External firewire doesn't show

I'm having trouble seeing an external firewire drive on the desktop.
I've tried restarting with it on and then off, and turning it on after the boot is complete.
I've reset the PRAM, still without success.
The drive has a USB port which I tried, but when I connect via USB it still doesn't show up.
If I leave the drive on whille connected via USB the computer does not boot, the screen remains a blank white.
Outside of trying another firewire cable, are there any suggestions available that I can try?
Thank you.

a brody, thanks for your reply.
I tried safe mode, still didn't show up.
The drive doen't have any backup software, I use Carbon Copy Cloner.
The drive has worked well since 2007.
I tried booting from a drive other then the maind drive, holding the option key down on start up.
The only drive to show on the desktop was the main drive, the external didn't show.
Problem began a couple of weeks ago.
If the drive doesn't show either via firewire or USB, do you think the dirve is just bad, and a new drive is the way to go?

Similar Messages

  • Now External Firewire doesn't show on desktop...even on another computer.

    This is a continuation of the problem of the disappearing internal hard drives topic but it's taken on a whole new dimension. I have restored two of the three internal volumes affected and they show up. So I thought maybe now I can use the command-, option on the finder to make the third volume appear. Under "show these items on desktop" I checked the box next to "hard disks" off and then back on. I didn't touch the box next to "external drives" but the EXTERNAL firewire drive disappeared from the desktop. Two of the three internal volumes still showed on desktop. The external firewire shows in Disk Utility but nowhere else. I disconnected the firewire drive and connected it to a laptop. It doesn't show on the desktop there either, but it does show in disk utility. Obviously my computer must be doing something to the drives to make them not appear no matter where they're connected. I'm desperate now.

    Did you try mounting it in Disk Utility?
    Dale

  • PhotoShop external editor doesn't show up in Preset file application support. It is listed as the top external editor. But will not go there

    PhotoShop external editor doesn't show up in Preset photoShop file application support. It is listed as the top editor in the Light room preference. But it will not go there. You can use export to Photoshop CC but not as a editor. It stays there. I have OS10.8 and Photoshop CC not Photoshop CC2014 at this time. If I go to presets in Lightroom preferences and push restore export presets
    do I also lose my plugin presets and have to reload them ?

    Trakibounce:
    Glad you were able to resolve your issue. Thanks for posting back with how you did it.
    HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
    cornelius

  • External drive doesn't show up.

    I have a LaCie mini hub external drive that I use as a backup drive for my Mac Mini. Well, the drive in the Mini died. I took the LaCie to the Apple store with the Mini and they confirmed that the external drive was working OK, by either USB or Firewire. They kept the Mini for warranty repair and I'm still waiting for it to return.
    I get home and attach the LaCie drive to my ibook, but the ibook doesn't see it. It doesn't show up with system profiler, so I can't even try running Disk Utilities on it. The hub function of the LaCie seems to work OK, but that's probably not surprising, and has little to do with the hard disk inside it.
    The Mini is a intel duo core running OS X 10.4.8
    The ibook is a G4 running OS X 10.3.9
    The LaCie is 250 GB, formatted using HFS+, according to the manual.
    Mostly I just want to reassure myself that the backup is intact on the LaCie drive. Any thoughts?
    ibook G4   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

    Mostly I just want to reassure myself that the backup is intact on the LaCie drive. Any thoughts?
    You might have a look at the demo version of iPartition.
    http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iPartition.php
    The demo won't write any changes, so hopefully it is a safe way to confirm that you still can access your drive -- though it won't actually let you get the contents, since it is a partitioning utility.
    (If it were me, I'd leave well enough alone until your fixed Mini returns.)

  • External HDD doesn't show on finder.

