External firewire hard drive does not appear on desktop

I have an iMac intel running OS 10.8.1. All of a suddden my firewire external hard drive no longer appears. System profiler does not
recognize it as well. My macbook recognizes it. Rebuilt directory with discwarrior but still no resolution. Any thoughts?

Does it have its own power supply? Try a
SMC RESET
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and ALL peripherals.
Wait 15 seconds.
Attach the computers power cable.
Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.
The 5 second timing is important to a successful reset.

Similar Messages

Finder & Dock do not work - Mac Hard Drive does not appear on Desktop

Until yesterday, my powerbook was working properly.
This morning, I wanted to use it and I had the following problems after login.
1/ My Mac Hard drive does not appear on my dekstop
2/ My dock appears but no icon works when I click on them. So, I can't open finder. I have no response.
3/ Furthermore, my top bar (with clock, login name, Airport icon...) appears but it is frozed.
I try several solutions as :
- rebooting in safe mode,
- rebooting, with in the same time, hold different keys (option, apple, p & R)...
As of today, no solution works.
Thanks for your help.

A.CHAMP wrote:
Nota: if i used my daugther login (she is not admin), I have the same issues.
Ok, that's good enough. You may be able to repair this with the 10.5.8 Combo Update This is a fuller install, as opposed to an incremental "delta" update so it should overwrite any files that are damaged or missing. It does not matter if you have applied it before.
Remember to Verify Disk before update and repair permissions after update from /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.
EDIT:
I have around 5 Go space left on my Mac
Also, your getting very low on disk space. Try to copy some of the data off to other media. *Do it before you try applying the combo, you'll need the space.*
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack
Message was edited by: macjack

Hard drive does not appear on desktop

I am an Apple user for many years and normally can work out fix problems, but this has me stumped. My wifes brand new airbook has stopped showing either the internal or an external drive. Although the external is obviously connecting as if I pull the lead you get the usual error not-put-away-properly message.
Any advice welcomed!

Do your have Finder's Preferences set to display external drives? Try checking that.

Hard drive does not appear on the Desktop

Hard drive does not appear on desktop. Can only be found in the applications folder.

Go to Finder -> Preferences, click the General icon, make sure the appropriate box is checked.

HT201250 i have plugged in a hard drive into my macbook, opened time machine, but my hard drive does not appear. why?

i have plugged in a hard drive into my macbook, opened time machine, but my hard drive does not appear. why?

Look in the Utility folder which is located inside the Applications folder.
You don't want to do anything with the disk on a PC if you want it to work on the Mac. They both use different formats.
Allan

External Firewire Hard Drive is not recognized

Hello
I have a LaCie External Firewire Hard Drive (like this one (http://www.lacie.com/us/support/support_manifest.htm?id=10105). Since it uses a fireware 400 cable, I bought a FireWire 800-400 adapter, the one from moshi that is sold in the mac store.
I have tried connecting it to both ports in the external harddrive, connecting and disconnecting and still is not recognized. Any idea and suggestions?
I already tried in another computer, with windows xp, and the hard drive works.
Thanks.

Hi, oops, I have more than 1 mac & I apologize for assuming you are a multiple mac owner..
You could visit your local Apple Store or Local Apple Approved Service Agent.
You could try connecting via USB if your external HD has the capability, it could also be a bad cable.
You can check the Finder -> Preferences & the Show These Items..
You can reboot with the Ext HD connected & see if it shows up on your d/top...L

External Hard Drive does not appear in finder

We purchased a 1 TB G Drive Q from the Apple Store. It is connected to my wife's iMac running the most current update of Leopard by 800 firewire and appears on her desktop and works flawlessly with time machine. I am connected to the same drive intermittently with my MacBookPro also running the most current update of Leopard. i connect with 400 firewire. Initially the drive would not appear in the finder. for the initial backup, i turned the hard drive off and on and then it would appear and i did the backup but now when i connect to the 400 firewire port, it still doesn't appear in the finder. i would much prefer not to need to turn my back up drive off and on each time i want to use time machine. i should also mention that when i connect any of my garmin training devices or my power meter by USB it is recognized very quickly as a device in finder. any ideas? i understand this may be one of the problems fixed with SnowLeopard. thanks.

