External Drive - Unable to access

So i've been struggling with this issue for several months now, sometimes finding a hack that allows me to use it but most of the time relying on my other drives. Now I need some of the info from the drive and I need to sort out this issue for once and for all.
When I plug in my external hard drive (Western Digital) to my USB drive I find the following takes place:
1. Nothing appears in either the desktop or the finder
2. If I open 'Disk Utility', the drive appears there but I cannot verify or repair the drive ("Unable to unmount drive"). I can succesfully 'eject' the drive, but as soon as I manually disconnect it, I get "Device Removal" error.
3. If I try to connect the drive into my VMWare instance, it says that "the host is currently using the device"
4. Each time I re-connect the drive, a new directory appears in the /Volumes/ directory with an incremented integer value in front of it (i.e. /Volumes/foo, /Volumes/foo 1, /Volumes/foo 2)
5. For a while, I was able to succesfully umount the drive and then remount it and access it (my temporary fix/hack) but this no longer works - either I get "Incorrect Super Block" or "unknown special file or file system"
Questions I would love an answer to (and yes, I have googled but perhaps your google-fu is better than mine):
1. How can I determine what still has an open handle on some file on the drive?
2. Is there any way I can access the drive temporarily so that I can get the info off the drive and then reformat (drive is currently FAT32)
3. Anybody know of a permanent fix?
Thank you so much, please let me know if any further info is needed or if you want me to try anything and I'll do my best,
oldNoakes.

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I really do not understand this Lenovo support attitude. How can anybody that is customer focused and enjoys his/her job, just fully ignore a customer problems ??
Only one retired employee that is interested (thanks for that) but can not do much.

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Nice find!

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Gary Wornell wrote:
I want to open the catalogue from my Windows 7 Lightroom 5. I can open the catalogue, but cannot see the file structure in the left pane.
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Message was edited by: Rachel Whitfield
Message was edited by: Rachel Whitfield

Rachel,
Disk Utility is in your "Utilities" folder (of course). Here's how we do this:
/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
Let's cover a few terms while we're at it... Disk Utility is rather like iTunes in the way it looks (in fact, most everything "Mac" has a lot of features similar to those in iTunes). The list at the left side of the Disk Utility window (as in iTunes) is called the "source list." In the case of DU, this list shows "devices" and "volumes" at the top. Below those would be shown recent "disk images" that DU may have created or handled (you won't have any, and "disk images" are something you won't encounter for at least a few hours ).
A "device" is something physical, like your Superdrive or internal hard drive, and a "volume" is a logical "container" for files that is created on a given device. Think of it like the trunk of your car (the device), and the organizer you place in that trunk (a volume). DU shows volumes indented below the device that contains them. Since a volume is a logical framework (we call it a "file system") that holds your files, it is actually written to the device.
Windows uses specific "logical frameworks" (NTFS, FAT-32), and Mac OS uses a somewhat different one (HFS+). The Mac OS can, however, read any of the Windows formats ('cause Macs are more better, as you've already found), and DU knows how to write those FAT-32 logical frameworks.
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Finally, Disk Utility is what we use to create and manage "disk images". These are single files that act as "virtual disks," and can be "mounted" and "ejected" just like real disks. This is something that you will encounter soon, I'm sure, but don't need to worry about right yet.
I'll continue in another post (yeeesh, am I long-winded sometimes)...

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I have restarted my Mac Book Pro and quite iTunes etc. I also have the media folder correctly identified on the external hard drive in my iTunes preferences, Advanced Settings.
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Get info on the drive. Check the format. If it says NTFS it is a format that Macs cannot write to, only read, unless you install special software. It is a common issue with using Windows drives on Macs. "Locked" may mean iTunes cannot open it for full use since it needs to write to the library file as well as read it.
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NTFS drivers for Macs (there may be others):
Paragon NTFS - http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ - recommendation: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18708633
Tuxera NTFS 2012.3.2 - http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/33122/tuxera-ntfs
NTFS for Mac OS X 9.5.3 - http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26288/ntfs-for-mac-os-x
http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/ and http://i.vishalagarwal.com/post/30387627819/ntfs-write-on-lion-or-mountain-lion

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Update Iphoto on an external drive

I have an iphoto backup on n external drive, unable to open (iphoto 9.4.2) asking to update to the latest version, how can I update the iphoto on the external drive?

robdeheza wrote:
I have an iphoto backup on n external drive, unable to open (iphoto 9.4.2) asking to update to the latest version, how can I update the iphoto on the external drive?
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