    Hello community!
    My friends MacBook Air is not recognizing the HDD.
    The HDD works through USB and used to work on her's iMac.
    Tried to go to the disk utility and the disk doesn't show up there, neither on finder.
    Regrards,
    Rui

    If the drive has more than one interface (USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, eSATA), try one of the other interfaces.
    Check that the data cable is securely inserted at both ends.
    Try a different cable.
    If you're connecting the drive through a hub, connect it directly to a built-in port on the Mac.
    If you're connecting it directly, try a different port.
    Disconnect all other devices on the bus, or as many as possible.
    Test the drive with another Mac. Test another drive with this Mac.
    If the drive is bus-powered, but has an AC adapter, connect the adapter.
    Boot into Recovery and launch Disk Utility. Is the drive recognized?
    Start up in Safe Mode and test.
    Reset the System Management Controller
    If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, and if another drive does work with the same Mac, then the drive has failed. You may be able to salvage the mechanism by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

  • OS on external firewire doesn't shut down

    Hi. I have an OS for emergencies on an external firewire drive. So after updating to OSX 10.5.8 my external firewire sometimes doesn't shut down when I used it as the bootdrive, and want to switch to my internal harddrive for booting (I of course select the start up disk in system preferences before shut down or restart). On both harddrives are 10.5.8 installed. So I don't know. I have done disk verify (and repair once on the external as needed) and I have done permission repair on both pretty often. Switching from the internal to the external firewire is no problem, but switching back sometimes is. What happens is when the external shuts down, after all apps are quit (by me of course), finder, dock and all desktop icons disappear, only the mouse pointer and desktop background pic stays, and nothing else happens. I never had this problem on Tiger. I suspect a conflict between the same OSs on both drives. If I can get the firewire to shut down correctly, I am considering to always hold down the option key at start up and there select which drive to boot from, instead of doing it before in system preferences of either running OS. Any thoughts are appreciated!!

    Yeah. Thanks. But I also have the same problem with my internal HD. Freezes before log out sometimes. If I reach log out, then no problem to shut down or restart. Very strange....and in fact painful turning the computer off sometimes having to press the power button 10 secs.

  • Link to external file doesn't show path

    Hi,
    a friend of mine has a problem with a CD that works fine for me.
    Embedded in a pdf file are links to shockwave-Skripts. Clicking on the link should start the default Internet Browser.
    I'm using Adobe Reader version 8.1.4. If I click on a link a warning about security issues is shown and I can read the file in question, including the path, starting with the Volume the CD is mounted in.
    My friend is using a higher version of Adobe Reader (8.2.4) but the warning doesn't show the same: the path is missing - he only gets "firefox.exe", while I'm getting "C:\Programme\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" (German file structure, "Programme" equals "Program Files"). Clicking "Open" he gets a "file not found" message while my click opens the program like it is supposed to happen.
    We couldn't figure out a difference in our settings, so there must be another solution how to get the paths into the opening procedure. Both of us are using Windows XP...
    Who knows more?

    Hi,
    a friend of mine has a problem with a CD that works fine for me.
    Embedded in a pdf file are links to shockwave-Skripts. Clicking on the link should start the default Internet Browser.
    I'm using Adobe Reader version 8.1.4. If I click on a link a warning about security issues is shown and I can read the file in question, including the path, starting with the Volume the CD is mounted in.
    My friend is using a higher version of Adobe Reader (8.2.4) but the warning doesn't show the same: the path is missing - he only gets "firefox.exe", while I'm getting "C:\Programme\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" (German file structure, "Programme" equals "Program Files"). Clicking "Open" he gets a "file not found" message while my click opens the program like it is supposed to happen.
    We couldn't figure out a difference in our settings, so there must be another solution how to get the paths into the opening procedure. Both of us are using Windows XP...
    Who knows more?

  • External Drive Doesn't Show Up When Booting

    I have an iMac (intel) 10.5.8, and I want to reset my Macintosh HD and I found I could do it using disk utility when booting from another source. Unfortunatly I don't have the installation disc (I bought the mac 2nd hand) so I tried backing up my computer to an wxternal hard drive and booting it from that. so I turned on the computer and held Option until the Macintosh HD showed up. I was told my other external drive would too, but it doesn't, so i can only boot it from the Macintosh HD. IF anyone can help that would be great! or come up with other options to reset my HARD DRIVE!! Thank you.

