External Drive won't init over 128GB, Not FW firmware issue

This one is killing me:
I got a Maxtor 6L 300R0 drive the other day and hooked it up to my Dual 1GHZ MDD via a FW enclosure to init it - I am planning on migrating all my data from 3 internals over to 1 drive. The enclosure can handle drives over 128gb as there was a 200gb drive in it prior to the 300gb maxtor. Disk Utility only shows the drive as having a capacity of 128GB. Tried it in a new USB enclosure that says it can handle drive up to 400GB, same problem. I tried booting with other system drives that I had around: 10.3.8, same problem, 10.4.3, same problem, Original X Install DVD Disk Util, same problem. I did some searching on the forums and decided to return it to swap it out in case it was a drive problem.
I got a replacement drive and was at work, so I just decided to init it on one of the G5's with my USB enclosure. Drive inited fine to ~279.5 GB. I brought it home and hooked everything up. Drive showed up fine as 279.5 GB on my MDD. I switched it over to a FW case to get little better speed on the copy. Drive still showed up as ~279.5 GB. I launched Super Duper and let it do it's thing. As part of the process, I believe that it re-inits the drive. I got up this morning to swap everything out and put the new drive internal, but I had an out of space error on the new drive. I opened it up in the Finder and now it is saying that it is a 128GB capacity drive. I just tried all of the options above: 10.3.8, new user on current 10.4.5, 10.4.3, X Install DVD. Still shows as 128GB drive. Went back to the USB case, tried above options, same problem.
Reset-NVRAM and Reset-All from Open Firmware, same problems.
The only thing that I have not tried is to take the drive back to work and see what it says on the G5. I'd rather not do that on my weekend off.
My G4 MDD is current on OS upgrades, 1.25 GB Ram, Dual 1 GHZ processor. Current drive configuration is a 3 Drive Raid 0 internally.
Is there a way to get in and reset the partition map size with the correct LBA? Or is this not the problem?

Final Update-
Never really determined what the problem on the Mac end was. I mounted the drive in an Ubuntu Linux box. It was showing up as having far less cylinders than it should for the drive geometry. Reset it to specs that I got from the Maxtor site with cfdisk (which I think is just fdisk with a little bit of a user interface), drive then showed up as correct size. I formatted the whole drive for Linux swap then moved it over to the mac. Re-Inited it as HFS+, and everything worked great.
I found some similar posts re: drives getting stuck at 128gb even when moved to an ATA-6 compliant bus/enclosure. This might be one way to get them back to factory spec on the size.

Similar Messages

External drive won't mount after plugging in iPhone - MacBook 13'' (2,1)

Hi Support Crew...
I have a 13" MacBook(2,1) running OS X 10.6.2. This is a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo machine w/ 4 GB RAM & 320 GB hard drive.
Today, I had the Iomega drive plugged in via USB, along with my soundcard (MOTU 828mk2) plugged in via FW. This is a very normal setup for me which has been bug free since I bought this computer over 2 years ago. When I plugged in my iPhone 3G via USB I got an error message which comes up when you incorrectly remove a device. This was strange because I didn't unplug anything, I only plugged in the iPhone. The iPhone was playing music when I plugged it in and I had to unplug and plug is back in to get iTunes to recognize it.
Ever since this happened, my Iomega external drive won't mount. I am able to access it via Disk Utility (and ran the Verify Disk/Repair Disk - everything is "ok"), however I can't access the data on the drive. I really really need the data but of course can't access it to backup.
Disk Utility log:
500.11 GB Ext Hard Disk Media (black text)
Iris (grey text) - I ran Verify Disk & Repair Disk
2010-01-22 14:20:51 -0800: Verify and Repair volume “Iris”
2010-01-22 14:20:51 -0800: Starting repair tool:
2010-01-22 14:20:51 -0800: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2010-01-22 14:20:52 -0800: Checking extents overflow file.
2010-01-22 14:20:52 -0800: Checking catalog file.
2010-01-22 14:20:56 -0800: Checking multi-linked files.
2010-01-22 14:20:56 -0800: Checking catalog hierarchy.
2010-01-22 14:20:58 -0800: Checking extended attributes file.
2010-01-22 14:21:00 -0800: Checking volume bitmap.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: Checking volume information.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: The volume Iris appears to be OK.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: Volume repair complete.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800: Repair tool completed:
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800:
2010-01-22 14:21:01 -0800:
System Profiler shows the drive (on both FW & USB ports when I tried other cords). This drive does not require power and I am not using a USB hub, strictly the laptops ports. And yes, the laptop's power adapter is plugged in.
System Profiler: Device Tree log:
Iomega eGo HDD:
Capacity: 500.11 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes)
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Product ID: 0x047c
Vendor ID: 0x059b (Iomega Corporation)
Version: 0.01
Serial Number: 000000066273
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Iomega
Location ID: 0xfd300000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 0
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
Iris:
Capacity: 499.97 GB (499,972,702,208 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s10
When I tried to run Migration Assistant, I just get the spinning search circle and none of the drives come up, just endless searching.
The fact that I got the "Improperly removed device" error when I plugged in the iPhone makes me think something weird is up and it's not actually the external drive. There is clicking/whining/noise, the drives powers up fine and is recognized by the system but the mount point is now "not mounted".
Does anyone have any idea how to fix? If you live in SF, I will buy you a beer.
J

