External drive volume is recognized but won't mount.

I've searched the support forum and I can't seem to find this problem... MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz Intel Core2Duo. External LaCie 500GB drive. I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive for 3 partitions. Everything went smoothly and no errors occurred. So, I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair. Using Tech Tool to rebuild the volume checks out as well. I'm stumped!! Any ideas? I'm sure it's some silly thing I've just never heard of, but I don't have any ideas left in me.
other checkpoints.... In Disk Utility: the drive is in the sidebar, but there is no "Mount" option available for the drive, since it is, apparently, already mounted.
Also... If I use the Finder menu item Go -> Go to Folder and enter "/Volumes" (without the quotes), I can see all 3 volumes on the external drive.
There is about 28GB of data on this volume, but I do have it backed up.
Thanks for any info.

Kujawa wrote:
I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive.
I'm curious why you didn't try to use Disk Utility to do this.
I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore will is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair.
In Disk Utility, when you select that volume in the "sidebar", under the "File" menu is the "Mount ..." menu item available? If so, what happens if you invoke it?
I'm not suggesting that you use this approach every time, but it might provide additional information that would help others solve your problem.

Similar Messages

External drive partition is recognized but won't mount.

I've searched the support forum and I can't seem to find this problem... MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz Intel Core2Duo. External LaCie 500GB drive. I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive. Everything went smoothly and no errors occurred. So, I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore will is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair. Using Tech Tool to rebuild the volume checks out as well. I'm stumped!! Any ideas? I'm sure it's some silly thing I've just never heard of, but I don't have any ideas left in me. Thanks for any info.

Kujawa wrote:
I bought TechTool Pro 5 last week to clean this external drive out and repartition. I did a 7 pass erase, surface scan, and repartitioned the drive.
I'm curious why you didn't try to use Disk Utility to do this.
I attempted to change the Icon for one of the partitions. Ever since then, the volume will not mount to the desktop, therefore will is not available in Finder. Using Disk Utility, the volume is there and will verify and checks out without needing repair.
In Disk Utility, when you select that volume in the "sidebar", under the "File" menu is the "Mount ..." menu item available? If so, what happens if you invoke it?
I'm not suggesting that you use this approach every time, but it might provide additional information that would help others solve your problem.

Ext HD recognized but won't mount

Trying to use my firewire/usb ext HD. It is recognized in disc utility and system profiler, but won't mount. I honestly can't remember whether the HD was disconnected or turned off before unmounting, but that's my suspicion. Tried connecting through usb---nothing. I've tried repairing with disc utility, but still nothing. I even had my neighbor plug it into his pc which wasn't any help (but nevermind that). Any advice?

Hi, Jason. Is the drive powered by its own AC adapter, or is it a bus-powered unit? If the latter, its power requirements may exceed what the bus can provide, and the solution will be to power it externally (or if there's no place on it to plug in an AC adapter, replace its enclosure with one that can be powered externally).
Spinning up but failing to mount is classic behavior for a bus-powered drive that exceeds the bus's power budget. That your drive won't mount when connected either through a FW or a USB port strongly indicates that it isn't your connecting cable(s) at fault, since the likelihood that both types of cable are bad is very small.
You don't say whether the drive was recognized by the PC you connected it to. Was it?
Has this drive ever mounted properly on your Mac's desktop, or is it a new drive that has never been formatted on a Mac? Is Disk Utility able to format it (as Mac OS Extended) or not?

Dead internal eSATA hard drive - spins and clicks, but won't mount

I'm trying to help a friend whose internal drive died. She has since replaced it in her Powerbook, but would like to salvage the data on the old one.
I got it connected to my laptop via USB, with one of those Newer Tech multi-connectors, but all I get is a cycle of spinning and clicks, which repeats itself without the head actually reading, or mounting the drive's image on the desktop.
I'm not interested in using the drive in the future. I just want to be able to copy the data within it, so I can give it to my friend. Any help or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
TIA,
BK
Message was edited by: Blague

No Powerbook can use a SATA or eSATA drive internally. The drive is an ATA/IDE (aka PATA) drive. The reason it doesn't read or mount when connected to your laptop, which I hope is a Mac, is that it has failed. If you're connecting it to a Windoze PC laptop, don't: you'll get nowhere that way. Connect it to your G5 instead.
Once you have the bad drive connected to a Mac, download and run the free demo version of any or all of these data recovery utilities:
Data Rescue
FileSalvage
VirtualLab
All three come in demo versions that will show you what the full version could recover before you have to pay for anything.