    How did you backup your internal hard drive to the external?  In order to boot a Macintosh has to be partitioned using the GUID scheme and then formatted as Mac OS extended Journaled. Both operations are performed in Disk Utility. You can clone your drive to to the external using a utility such as Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper. I'm not sure what you expect to accomplish without install discs. When you clone a drive you're making an exact copy. You shoud probably look at calling Apple and requesting a set of original discs or purchase a full install of Snow Leopard at http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

  • External drive doesn't show volume when used internally (and vv)

    I have an early 2011 MBP 17" where I have replaced the optical drive with the 750G hard drive that came with the computer. in the hard drive spot I put in an SSD. Recently I got a 1T 2.5" drive and I want to copy all the files from the internal 750G to the 1T and then put the 1T in the optical drive bay to replace the 750G.
    I got everything copied to the 1T drive via USB - i put the drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure that I've used before with this machine. everything copied fine. so i swapped out the 750G for the 1T in the laptop. when I booted up, the drive did now show in the finder. in Disk Utility it shows up as a device and the indented volume is a greyed out and showing a system volume designation (something like disk3d or whatever the OS uses for this [I didn't make note of the specific volume name]). when I put the disk back in the USB enclosure, it worked fine.
    So i formatted the 1T in the macbook, interally, and it works fine that way. but when I put the 750G in the external enclosure, thinking I could copy the files that way [external to internal]) - the 750G does the same thing: the device shows up ok in Disk Utility but the volume is grey and shows as an OS volume name. like the 1T I am not able to mount it or do anything other than format it.
    So I am at a loss. why can I not copy files to an external drive and put that in the machine internally? this is the way I've done this kind of thing over the years. this is the first time I am doing this with the MBP. what can I do in order to get this to work so I can get all the files on the 750G onto the 1T and work in my MBP?
    I know I can leave the 750G in the computer, connect a drive and copy it all over to it. then put the 1T in the computer and copy all the files off the external drive to the 1T. likely this would work. however a) i don't have a large enough external drive to do this with and b) i'd like to understand what is going on here and solve it as i may need to do this in the future.
    any ideas?
    thanks!

    How did you backup your internal hard drive to the external?  In order to boot a Macintosh has to be partitioned using the GUID scheme and then formatted as Mac OS extended Journaled. Both operations are performed in Disk Utility. You can clone your drive to to the external using a utility such as Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper. I'm not sure what you expect to accomplish without install discs. When you clone a drive you're making an exact copy. You shoud probably look at calling Apple and requesting a set of original discs or purchase a full install of Snow Leopard at http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

  • External Harddrive doesn't show in Finder

    Finder won't show my hard drive. It's never been a problem before, but now it won't show at all. Disk utility shows it is connected. What has happenned, and how do i fix it?
    Thanks,
    Vincenso

    Is it connected via USB or Firewire?
    USB and FireWire Quick Assist
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151?viewlocale=en_US
    What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire device
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88338
    Dealing with FireWire problems (drives not mounting, devices unrecognized, etc.)
    http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20041221081432908
    Common fixes for USB device issues (unrecognized, etc.)
    http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20070824012114701
     Cheers, Tom

  • USb external drive doesn't show up

    Hello all !
    Can't manage to find the post I had read about this months ago so I ask again. I have an external USB 2 Iomega 80Gb HD that works great except that when I shut down the computer and then restart it, every other time it won't mount and I have to unplug the USB plug, shut the drive off and on and then plug. Kinda boring. It was minor problem lately as I never turned the computer off but put it in deep sleep instead but as I state in another post, my new PCI card seems to prevent the computer from getting to deep sleep so if I now HAVE to turn the computer off, I want to find the solution for that drive !
    I remember reading a post long ago about someone with the same problem, same drive and about formatting it to HFS+, which I did and it had improved things indeed.
    Can anyone help?
    Thanks in advance.
    Vince