I meant to say; "There are NO clicking/whining/noise sounds made by the external hard drive"

LaCie external drive won't mount on iMAC

Hi,
My external LaCie external drive won't mount on my iMAC running 10.6.8 but will mount and show up on my PC as working fine, however I am not able to read the information on it as it was formatted for my iMAC. Therefore it leads me to believe this is a software issue.
I have reason to believe someone had changed the permissions and prevented the mounting of this external drive (which belongs to me) so that the contents won't be found on my iMAC.
How to resolve this issue?
Thanks in advance,
Cait

Cait,
Please try a SMC reset, it may take 2-3 attempts for it to work. Look over the instructions below carefully.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

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

Had to wipe my drive so I could do a clean install of snow leopard. Now I have 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 settings. The instructions I have found or no help or needs more clarafication on what to do.

Use migration assistant to move your files. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889

External Drives Won't Sleep

Hi
Since upgrading to Leopard none of my external drives go into sleep mode when not being accessed. They do when connected to other Macs... so that points to the iMac.
Tried resetting the SMC and also 'put hard disk(s) to sleep' is checked in energy saver. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Many thanks
Colin
PS I use Lacie drives... Quadra D2 and Porsche

I have the exact same problem. I have my energy setting to put my drives to sleep when possible. I also have an external Firewire drive. In Tiger the external drive was sleeping unless I was accessing it. Now with Leopard the drive constantly wakes up. Just now I hit the back button on Safari and the drive woke up. Crazy.
Unfortunately I have no idea what is causing this, but do have the same issue. I see you excluded them from Spotlight. I just tried that and will see what happens. Are you using Firewire or USB for the external drive? I'm going to switch to UBS and see if that makes a difference.
-Dan

My external drive won't mount. Disk Utility says it can't repair disk and to backup the disk and reformat, but how can I do that if it won't mount?

My external drive won't mount. Disk Utility says it can't repair disk and to backup the disk and reformat, but how can I do that if it won't mount?

See mount section in 1st linked article.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

I installed the latest security update now my Lacie external drive won't show up in finder. Any Help?

I installed the latest security update now my Lacie external drive won't show up in finder. Any Help?

Does it show up in Disk Utility?
See mount section in 1st linked article.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

Can you upload Logic pro onto an external drive? Because my G5 does not have 50 GB available for installation, Can you upload Logic pro onto an external drive? Because my G5 does not have 50 GB available for installation

Can you upload Logic pro onto an external drive? Because my G5 does not have 50 GB available for installation, Can you upload Logic pro onto an external drive? Because my G5 does not have 50 GB available for installation

Logic 9.0.2 is the last version that runs on a G5 - 9.1.x is Intel only.
If you have only 50 GB left on your system drive, you should consider it full. Get an external drive and move your music, movies and photo's to it, and delete them from your system drive to free up space.
The free space on the system drive is being used by the OS to offload RAM, rule of thumb is to keep at least 20 % of the drives' capacity free. When you have less and less free space, your Mac will eventually become very slow (many "beachballs").
I believe the current Logic Package has version 9.1 on it, be sure you have the correct (9.0) version...