External Firewire drives power up, but won't mount.

I wanted to see if anyone else is having this problem. I recently upgraded my mom's laptop to OSX Lion after she experienced a lot of problems with Snow Leopard. All updates available from Software Update have been installed. Now 2 issues have arisen after the new install: 1) the FW 800 and 400 ports appear to be non-functional, and 2) the OS takes about 10 minutes to boot up to the desktop.
1) Regarding the FW ports: I have a couple external Firewire 800 hard drives that I use on other Macs so I know they're fully operational and mount without any issues. They're both 5400RPM drives that have been inserted into Macally external enclosures, and are of different capacities - one is 320GB and the other is 500GB. The enclosures offer FW 800, 400, USB 2.0 and mini-USB connectivity. But after upgrading the laptop I mentioned, neither of the drives will mount when using the FW 800 or 400 cables. They power up but won't mount, and they don't show up in the list in Disk Utility. However, the drives will power up and mount via USB.
I realize the laptop may have a hardware/port problem - but both 800 and 400 ports? Seems unlikely.
2) Any idea why it's taking the OS 10 minutes to boot up? I've shut down the laptop and rebooted it twice since the OS install, and both times took 10 minutes.
I may just install Lion on one of the hard drives, pull it and then pop it into the laptop to see if that makes any difference. Before I do that, can anyone recommend a hardware utility that can check the ports?
I welcome your suggestions.
Thank you.

Thanks for responding. Here's the info you requested. I'm not a systems guy so hopefully I've pasted in something that helps.
system.log report, after searching BOOT_TIME, here's one of the timestamps:
May 25 22:04:58 localhost bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1337997898 0
Here's a chunk of the log after that timestamp:
May 25 22:05:00 localhost com.apple.launchd[1]: *** launchd[1] has started up. ***
May 25 22:05:13 localhost com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd): Unknown value for key POSIXSpawnType: Interactive
May 25 22:05:13 localhost com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.sandboxd): Unknown value for key POSIXSpawnType: Interactive
May 25 22:05:18 localhost com.apple.pfctl[34]: No ALTQ support in kernel
May 25 22:05:18 localhost com.apple.pfctl[34]: ALTQ related functions disabled
May 25 22:05:18 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: starting CaptiveNetworkSupport as SystemEventAgent built May 25 2011 12:27:35
May 25 22:05:18 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptiveSCCopyWiFiDevices:388 WiFi Device Name == NULL
May 25 22:05:19 localhost com.apple.ucupdate.plist[28]: ucupdate: Checked 1 update, no match found.
May 25 22:06:14 localhost configd[14]: InterfaceNamer: timed out waiting for IOKit to quiesce
May 25 22:06:14 localhost configd[14]: Busy services :
May 25 22:06:14 localhost configd[14]:   MacBookPro3,1 [76967, 4375662836 ms]
May 25 22:06:15 localhost mDNSResponder[37]: mDNSResponder mDNSResponder-320.16 (Mar 17 2012 21:31:16) starting OSXVers 11
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: ERROR,Time,359690775.485,Function,"_Apple80211* CLWifiService::createApple80211()",Apple80211GetIfListCopy failed, error -3903 (Unknown error: -3903)
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,1   locationd                           0x00000001077fe583 locationd + 624003
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,2   locationd                           0x00000001077fe719 locationd + 624409
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,3   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00007fff85f46c79 _dispatch_barrier_sync_f_invoke + 33
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,4   locationd                           0x00000001077fe9b0 locationd + 625072
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,5   locationd                           0x00000001077fea10 locationd + 625168
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,6   libsystem_c.dylib                   0x00007fff85e96e06 pthread_once + 86
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,7   locationd                           0x00000001077fea47 locationd + 625223
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,8   locationd                           0x00000001077f33ac locationd + 578476
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,9   locationd                           0x00000001077f353f locationd + 578879
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,10 libsystem_c.dylib                   0x00007fff85e96e06 pthread_once + 86
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,11 locationd                           0x00000001077f3509 locationd + 578825
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,12 locationd                           0x00000001077b052a locationd + 304426
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,13 locationd                           0x0000000107791653 locationd + 177747
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,14 locationd                           0x0000000107791a08 locationd + 178696
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,15 locationd                           0x00000001077921b2 locationd + 180658
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,16 locationd                           0x00000001077c332c locationd + 381740
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,17 locationd                           0x0000000107767fd8 locationd + 8152
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.locationd[40]: STACK,Time,359690775.485,18 ???                                 0x0000000000000001 0x0 + 1
May 25 22:06:15 localhost com.apple.usbmuxd[27]: usbmuxd-268.5 on Jan 5 2012 at 03:34:01, running 64 bit
May 25 22:06:15 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptiveSCCopyWiFiDevices:388 WiFi Device Name == NULL
May 25 22:06:15 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: ServermgrdRegistration cannot load config data
May 25 22:06:15 localhost UserEventAgent[11]: get_backup_share_points no AFP
May 25 22:06:15 localhost systemkeychain[59]: done file: /var/run/systemkeychaincheck.done
May 25 22:06:15 localhost configd[14]: ioctl(SIOCGIFCAP) failed: Device not configured
May 25 22:06:16: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
May 25 22:06:16 localhost mDNSResponder[37]: D2D_IPC: Loaded
May 25 22:06:16 localhost mDNSResponder[37]: D2DInitialize succeeded
If you want me to post the kernal log, I can do that next if nothing in here points anyone in the right direction. FYI - the system booted normally this morning after shutting it down overnight.

