External Firewire hard drive won't mount after 10.4.10 update

I see many posts about USB drives not mounting after 10.4.10 update. Just lending my voice to that issue (my USB drive won't work either) as well as the 10.4.10 update breaking Firewire drives.
Hope a fix is coming. No backups are scaaaary.

How to fix the problem of a missing external Hard Drive (Firewire) after it vanishes from you desktop after installing 10.4.10 update.
I have a iMac PPC (Non intel). Aparently my system upated installed the wrong version of 10.4.10 and thus my external firewire hard drives a 320 GB Westerndigital My Book, and Acomdata 80 GB, and aWestern Digital 160 GB media center all vanished from the desktop.
The instructions below should be credited to several different people. I found various version of these steps in the Discussion. I combines a few of them into this one 10 step fix and it worked for me. I hope it works for you.
1) Shut down you computer
2) Unplug all peripherals (i.e USB and Firewire, I left computer power plug in as well as ethernet and Keyboard+ Mouse) and leave along for 30 Minutes
3) Restart holding down the Command (Apple) + Option + P + R keys for three startup bongs, then release the keys and your computer will start up as usual.
4) Verify and repair disk Permission using Disk Utility. (Several things were repaired here)
5) Instal 10.4.10 Combo PPC
6) Restart Again
7) Again repair Disk permissions (None of mine needed to be repaired fyi this time)
8) Unplug Power cable and Firewire cable from External Hard Drive (leave along for 1 minute)
9) Reconnect power to Firewire External Drive first then the Firewire cable to the drive second, then the firewire cable from the Drive to the computer last.
10) Turn on your Firewire Drive... you will head it spin up and eventually show up on your desktop just like it did before the 10.4.10 update.

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POSSIBLE LESSON: If a hard drive won't mount on computer A after being connected to computer B, consider booting computer A using the OS on the installation disk from computer B.

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Seems you've learned this lesson--and luckily you didn't lose anything!
~Lyssa

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Hi all - over the last day my lacie hard drive won't mount - i have tried it on various computers with the same result
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best
darren/uk

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Welcome to Apple Discussions!
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http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html
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http://www.doubleh.com.tw/download/IDE%20Enclosure/Usb2.0%20IDE%20Enclosure/Alum inum%20case%20Enclosure(Genesys)/driver/Mac/Mac%20%2010.2x/
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http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:KRxGo5q6MJcJ:www.99mac.se/forum/archive/ind ex.php/t-40336.html+GeneIOUSBIDE230&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=safari

External firewire hard drive no longer mounted.

Greetings!
I have a 2 TB Seagate external drive attached to my MacBook Pro (15", late 2008; Mavericks) by Firewire, which has worked without problem until yesterday. Now it is no longer recognized by Finder!
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I mean Firewire HD (no idea what a HAD is...)

Internal hard drive won't mount after running Tech Tools Pro 5

HELP.
We have an imac 2ghz Intel Core 2 running OS 10.6.8.
I ran Tech Tools Pro 5 to rebuild directory, optimize files, optimize volume. It ran over nightbut seemed to hang up optimizing the volume.
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Hello maccynicwhoalwayshasmacs,
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Thanks for your speedy reply. How appalling that a computer with two FireWire ports can't use two FireWire devices! And it's Apple's own device that causes the conflict. I can't even think of an easy workaround, since the whole point of Time Machine is that the drive remains connected all the time.
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External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

Hello Everyone,
I am hoping that one of you fine mac experts may be able to assist ~
Problem: External Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB external hard drive
won't mount on desktop=ie: no access to my important files.. Please Help!
Details:
External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
(using for document / file backup-not as a startup disc)
on my Mac G3 350 MZ Blue & White Tower /768 ram/ running OSX 10.1.5 & OS9.2~
~
Problem: Started using the external 500 GB HD 2 months ago -with no problems-until this morning. Tried to double click to open it to access files
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My trusty G3 started up fine, however, the external HD was now
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seagate -not much help . Seagate said to try the HD on another mac-which I did-
a G5 tower- same problem.
~
The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
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message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
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~
message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
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~
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I ran Disk Utility /first aid "verify & repair , the following info came up:
Repairing disk "main backup 2007 ".
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length ( <<<IN RED )
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~~
Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
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~~~~~
If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
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~~~
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Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
If you boot from the CD and run it from the CD, absolutely yes. If you attempt to INSTALL it from a download or a CD, probably not.
Have you ever used Disc Warrior and is using it complicated?
I own and use Disk Warrior. You select the drive to be rebuilt, it builds a proposed new directory from the information and file fragments available.
When complete, it will provide a list of problems encountered, tell you what files have been placed in the "Rescued Items" folder, and allow you too look at your drive using the proposed new directory. Your only decision is whether the new directory seems to be an improvement over the old \[in your case, hopelessly corrupted] directory. You then tell it whether to replace the old directory with the proposed new directory, or to abandon its work and leave your Hard Drive unchanged.
Is there a good chance that the ext HD will still have my files on it- or do you think from what I've described that they are gone ?
From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
My other thought was to take the external HD there and have them try to recover the files.
Make sure you completely understand the costs involved. File recovery using a service like DriveSavers can run into many hundreds of dollars. They are prepared to disassemble your drive in a clean room and replace controller boards and read/write heads to achieve success. Your drive has serious, but not fatal, Directory damage. The Hardware, and most of your files, are likely just fine.

External Firewire hard drive won't mount after 10.4.10 update

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