External Drive Won't Mount

My external backup drive wont mount automatically as it used to with my earlier ibook. I have to re-boot computer to get it to mount. After that it functions properly until the next time I turn it on to do a backup.
I am wondering if there is something in the formatting of this drive which is causing this? I have formatted it a few times since this started to happen but obviously without fixing the problem

Further Details:
1) After normal use of computer connect and turn on external drive. Drive does not mount.
2) Re-boot computer and turn on drive. Drive mounts.
3) Eject drive. Turn off drive. Turn on drive again - drive mounts.
4) Run SuperDuper backup. eject drive. turn off drive. turn on drive - drive mounts.
Thus, it seems (see (1) above), something in the normal use of the computer (not an artifact of the superduper backup process) over a period of time affects the system such that the drive won't mount again.

External drive won't boot after install?

I tried installing mountain lion onto an external SSD drive. At first it worked, using my USB install drive and selected my external drive as the target. All the files are copied over and asked me to restart. However, after restart all it did is booted back into my internal drive OSX. Even if I held down the option button it won't allow me to boot the external drive. Any ideas? I'm doing this from the retina macbook pro.

Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Partition and Format the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your external hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select the External drive, then select Install Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
because it is three times faster than wireless.

USB LaCie Porche 500gb usb external drive won't mount

Here is the scoop.
A few days ago I was using my LaCie 500gb external drive and the usb chord was accidently yanked out whilst adding a photo to iphoto.
So i thought uh oh better close everything disconnect wait a while then restart.
So I did...plugged it back in...it made all the normal start up noises little amber light came on but it didn't appear on the desktop..nor in disk utility. But it did appear in system profiler.
Yesterday after resetting the "pram" or whatever it is that happens when you hold p + r + the apple key and alt....or ctrl and still no relief.
So i leave it plugged in over night to see if it is merely slow for some reason. When i awake this morning it is in disk utility even with the "time machine" volume...so presumably all the files are more or less still intact. But it still isn't mounting. So after clicking repair disk ....three or more hours later i get this in the log
2008-07-18 10:07:22 +0100: Verify and Repair volume “Time Machine Backups”
Starting repair tool: 2008-07-18 10:07:22 +0100
2008-07-18 10:07:22 +0100: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2008-07-18 10:07:22 +0100: Detected a case-sensitive catalog.
2008-07-18 10:07:22 +0100: Checking Extents Overflow file.
2008-07-18 10:07:22 +0100: Checking Catalog file.
2008-07-18 10:14:21 +0100: Checking multi-linked files.
2008-07-18 10:23:17 +0100: Checking Catalog hierarchy.
2008-07-18 10:42:25 +0100: Checking Extended Attributes file.
2008-07-18 10:42:46 +0100: Invalid sibling link
2008-07-18 10:42:46 +0100: Repairing volume.
2008-07-18 10:42:46 +0100: Rechecking volume.
2008-07-18 10:42:46 +0100: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2008-07-18 10:42:46 +0100: Detected a case-sensitive catalog.
2008-07-18 10:42:46 +0100: Checking Extents Overflow file.
2008-07-18 10:42:46 +0100: Checking Catalog file.
2008-07-18 10:49:46 +0100: Checking multi-linked files.
2008-07-18 10:58:37 +0100: Checking Catalog hierarchy.
2008-07-18 11:17:59 +0100: Checking Extended Attributes file.
2008-07-18 11:18:20 +0100: Invalid sibling link
2008-07-18 11:18:20 +0100: Repairing volume.
2008-07-18 11:18:20 +0100: Rechecking volume.
2008-07-18 11:18:20 +0100: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2008-07-18 11:18:20 +0100: Detected a case-sensitive catalog.
2008-07-18 11:18:20 +0100: Checking Extents Overflow file.
2008-07-18 11:18:20 +0100: Checking Catalog file.
2008-07-18 11:25:15 +0100: Checking multi-linked files.
2008-07-18 11:34:06 +0100: Checking Catalog hierarchy.
2008-07-18 11:53:38 +0100: Checking Extended Attributes file.
2008-07-18 11:54:01 +0100: Invalid sibling link
2008-07-18 11:54:01 +0100: Repairing volume.
2008-07-18 11:54:01 +0100: Rechecking volume.
2008-07-18 11:54:01 +0100: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2008-07-18 11:54:01 +0100: Detected a case-sensitive catalog.
2008-07-18 11:54:01 +0100: Checking Extents Overflow file.
2008-07-18 11:54:01 +0100: Checking Catalog file.
2008-07-18 12:01:19 +0100: Checking multi-linked files.
2008-07-18 12:10:29 +0100: Checking Catalog hierarchy.
2008-07-18 12:28:25 +0100: Checking Extended Attributes file.
2008-07-18 12:28:46 +0100: Invalid sibling link
2008-07-18 12:28:46 +0100: 2008-07-18 12:28:46 +0100: The volume Time Machine Backups could not be repaired after 3 attempts.
it would appear that the problem is "invalid sibling link"
Any ideas people.