My external hard drive works on PC but won't even show up on my mac?

My external hard drive works on pc but won't even show up on my mac? What can I do?

If it is in the wrong format it must probably still show up though, if your mac does detect it, go to disk utilities> choose the device from the left hand side > go to the "erase" tab and change format to "Mac OS extended (Journaled) then hit "erase".
IMPRTANT! : this will erase ALL of the files on your external hard drive
If this dosent work, make sure your external hard drive's USB port is compatibe with both USB 2.0 and 3.0 and also make sure your mac USB socket isnt damaged either.
Hope this helped

External hard drive volumes not recognized as startup disks

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By your description, it doesn't look like the OS's installed on the partitions are capable of booting your machine. If they don't qualify for your machine, they will not show up in a list you can choose from.
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EZ Quest Firewire 400 ext drive works in 10.4 (PPC) but won't mount in 10.6 (Intel)

I have an EZ Quest external FireWire 400 drive. Was working fine on my MDD Mac running OS X 10.4.11. NOW, when I hook it up to my iMac running OS X 10.6.8, it will not mount. Tried different ports. Tried device on and off at boot. Doesn't show up on desktop or in sidebar of finder window or in System Profiler. Drive powers up, but won't mount. Please help. Thanks. Dennis

I have the same problem. Two different EZQuest Quad interface drives suddenly won't mount on my 2010 iMac (Core Duo) via the firewire 800 or 400 ports. If I use a USB cable, both drives mount as normal, but I need the Firewire 800 ports to stream audio samples for Logic.
Both of these drives were working fine for over a year until I upgraded recently to 10.6.8 on the iMac and then tried to use one of the drives yesterday with a new 2012 MacBook Pro (10.7.4). The drive mounted once on the MacBook Pro, then disappeared and now will not mount on either the MacBook Pro or my iMac.
I tried resetting the PRAM and SMC on the iMac, but the drives still won't mount via firewire. The fact that both EZQuest drives still mount via USB indicates this is a firewire problem particular to Mac OS 10.6.8 and 10.7 rather than an external drive problem. It also seems that many people are experiencing this regardless of the external drive brand. Does anybody know how to fix this?