I am not sure what you are attempting to do. I assume that you are not trying to connect two computers to the same external drive at the same time. That will definitely be problematic. In order to effectively use Time Machine with two Macs, you should partition the drive into two partitions. Also make sure that the drive is using a GUID partition scheme.
bd

Canvio External Hard Drive does not appear in MY COMPUTER

Sorry if the subject is in wrong section of the forum.
I bought an External Hard Drive to use with my Windows 7 laptop. When connecting, sounds like a new device is connected, also appears listed in DEVICES & PRINTERS, but does not appear in MY COMPUTER, becoming impossible to access it anyhow.
Procedures about how to format or change device letter (in DISK MANAGEMENT), although the device has been also shown there, haven't work.
"Drivers" are listed as updated.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

Jerry, thanks for trying to help.
I download the KillDisk as your adviced.
The Hardware appears there like:
Hard Disk 2 (82h) TOSHIBA External USB 3.0 - [DEVICE IS NOT READY]
Local Disk (2 - [DRIVE IS NOT READY]
Available actions for each are: Mark / Unmark / Refresh.
Any possibility of it is broken, or something?

My external hard drive does not appear.

So I have a 500 GB USB 3.0 HDD. It does not show up in the Finder. It also doesn't show up in Disk Utility, Time Machine, or the terminal command diskutil. I used both USB ports and it still doesn't work. I even tried a normal USB 2.0 cable and it still doesn't show up. The disk's packaging says it is compatible with USB 2.0, and it can be recognized and read on other computers, but not mine.
Also, if my computer is booted with the hard drive plugged in, it gets stuck at the gray screen. Holding C during bootup also causes it to get stuck.
The hard disk is encrypted (filevault 2) and I make all mounted drives appear on the desktop.

Hey guys,
I am having the same issue with my HD. It was working one day and then the next my mac does not recoginize that it is even pluged in....yet I can move my external hd to my macbook pro and it sees the drive. I have tried shutting down the system, using the Y connector, using an alternative power source, Reformating the HD, and still nothing works, yet it works on all my other MAC's and I have 5 totall macs! I don't get it, why all the other mac sees it but this one want. I have tried to plug in other external HD to the mac that is not reading the HD and it will work with them. Any ideas as to why it want see this one HD?

External FW hard drive does not boot

I purchased an Accomdata 160 GB exernal hard drive...has one USB and two firewire ports. I use the firewire ports only. Installed OS X to make it bootable (I have already another bootable FW harddrive). When ever I start my "bootable" HD, Mac's grey screen shows the famous question mark for a short while, then just boots up from the internal hard drive...it does this independent of computer is is attached to. Changes cable around...tried other port...nothing.
According to the manual, the drive should be bootable without any tweaks or drivers.
So, what is wrong?

Superduper freeware version only let me make backups but no clones.
Eh! The standard "backup - all files" produced by the freeware version should be a bootable clone! The "safety clones" are more restricted subsets of the necessary files , and are only available in the shareware version.
I quote from their web page:
Free "Clone Only" Version
You can download SuperDuper! right now and back up and clone your drives for free! The unregistered version will allow this very useful functionality, but that's only scratching the surface of SuperDuper's full capabilities.
I actually created a bootable clone of my PB using it before I bought the full version, so I promise it should be able to be done.
You might want to check out the FAQ at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=7
If you tried the SuperDuper "back up all files" and it wasn't bootable, then perhaps it indicates that there really is a problem using this particular external drive as a boot drive. Maybe it is a bridge issue? I seem to remember we were talking about that in another thread for some reason a while back.
Cheers
Rod

Replacement Hard Drive does not appear in Disk Utility.