nonononon...
Every tech will offer to reformat the HDD or suggest its broken.
The table of contents are corrupted.
What I do is remove the drive from the case and put it in a PC and run "mac drive" software then choose repair volume and your good to go.
Iv done this as a PC tech for several of my mac customers.
But for the life of me I cant appear to reproduce the issue and don't know what the issue is.
Several macbook guys have given me their "broken" USB drive and the TOS is corrupted. Its really a royal pain in the back side.
What is the issue, how to make it stop?

WD External drive won't mount

Hello everyone! I haven't been here in a while because I just haven't had any Mac issues. Now I do.
I have a 1 TB WD external HD that won't mount. I connect it via firewire to an Old G4 Sawtooth running OS 10.5.8. My mac sees the drive, it just won't mount. I've also tried to mount it via USB, but again, my system sees the drive, but won't mount it. I inadvertantly disconnected the firewire cable, which I didn't realize for several hours. I reattached the cable, tried to mount it, and nothing. I ran disc repairs, and Disc Utility actually told me the drive was successfully repaired. Again I tried to remount it, but nothing. I repaired permissions, and this didn't work. I've tried different cables, and this doesn't work.
I don't have another Mac to connect it to, so I don't know if this would work. Here's where things get a little wierd, but interesting. I connected it to my PC laptop, and it mounted. Now, this is a drive that was formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) on my G4, so I have to use Mac Drive so my PC will recognize and mount The Drive. So My PC sees The Drive as Mac OS Extended, and mounts it. All files are in tact, and the drive runs normally. This is a music drive and it plays normally on my PC. Meanwhile, if I try connecting it back on My Mac, the name of The Drive randomly changes from 931.5 GB WD to 931.5 GB WD My Media Book. I believe My Media Book is the factory name of The Drive before OS formatting. The Volume name remains the same on my G4 each time I've tried to mount it.
I do have another identical drive that mounts from all the bus ports on my G4. Any ideas here? Can I get my Drive to begin mounting on my G4 again? Any and all answers are appreciated.