Had to wipe my drive so I could do a clean install of snow leopard Now I look every where on how to move bookmarks, address book and I cal settings. I have them back up on a external drive with Time machine but can not move, copy or restore my old sett d

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How to transfer iTunes library to an external drive (thats easy!) but keeping the playlists musics on the computer?

How to transfer iTunes library to an external drive (thats easy!) but keeping the playlists musics on the computer?
Many thanks!

Select a single song with a broken link, press CTRL+I to Get Info, cancel when asked to locate the track and take a look at the Summary tab. Post back where iTunes is looking for the file. It begins file://localhost
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tt2

Pismo, OSC 10.3.9, VST Media Bay superdrive sees but won't mount 1.4mb flop

This worked a while back, likely earlier version of X, just tried it and it sees but won't mount or format a floppy that works fine in a Mac Mini (10.4.11 with a Teac external floppy drive)
About to travel, would rather take the Pismo with the VST drive in the 2nd bay --anyone recognize this problem?
Here's what the Profile sees:
Name :
S,1 0 S
I
4 0 H l,p y
Type : Disk
Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : M L Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : ATAPI
Connection ID : Device 0
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Disk Number : 1
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Ok, using Yasu to flush all the caches, nothing else, and rebooting
-- did work for the VST ZIP module, which works, mounts a ZIP disk ok.
-- did not work for the HS-120 VST floppy module, but it's different.
Before it did not detect a floppy, just showed up on System Profiler as the drive being present.
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External HDD (for Time Machine backup) detected but won't mount on desktop

I have been using this external HDD as my Time Machine backup for many months now. No desktop display settings have been changed (I checked), but now it won't mount on my desktop. I suspect one of my kids was banging around on the keyboard, as they have done in the past, and renamed it. Unfortunately it appears they renamed it to NULL this time around. I didn't think that was possible, but I've plugged it into 3 different Windows and iMac machines, and in all cases the external drive gets detected, but then in all cases it doesn't mount. The Volume Label does appear blank in the device properties.
Is there a way to access my drive again to rename it? Will that allow it to mount again? Or is there a way to access it to just reformat the whole darn thing?
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I don't think it's possible to have a null name for a drive so i suspect there is a problem with it. open disk utility. does it show the name of the drive? try repairing it (repair disk not permissions). if that doesn't help you can always reformat it with Disk Utility. select the whole drive ( model, not name) and use the partition tab.

Drive Visible Thru diskutil list But Won't Mount

I'm attempting to recover information on a hard drive that won't mount. I can see it in Disk Utility and through the Terminal, but everything I do to access the drive contents is met with some sort of roadblock. Here are a couple of things I tried:
sudo diskutil mount disk3s10
... results in "unknown special file or filesystem
sudo diskutil mount disk3s10
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sudo dd bs=512 if=/dev/disk3s10 of=/dev/disk2[location]/recovered.dmg conv=noerror,sync
... results in Permission denied
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... The disk "External FW -150GB" could not be mounted. Try running Frist Aid on the disk and then retry mounting.
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Hi
Possibly a fault on the drive controller card? Mechanically it seems OK because at least you can see it in DU and it does seem to be spinning.
In cases like this I have used DataRescue:
http://www.prosofteng.com/
With some success. DataRescue can scavenge for data without the need for a valid directory. As long as the drive is spinning you stand a chance. Might be worth a shot?
If you have DiskWarrior you could use that? Sometimes it can restore/replace a directory for long enough to allow you to get desired data off it. If it can manage it then the drive should mount. You will have to be quick though as you will probably only get one chance at it.
Tony

Was able to transfer itunes music from an external drive to a computer, but cannot listen to it without external drive being connected. There are "!" next to the transferred music.

Was able to transfer itunes music from external drive to computer, but they won't play. There are "!" marks next to all transferred songs and a message reads "Unable to locate songs". How do i get the transferred songs to play without having the external drive connected.

Select a single song with a broken link, press CTRL+I to Get Info, cancel when asked to locate the track and take a look at the Summary tab. Post back where iTunes is looking for the file. It begins file://localhost
Where is it really?
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tt2

HELP! WD Passport External Drive stopped being recognized by my Mac

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Any ideas at all are welcome at this point.
Thanks

External drive volume is recognized but won't mount.

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