the item invisible in the Finder. A hard disk is recorded as a folder. Obviously it acts just as a folder, it contains other files and folders. It's just the top level folder. If the invisible setting gets set by some means, who knows how, then the entire hard disk will be invisible. It doesn't matter what version of Mac OS X you are using.
Anyway, DiskWarrior considers the invisible setting being set for the hard drive a corruption and will fix it. That may or may not be your problem, but if you have DiskWarrior you would certainly find out.
Rusty Little
Alsoft, Inc.
DiskWarrior development team
Message was edited by: Clifton Little (typo)

Itunes accesses files on external drive but not showing in finder

I'm running OS 10.6.8. I have an external NTFS drive that I read and wirte to using NTFS mounter. I have files that iTunes show are in a folder on the external drive. iTunes will even play the songs. When I navigate to that folder in Finder there are no files displayed. I connected the drive to a PC and navigated to the folder. Windows says the file (folder) is corrupt. How is it possible that iTunes can read the files? How can I get read & write access to my files?

You'll have to try to repair the drive on a PC.
How is it possible that iTunes can read the files?
Some things will still be readable when corruption occurs, the big problem is when writing occurs when there's corruption.

External drive does not show up in finder/ disk utility not able to repair

Hello,
My external drive does not show up in finder. But it appaers in DISK UTILITY. When I tried to repair it, it said:
Verify and Repair volume “ANNE HD”
** /dev/disk1s1 (NO WRITE)
** Phase 1 - Preparing FAT
** Phase 2 - Checking Directories
Unable to read directory (Input/output error)
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
How can I back up files if the external drive is not found in FINDER? I tried to restore with disk utility, but it doesn't seem to be able to select the hard drive.
Can you please help me?

Thanks a lot Niel,
Diskwarrior is a program for what you need to buy a DVD. I live in Brazil I have no idea where to buy it. Or can you download it?
A

External drive icon not appearing on desktop

Hi - I have also posted this in the Time Machine forum as this is where my problem started. New iMac yesterday - replacement for faulty iMac which I had backed up using Time Machine. Reinstall from Time Machine effortless - no problem. Downloaded available software updates and 10.5.7 onto new iMac. No problem until I go to do another backup. Time Machine does not recognise external drive and I get "volume could not be found" message. At this point in time the external drive icon is showing on the desktop. Give up and go to bed thinking I will reformat external drive in the morning and start again
This morning, I boot up the machine but the external drive icon has disappeared from the desktop. Unplug external HD from usb and plug in again. No icon on desktop although it shows in Finder and Time Machine.
Anyway - I turned Time Machine off and then pointed it at the Ext. HD - went to back up now and magic - did complete backup and has done a second subsequently. Seems to have created a second backup folder separate from the one created by previous machine from which I reinstalled. Still no desktop icon! Switch iMac off and on again - still no desktop icon. So why - the Ext. drive is recognised and works so why isn't an icon for it appearing on the desktop?
Please help - I need answers to these weird happenings
Thanks
Ann
.

Problem solved and it was so simple - just had to go to Finder, Preferences, General and tick the box that says external devices. Desktop icon has returned:-) Don't know why it became unticked but everything now is working absolutely fine (as far as I know lol) Hope this is the start of a good relationship between me and my new Mac!
Ann

My external drive is not showing on my desktop

My external drive is not showing on my finder and it is turned on and connected by firewire. Is there an alternate way to force my G5 to see the external drive?
Laura

Check the settings in the General and Sidebar tabs of the Finder's preferences. If those are set properly, open the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder and try mounting and/or repairing the drive.
(77081)

External drive does not show up in Time Machine

I just applied the lastest update today and now my external drive does not show up in Time Machine. It does show up in Finder.

Gracias Sir Kappy, These instructions didn't include Yosemite, but I followed the closest and used Mavericks instructions and the command-R was the key, which I suppose means 'restore?' Nothing is explained as we should all be able to read the programmers minds by now...
Thanks for the help and problem resolved.

External Drive Files Not Showing Up on Mac but files do shows Up on PC

External Drive Files Not Showing Up on Mac but files do shows Up on PC
i had the Ex HD for about 3 years running smoothly on my mac but recently everything disappeared. plunged it into a pc to see if it read my files and it did. what can i do? to make it work on mac again. i don't want to reformat that drive because i have important applications (DMG) and other zip photo video files in the drive.

yes. i did.
...i have tried "verify" & "repair" but they didn't pass the san test. and when i "unmounted/mount" a error message popped up say that there is a application running off the drive but there nothing (i see) running, to close all activity

Lacie Rugged external drive will not show up after Yosemite update.

