External drive: "this drive is not readable by this computer"

just got this after my computer crashed.
been using TM for a week or more and now it will not mount. and says it's unreadable...
please help!

Sounds like you've corrupted the drive partition. Not easy to fix without some third party software (and maybe not even with such software).
If the data is not critical I'd reformat the drive and start afresh. If the data is needed then something like DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro may be of help.

Similar Messages

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    I have recently purchased Toshiba 1TB hard drive and I set it up and I was able to transfer all my files onto it such as my music, photos, documents. I had correctly ejected and used it again and all these files were safely stored and accessible afterwards. However after I rebooted my computer as it had been going slow and I had too much clogging it up once I reconnected the external hard drive I have error message saying 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' Three options are Initialize, Ignore or Eject. How do I access all my files? I set it up to work on both mac and windows. I have tried both another mac and windows computer and same issue occurs?? I am worried that all my personal files are gone but am confused as the drive has had absolutely no damage to it as it was in a very short time frame and its never left the same spot. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

    Thanks for your quick response. I had a look at your discussion... I tried it on a Windows machine and I thought that was compatible with ExFAT?
    Therefore I need to attempt to use my external hard drive with a machine that boasts OS X 10.6.5 or above and then it should work?
    Thanks

  • WD external Hard Drive comes up with "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."

    So here lies the problem, when connecting my WD external HD to my MBP, I get the message The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer. and a further three options of initialize, ignore and eject. I have always hit ignore.
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    Thanks for your quick response. I had a look at your discussion... I tried it on a Windows machine and I thought that was compatible with ExFAT?
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  • My external LaCie drive gets an error message "the disc you inserted was not readable by this computer." The only options offered are "ignore" or "eject" Disk Utility sees the disc but does not give a repair option. What can I do?

    When I plug in my external LaCie drive I get an error message "the disc you inserted was not readable by this computer."
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    The good thing about mac-centric resellers such as OWC, is they have people on staff that can answer questions without you buying things first. They also have how-to information, and instructions are included in many of their products. I saw a link to watch a DIY video in one of their pages; an example of a RAID (with its own power supply) is shown on their drives page. Also a few in there, with no power supplies, for less money.
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    The unused in-box external drive I have is like the base model in the link above. However mine is USB2.0 (maybe) and won't boot my older Macs due to hardware variance; and my preference would be for FireWire options, these models do offer that. But the one I have does not. Dual 500GB HDDs, and they could be used in tandem as a RAID. That would be a choice set up in software. I'm not sure and not interested enough to read up just now.
    My backup method is not automatic, or a moving backup plan, if I don't get a move-on and make full system clones. I do make copies of photos and documents the manual way, to USB external drives; and occasionally backup to DVD or CD media. And USB flash, that helps to move files between computers without need to use file sharing via wi-fi. {Like Why fly? Walking is better exercise unless one is a bird. Squawk!}
    https://www.google.com/#q=raid+backup+mac
    Depending on the ports in your Mac, you may be able to use other cables to attach between a backup or externally enclosed hard disk drive with multiple partition and bootable clone in one of them. Not sure about the Thunderbolt, and where that is the main port, adapters are required to access other devices, as allowed.
    Anyway, I am going on and on, yet not really saying anything.
    My ideas would not be all that interesting to follow as a backup
    plan when matching available newer hardware to task, but you
    can get some into better ideas if you are not in a rush. Get a
    good setup and then look into more an betterer stuff.
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  • HT4718 I have an external hard drive that I used as Time Machine Backup. I have not used it for a while and now, when I plug it in computer says:  This disc is not readable. I want to recover the backups and not erase and reformat the disc.  Thank you in

    I have an external hard drive that I have used as Time Machine backup, but not for a while. Now when I plug it in, computer says this disc is not readable.
    I want to keep the backups on it and not erase and start over.
    Thank you in advance.
    Gregor

    It sounds like something went wrong with the drive.  Did you drop it?  How long has it been sitting around unused?

  • FAT formatted external hard drive is not 'readable by this computer'

    Hello support community
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    3. I then transferred files from mac onto external hard drive and then also put them on a windows machine.
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    Erase the drive and reformat using your Mac (Disk Utility)

  • External Drive: The Disk You Inserted Was Not Readable By This Computer

    I have a 2TB Western Digital external drive that I've been using for a year or two as my backup for my Aperture libraries.  Been working fine until now, I get the "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."  Clicking "Initialize" takes me to disk utility with no usable options.  Whatdoido?!
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    I had this exact issue with my external harddrive, I scrolled forums and did what they said and nothing, then I just happened to be in the app store and thought I would search for data recovery, a few came up and only a couple had ratings so I looked at Data Rescue 3, its £40 so I went ot their website for the trial version, downloaded and installed that, tried it and rescued a random file (limits obvioulsy on the trial verison) and it worked so paid the £40 and am currently saving all my files to another external harddrive.
    Try out the trial first and if it works on one file i reccomend the the full program!
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  • External hard drive says the disk is not readable by this computer. Help!

    My son disconnected my external hard drive while I was copying files from my macbook to the external hard drive. Now it says the disk is not readable by this computer. Help! Is there anything I can do??