    Maybe your model has an SMU instead of PMU. Read here on how to reset
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300341

  • External hard drive doesn't show after upgrade to Yosemite

    I upgraded to Yosemite and now my WD 1TB external HD doesn't show up on my MacBook Pro 2.9 GHz.  It shows in the system information under 'About This Mac', but I can't access it.  So I can't use Time Machine to do any back-ups, and I can't back up the files on the external drive before reformatting it.  Anyone know how to fix this?  From other web communities, this seems to be an Apple problem and NOT a hardware issue.

    If it shows in Disk Utility, use the Restore tab to copy the files to another location. Note the warning about reformatting the destination.

  • Should I be able to boot from external firewire disk?

    Yesterday, to prepare for upgrading to Leopard, I copied across my hard drive contents onto an external Firewire drive, by using drag & drop, folder by folder.
    I was hoping that this would let me (after a reboot) select the external drive as my Startup Disk in System Prefs, or allow me to choose it if I rebooted holding down the alt key. However the external drive doesn't show up in either case.
    Is there something else I need to do to allow booting via external Firewire? Is that even possible on my PB 1.5GHz (OSX 10.3.9)? Thanks.

    Close, but no cigar! Copying by drag n drop misses invisible files necessary for a boot volume. The way to do this is to use one of the cloning programs like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything needed to make the FW drive bootable. You can even specify to NOT copy all your files if you wish.
    I go to Versiontracker.com to get these programs.

  • Finder Doesn't Show External Firewire, But Pathfinder Does

    Hey Folks,
    Am hoping someone might be able to help me with this. I've been using Pathfinder for a while, but have wanted to switch back to the normal Finder of late. My only hitch is that, for some reason, the Finder doesn't show an external firewire drive I've got running, while Pathfinder does.
    The drive is available -- when I go into terminal, the drive is listed. Again, it's just not showing up in the drive list in the Finder.
    Any thoughts? I tried dumping my Finder prefs, but that didn't seem to work.
    Cheers,
    Anthony

    Finder->Preferences->General->cycle HDs to show on Desktop. If not, launch Disk Utility->select the FWHD and unmount it. Turn its power off, disconnect the FW cable, and shutdown the machine for five or so minutes. Restart the machine, reinstall the FW cable, and power it up.

  • Is there a way to "force-mount" an external drive that doesn't show up on it's own when plugged in with firewire?

    Hi, is there a way to "force-mount" an external drive that doesn't show up on the desktop? I have a new Hitachi SATA III 2 TB Ultrastar that won't show up like all the other drives when plugged in. So I can't partition, repair, format etc with Disk Utility, Disk Drill, Tech Tools etc. How do I make it visible?
    I use the FW 400 to 800 adapter and a FW hub.
    Thanks,
    W.

    ok, I did find the log in Diskutil of what happened, I just can't figure out why it happened and how to start over:
    2014-04-20 13:42:08 -0400: Disk Utility started.
    2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400: Preparing to erase : “Terra 8”
    2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:           Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
    2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:           1 volume will be created
    2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:                     Name                    : “Terra 8”
    2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:                     Size                    : 2 TB
    2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:                     File system          : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400: Unmounting disk
    2014-04-20 13:45:00 -0400: Creating the partition map
    2014-04-20 13:45:01 -0400: Waiting for the disks to reappear
    2014-04-20 13:45:01 -0400: Formatting disk2s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Terra 8
    2014-04-20 13:45:26 -0400: Initialized /dev/rdisk2s2 as a 2 TB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 155648k journal
    2014-04-20 13:45:26 -0400: Mounting disk
    2014-04-20 13:45:29 -0400: Erase complete.
    2014-04-20 13:45:29 -0400:
    - That was it, gone.....

Maybe you are looking for