Lacie Rugged external drive will not show up after Yosemite update. It show up in disc utility I can't access it.

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External Drive Does not show any file in finder

I do not see any file in my external hard drive. It a 2TB hard drive and in info it shows 727 GB remaining. I am sure files are there but for some reason they are not showing in finder. I am using iMac 10.6.8

How does this relate to iPhoto? You'd best ask your question in the Show Leopard forum as it's more a system/hardware issue.
OT

Dvd drive does not show in Finder

My DVD drives (internal and external) do not show in Finder. Why?
If I insert a disk, it will show, but not till then.
I-Mac
Model Name:
iMac
Model Identifier:
iMac11,1
Processor Name:
Intel Core i5
Processor Speed:
2.66 GHz
Number of Processors:
1
Total Number of Cores:
4
L2 Cache (per Core):
256 KB
L3 Cache:
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Memory:
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I would like to burn to external as it is much faster and the internal is not liking me.
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External Mounted Hard Drive Icon Not Showing on Desktop nor on Sidebar

Bonjour,
I have a portable drive that does NOT show up in the Sidebar nor on the Desktop. The only way I can see and navigate through it is by clicking in Disk Utility > Mount Point: <hyper-link>
Then hard drive icon and its content show up fine. But the HD icon is slightly dimmed (it is paler than the all other - HD, computer, etc - icons).
I verified the external HD and it is just fine. I have another eDrive (TechTool Pro 4) partition and it shows up like any normal HDs normally does.
How can I get the icon to show up back into the Sidebar and the Desktop?
Is there a "Preference" file I need to throw out?
Is there a UNIX command I could execute to make it show up again?
Thanks for your assistance.

Open the Script Editor in the /Applications/AppleScript/ folder and run the following:
tell application "System Events"
set visible of (choose folder with invisibles) to false
end tell
When prompted, select your hard disk in the dialog box. Next, log out and back in.
(24685)

Hard Drive Icon Not Showing Up on Desktop

Hey folks, this might be a very very noobish question, but I guess I'm fairly new to OSX...
My Hard Disk Drive icon is not showing up on my desktop for some reason...if I open a New Finder Window, I can't see it on the upper left hand quadrant in columnar view, but I can get to all the shortcut folders in the lower left hand quadrant (Applications, Documents, Movies, etc.), but can't navigate to the root directory unless I use Terminal (yup, I'm root user).
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I have a feeling it's just some weird setting I may have inadvertently tweaked, so any feedback, advice, or information on how to get it back would be very welcome and appreciated. In case it's any help, here is the HDD Information from Get Info:
Name : HDD_loc
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk0s2
Mount Point : /
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : Serial ATA 2
Partition Type : Apple_HFS
Device Tree : /PCI0/SATA@1F,2/PRT0@0/PMP@0/@0:2
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : FA4BDB3B-DA6C-3E01-A726-41B2B9846E79
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Free Space : 41.5 GB (44,599,959,552 Bytes)
Used : 93.5 GB (100,355,186,688 Bytes)
Number of Files : 792,250
Number of Folders : 148,707
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : Yes
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Verified
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 2
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Thanks in advance!

Thanks ElBiggus, I neglected to add that I had already done this. "Hard disks" is checked, as is "CDs, DVDs, and iPods", as well as "Connected Servers".
If I drop down the "New Finder windows open:" menu, I see "Home", "Documents", "Computer", "iDisk" (greyed out), and "Untitled", which is my Windows partition.
This is a very strange one...can't seem to figure it out

Drive column not showing in finder

Hi sorry if this is dumb but I'm new to Mac. My friend's cat sat on my keyboard and now Finder is not showing the column that listed drives, cds, etc, it just starts from within Macintosh HD. I have the settings checked to show Hard Discs, External Discs, CDs and DVDs

Did you check in Finder on your menubar > View menu > Show Sidebar?
-mj

External Drive Icon not visible on Desktop OS X 10.9 Macbook Air

Hello,
i am unable to view my external Hard Drive icon on the desktop, rather i have to go vie system prefrences> disk utility unlock my external Drive and then the icon of ecternal drive is visible on the desktop. Earlier i was able to view the icon the moment i used to plug in my external hard drive into the system. i have also tried to change the prefrences in finder. the system was not upgraded. help would be indeed required.
Thannk You.

You should be able to make this appear on the desktop by checking it in Finder Preferences. Click on "File" in the top bar and go down the menu to get to Finder Prefs.

External drive icon not showing in finder

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