Terminal List. disk4 is the malfunctioning drive.
Last login: Mon Feb 25 19:25:12 on ttys000
raymond-medinas-power-mac-g4-agp-graphics:~ raymondmedina$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *111.8 Gi   disk0
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk0s1
   2:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk0s2
   3:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk0s3
   4:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk0s4
   5:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk0s5
   6:             Apple_FWDriver                         256.0 Ki   disk0s6
   7:         Apple_Driver_IOKit                         256.0 Ki   disk0s7
   8:              Apple_Patches                         256.0 Ki   disk0s8
   9:                  Apple_HFS Mac Leopard II          91.8 Gi    disk0s10
10:                  Apple_HFS Mac Tiger               19.7 Gi    disk0s12
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *186.3 Gi   disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk1s1
   2:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk1s2
   3:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk1s3
   4:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk1s4
   5:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk1s5
   6:             Apple_FWDriver                         256.0 Ki   disk1s6
   7:         Apple_Driver_IOKit                         256.0 Ki   disk1s7
   8:              Apple_Patches                         256.0 Ki   disk1s8
   9:                  Apple_HFS Mac Leopard I           186.2 Gi   disk1s10
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *465.8 Gi   disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk2s1
   2:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk2s2
   3:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk2s3
   4:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk2s4
   5:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk2s5
   6:             Apple_FWDriver                         256.0 Ki   disk2s6
   7:         Apple_Driver_IOKit                         256.0 Ki   disk2s7
   8:              Apple_Patches                         256.0 Ki   disk2s8
   9:                  Apple_HFS 500 GB HD               465.6 Gi   disk2s10
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *931.5 Gi   disk3
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk3s1
   2:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk3s2
   3:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk3s3
   4:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk3s4
   5:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk3s5
   6:             Apple_FWDriver                         256.0 Ki   disk3s6
   7:         Apple_Driver_IOKit                         256.0 Ki   disk3s7
   8:              Apple_Patches                         256.0 Ki   disk3s8
   9:                  Apple_HFS 1 TB Music Drive II     931.4 Gi   disk3s10
/dev/disk4
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *931.5 Gi   disk4
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk4s1
   2:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk4s2
   3:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk4s3
   4:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk4s4
   5:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk4s5
   6:             Apple_FWDriver                         256.0 Ki   disk4s6
   7:         Apple_Driver_IOKit                         256.0 Ki   disk4s7
   8:              Apple_Patches                         256.0 Ki   disk4s8
   9:                  Apple_HFS 1TB Music Drive         931.4 Gi   disk4s10
raymond-medinas-power-mac-g4-agp-graphics:~ raymondmedina$
Terminal info on disk4s10.
Last login: Mon Feb 25 22:22:41 on ttys000
raymond-medinas-power-mac-g4-agp-graphics:~ raymondmedina$ diskutil info disk4s10
   Device Identifier:        disk4s10
   Device Node:              /dev/disk4s10
   Part Of Whole:            disk4
   Device / Media Name:      Apple_HFS_Untitled_1
   Volume Name:              1TB Music Drive
   Mount Point:
   File System:              Journaled HFS+
   Owners:                   Disabled
   Partition Type:           Apple_HFS
   Bootable:                 Is bootable
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 FireWire
   SMART Status:             Not Supported
   Volume UUID:              61A8EAFF-E1C9-3605-AF92-5A210E3C781A
   Total Size:               931.4 Gi (1000069726208 B) (1953261184 512-byte blocks)
   Free Space:               0.0 B (0 B) (0 512-byte blocks)
   Read Only:                No
   Ejectable:                Yes
   Whole:                    No
   Internal:                 No
Disk Utility Info on 1TB Music Drive.
Name :
1TB Music Drive
Type :
Volume
Disk Identifier :
disk4s10
Mount Point :
Not mounted
File System :
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus :
FireWire
Device Tree :
IODeviceTree:fwx/node@90a9c5c29aa50b/sbp-2@c000
Writable :
Yes
Universal Unique Identifier :
61A8EAFF-E1C9-3605-AF92-5A210E3C781A
Capacity :
931.4 GB (1,000,069,726,208 Bytes)
Owners Enabled :
No
Can Turn Owners Off :
Yes
Can Be Formatted :
Yes
Bootable :
Yes
Supports Journaling :
Yes
Journaled :
No
Disk Number :
4
Partition Number :
10
I've read that WD uses crappy chipsets in their external drives. I'm wondering if the chipset is suspect here? Just not sure. I did discover that I can clone the drive from my PC as an exact Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive, and my Mac doesn't even know the difference. I've also read that I can initialize the drive, and reinsert the drivers, and the drive should function normally. Interesting, huh? Well, let me know what you come up with BDAqua. And again, many, many thanks.