I've replaced the defective HDD in my MBP(A1278) with a 500GB Western Digital one after it failed the Hard Drive test in AST. The old drive is detected internally without issue but the new one does not show up in disk utitlity. I have reformatted to use a GUID table and have made sure it's partition is OSX Journaled. It doesn't show up at all. I proceeded to do an install using a USB drive adapter and the OS installed just fine(same drive), when I put it back in the MBP it still doesn't detect. I would suspect the cable but the old drive shows up and runs diagnostic just fine(fails). I've actually gone ahead and tried three other new drives(2 seagates(500GB, 1TB XT) and 1 500GB HGST) and none of them detect, only the original. Am I missing some sort of firmware update or is there a limited physical issue?
All help would be appreciated, genius bar isn't an option, the closest one is 400km away.

Until you replace the cable you won't know for sure. Do you have a SATA to USB adapter to connec these other drive to and to connect your original drive to? If you do connect the original drive and do a Verify Disk in Disk Utility. If it comes back OK, no repair needed or even if a repair is need that succeeds, your original drive is OK and it is the cable that is causing all the problems.
I suggest you stay away from WD drives. They don't have a good track record with Mac computers.

External Hard drive will not appear on desktop or in disk utility. HELP!?!

I moved my hard drive from upstairs to downstairs. there is no damage to the drive. Yet, now when I try to connect the drive, it powers up, but doesn't show an icon on the desktop, or an icon in the disk utility. The drive is still under warranty, but I don't want to send it back for a new one without all my info on it.
a) How can I get this drive to be recognized?
b) How can I get my files off of it before returning the drive?
Already tried:
• Disconnecting and reconnecting after powering off the computer.
• Using a different USB cable
• Using a different USB port
• Connecting to a different Mac
• Connecting to a PC laptop.

Actually, I did solve the problem myself, for free. To see if the adapter was giving enough power, I used a voltage meter. I found out the adapter I had it plugged into was actually giving TOO MUCH power. (Even though it was a 12 volt adapter, it was measuring 18 volts.) I figured out which adapter came with the drive and plugged it in using that one (also a 12 volt adapter, weird) and voilå - it appeared on the desk top as if nothing had changed. You can bet I'll be making DVD back ups tonight however, as the adapter kicking out too much voltage may have damaged the power board at some point, which may cause it to fail prematurely.
Thanks for your suggestions.

My hard drive does not appear in the Finder window

I installed a second internal hard drive inside my G5, but it never shows up in the finder window, nor anytime I try to access files from within applications (it appears on the desktop though). How can I configure my computer so that it always sees this drive and grants me access?

The reason for resetting nvram is to force the G5 to rebuild the device tree, which it seems "loath" to do without a kick start.
Swapping drives oddly enough seems to leave a profile in nvram for the old device.
Personally, booting into Open Firmware is easier, thorough, and if that was all it was, works (never liked the reboot over and over zap pram which, to reset nvram, must be done from cold boot).

Back up hard drive does not appear

can't see the My Passport hard drive. what do I do? I trying to repair it but it show up an error. says"Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
Please Please help me, I have all my back up on that.......

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

External Mounted Hard Drive Icon Not Showing on Desktop nor on Sidebar

Bonjour,
I have a portable drive that does NOT show up in the Sidebar nor on the Desktop. The only way I can see and navigate through it is by clicking in Disk Utility > Mount Point: <hyper-link>
Then hard drive icon and its content show up fine. But the HD icon is slightly dimmed (it is paler than the all other - HD, computer, etc - icons).
I verified the external HD and it is just fine. I have another eDrive (TechTool Pro 4) partition and it shows up like any normal HDs normally does.
How can I get the icon to show up back into the Sidebar and the Desktop?
Is there a "Preference" file I need to throw out?
Is there a UNIX command I could execute to make it show up again?
Thanks for your assistance.

Open the Script Editor in the /Applications/AppleScript/ folder and run the following:
tell application "System Events"
set visible of (choose folder with invisibles) to false
end tell
When prompted, select your hard disk in the dialog box. Next, log out and back in.
(24685)

External firewire hard drive does not appear on desktop

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