    Launch disk utility and try to repair the disk, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1782?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

  • Suddenly my 1 TB Western Digital external hard drive has decided to give me a "the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" error

    I was playing music on iTunes (my iTunes library is stored on the hard drive) when I realized that it was running slow and giving me some pinwheels. So, I force quit iTunes, ejected the hard drive, waited a couple of seconds and plugged it back in. To my surprise it gave me an error that said "The disk you insterted is not readable by this computer" with the options to initialize, ignore, and eject. I have been searching Google, YouTube, and other forums for fixes (I am not too handy with Terminal without some assistance). I am able to go to Disk Utility and I see the drive there, and when I go to the partition is says "not mounted" I have tried repairing the disk only to get the notificiation that tells me Disk Utility is unable to repair the disk. I also ran Terminal and tried doing diskutil repairDisk and repairVolume to no avail. Below you can see the information I have gotten from Disk Ultilty and Terminal. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated as I have my music library, art projects, and other very important data on this drive! Thank you in advance!

    Yikes, doesn't look too good. But there are still things you can try.
    I noticed the disk is formatted as MS-DOS FAT32. While such disks can be read and used on Macs, it's better to set up your disks formatted for the Mac. For one thing, the Mac disk repair tools don't work as well on FAT32 (PC-style) disks. Which might be why Disk Utility did not succeed.
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  • Keep getting a "the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" when I insert my printer cord into either USB port.  Recently installed a portable hard drive for back up purposes.  Related?

    Keep getting a "the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" when I insert my printer cord into either USB port.  Recently installed a portable hard drive for back up purposes.  Related?

    Does your printer have a slot for an SD card?  Is there are card in the slot?  If so, the computer is trying to mount that card as an external device.  It might be corrupted so that it can't be read.

  • Hard drive "not readable by this computer"

    I have a MacPro Retina and soon after the latest Yosemite update (not sure if this is the cause) my Transcend 1.5TB External hard drive would no longer mount, it would come up with the message " the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer". The disk however does show up in disk utility but i can not verify nor repair the disk as these options are greyed out! i have two other hard drives and they are still working fine. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

    Erase the drive and reformat using your Mac (Disk Utility)

  • My Sandisk cruzer thumb drive 4.0GB (which is very old, roughly 10 years and I'm not sure about the model) reads "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" when inserted in my Macbook pro 2010. How do I get it to work?

    My Macbook Pro 2010 with the latest OS does not open a particular Sandisk Cruzer 4.0GB (which is an old model, about 10 years) thumbdrive with the message "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer". Will I be able to read it on my macbook?

    Is it readable in a Windows computer?  If not then you can try Disk Utility to repair the drive-- although that may be dangerous too.
    I haven't had this problem so I out of safe ideas.  There are ustilies out there.   I used the seach term "repair flash drive Mac OS X" to locate some of these.
    If the data is essential there are pay-for services to recover data looked the price was in the range $50 - $1000
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  • I've been getting the error message "The disk you inserted was not readable by the computer". I can't open system preferences, disk utility, or Time Machine. I'm guessing it has something to do with my external hard drive, although it hasn't been touched.

    I've been getting the error message "The disk you inserted was not readable by the computer". I can't open system preferences, disk utility, or Time Machine. I'm guessing it has something to do with my external hard drive, although it hasn't been touched lately, but I can't figure out how to solve the problem. Any suggestions? Thank you!

    Thanks for your quick response. I had a look at your discussion... I tried it on a Windows machine and I thought that was compatible with ExFAT?
    Therefore I need to attempt to use my external hard drive with a machine that boasts OS X 10.6.5 or above and then it should work?
    Thanks

  • When insert my lexar USB flash drive I get the message that the disk was not readable by this computer.  It has worked previous to this and I do not want to lose the data by reformatting the drive.  How can I reformat this drive and not lose my data?

    When insert my lexar USB flash drive I get the message that the disk was not readable by this computer.  It has worked previous to this and I do not want to lose the data by reformatting the drive.  How can I reformat this drive and not lose my data?

    You can't reformat it and not wipe everything on it.
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    Only other option, back it up on a different computer.

  • I am using a Seagate backup plus portable drive on my iMac 7 with OSX 10.9.2.  At startup up I always get a popup window stating "The disk you inserted is not readable by this computer.  I click ignore and everything seems OK. Is it?

    I am using a Seagate backup plus portable drive as my time machine backup on my iMac 7 with OSX 10.9.2 Mavericks.  At startup I always get popup window stating "The disk you inserted is not readable by this computer..?   I click ignore and everything seems to be OK.   Time machine seems to be backuping up to the seagate.   I can open time machine and see the history of backups.    Why does this message come up at startup of computer????

    If you installed the Seagate software, remove it according to the manufacturer's instructions.

  • Time machine drive is "not readable by this computer."

    I cannont back up my computer any more.  When I plug in the hard drive I use as my Time Machine back-up disk I receive this message "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." with options to "initialize..." and ignore and eject. 
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    Serial Number  W80443E2DB6
    Software  OS X 10.8 (12A269)

    The drive has apparently failed. Test it with another Mac, if possible.

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