External Drives Won't Mount with Mavericks

My external drives will not mount with Mavericks. They did for a while but I noticed that they stopped doing so a week ago or so. I have a drobo raid, hitiachi drive in an external case and a WD Passport. The drobo goes to sleep, the Hitachi external spins and the WD flashes like its being read.
None of the drives were mounted when I loaded Mavericks and, as far as I know, they've not been erased. They did mount for a few weeks but doesn't look they have since the beginning of November.
I have a brand new 2013 MBP 15" Retina with 750 GB SSHD, 16 GB ram and a 2.7 GHz i7. The drives are all connected via one FW800 through a Thunderbolt dongle.

I eventually gave up. I will probably get another card at some point but it probably won't be a SIIG card. Even though they are recommended by digidesign I just doesn't seem to want to work with my G5. Maybe it's some kind of weird software conflict blocking the functionality of the card? Don't know. Two cards in a row were non functional. Something is gummin up the works and the PCI slots work with the other cards I have. The only thing I did not try is plugging in the optional power connection to the FW800 card, which is supposed to be optional. I called SIIG and they had no idea what the problem was and they also said that the power plug would not make a difference for the problem I was having. Anyway, I'm gonna keep monitoring posts to this cause I'd love to hear the answer.. but I'm throwing in the towel. Good luck to the rest of you still trying to solve the riddle.

External drive won't mount. Options?

Hi everyone. I've used a LaCie 250GB D2 external hard drive for a little over two years with no problems. A few days ago, I bought a Western Digital 500GB drive to serve as my main external drive, so I decided to erase and reformat the LaCie drive, which I had previously partitioned into two volumes, to serve as an archive drive.
That's where my trouble started.
I deleted all my files off the drive and then selected Erase in Disk Utility. I checked the option to eight way random write over format the disk for increased security, but that seemed to be taking so long I just quit Disk Utility. I figured since I didn't have any data I was afraid of losing, it wouldn't be a problem.
The next day I tried to erase it again, but I got an error message that said something about my partition (sorry but I can't recall what the message was; at this point I still didn't think there would be any problem).
Yesterday night, I tried again to erase and reformat the disk. I selected the option to zero all data because I thought that might solve any hard-to-fix problems. I left Disk Utility running overnight and all day today--about 20 hours in all-- but the progress bar showed no progress. None.
Now, as of this evening, I can't get the drive to mount at all. When I plug the drive in (and I've tried all three interfaces), the blue activity light starts blinking and I can hear it spin for a little while. It eventually stops spinning but the light keeps blinking.
I've tried unplugging the drive and plugging it back in. Nothing. I own DiskWarrior, but as far as I can tell there's nothing DiskWarrior can do if the drive won't mount.
I'm wondering if disconnected the drive while it was running could have caused this problem. I might have done that inadvertently when it was taking so long to format. I figured that might result in loss of data, but I wouldn't think it would render a drive completely non functional.
I'm guessing the problem is probably a failure of the drive, but the fact that this only cropped up when I tried to reformat it seems suspicious to me.
If anyone has any suggestions for ways to get the drive to mount or format it, I'd sincerely appreciate hearing them. Thanks.

Thanks for quick reply. Boy, I really screwed up. I guess I didn't think I could permanently ruin a drive that way. I just assumed as long as the drive could spin and wasn't going bad, you could always reformat it.
Just so you know, I let my iBook run untouched for literally 20 hours in the zero out erase mode, but the progress bar showed no progress at all, so I think the drive must have already been broken by that point. I was prepared for it to take a day or more, but with no visible progress in 20 hours it would have taken weeks.

External drives won't mount after running repair permissions

None of my external drives will mount after running disk permissions. Drives work fine on my mbpro.
None of the external drives show up in disk utilities...
I've try shutting down and unplugging computer. even mini zip drives won't mount.
I'm running 10.4.11
PPC G5 2.3Ghz
Thanks for any help..

Repairing Permission only deals with installer receipts and system components. Not with mounting or accessing hard drives.
Have your run Apple DU First Aid? Disk Warrior? Only use latest version for your OS.
Are you trying to clone your system to external and then repairing permissions? trying to boot from them?
If cloning, make sure the "Ignore Ownership" flag is unchecked before cloning (but do repair permissions on external drives you intend to boot from, such as a Firewire drive).
What type of cases and interface are these?

External Drive won't init over 128GB, Not FW firmware issue

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