External hard disc not recognized

I have been using a WD external hard disc with Time Machine. Today I had it plugged into a USB powered hub when the house electrical power briefly went off then on, twice. A message appeared stating that device was removed incorrectly (or words to that effect). Now the HD does not appear on the desktop. It is recognized in "about this computer" as a USB device. It is not recognized in disc utility and thus can not be mounted.
All suggestions appreciated.

Answered my own question. Working now. Connected directly to computer USB and ignored it for a couple of hours and now it is visible on the desktop and appears to be working.

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Music stored on external hard disc not found after re-boot

I moved all my music onto an external hard disc becuase it was taking up too much space on my Mac. Now every time I reboot I get an error message saying music not found, please find. ie. I have to point itunes to all the folders on my hard drive again. How can I stop this happening?
Thanks for your help
imac g5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I followed other comments on the forum and succeeded. Thanks! -Migs

External hard drive not recognized by OS

External FW HD not recognized by Disk Utility and "not available" to Time Machine. Had worked fine until last attempt to B.U. Core Duo, OS10.8.4. Suggestions to make this drive available again?

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 NVRAM.
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.

External Hard Drive not recognized.

Hello everyone,
I have a probem where my external hard drive is not being recognized by my late 2009 iMac.
The hard drive is an OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro connected to the firewire port.
It was working fine till this happenend:
I keep all of my iTuned music on the external hard drive.
I was using a meta tag fixer type program.
I dragged the files from itunes into this program (Tune Up) to fix the meta tags.
However, I missed the program and dragged thusands of .mp3 files onto my desktop.
My computer, of course, became unresponsive.
So I used the power button on the back of the iMac to shut it off.
I used my MacBookPro to connect to my iMac as a target drive, and deleted all the .mp3's from the desktop there.
Once I restarted my iMac everything was fine, except that the external hard drive has not been able to be recognised ever since.
The same drive shows up just fine on my MacBookPro.
Help!
Thanks!

I had the exact same problem! I had to force shut down my iMac (24in, Mid 2007) due to a system freeze. After restarting, everything was working fine, except for my external 1GB G-Drive, which was connected through FW800 port.
The drive connected fine to my MacBook Pro, but it would not be recognized by my iMac. I tried restarting, but neither Disk Utility, nor System profiler would see the drive.
What worked though, was Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC):
1.          Shut down the computer.
2.          Unplug the computer's power cord.
3.          Wait fifteen seconds.
4.          Attach the computer's power cord.
5.          Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
The drive mounts fine now. I am surprised this is not mentioned by Apple in their support documents! It has happened twice to me and it was the only thing worked both times. The link for the resetting the SMC is here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Hope this helps solve your problem too.

External hard disk not recognized by time machine

I have an external backup disk, Passport, that is no longer recognized by time machine or my computer. I used it a couple of weeks ago to restore my wife's MacBook. Hers is an older model and uses Lion. Since then my MacBook Pro--mavericks will not mount the external hard disk.
OKAY==after leaving the Passport on for a couple of hours it now is mounted. Don't know what happened, but it is now working.
CANCEL problems

I see it's now working but make sure you are running the latest version of WD software.
http://community.wd.com/t5/News-Announcements/New-Release-WD-SmartWare-Version-1 -3-6-for-Mac-10-5-10-9-11-25/td-p/628441

External hard drive not recognized... help please.

okay, well here is the story:
my iBook G4 had its stock 30gb hard drive in it and it was running extremely low on space. so i figured i didn't want to carry around an external hard drive, therefore i would buy an internal hard drive an install it. so i purchased a new 2.5" 80gb hard drive and called up the local apple store. they told me that although it was under warranty, that it did not cover hard drive installation. so i looked it up online and found step by step instructions to install the hard drive. so after lots of hard work and many screws, i installed the new hard drive successfully... but i still had this perfect 30gb hard drive. i thought maybe to save a few bucks i could turn it into a usb external hard drive. i found an enclosure for the hard drive and a usb 2.0 cable and plugged it into my ibook. it was recognized and everything. i put some files on the external hard drive and transferred it to another mac. this is where the trouble started. i plugged the hard drive into a PowerMac G4, and it was not recognized... so i tried it on a different mac. this time on a PowerBook G4, but no luck. this issue has been troubling me for a few weeks. but then i tried it on a similar iBook G4... and it was recognized. but i don't know why it was only recognized only on the iBook G4 (not the same iBook G4 it was pulled out of) and no other macs.
does anybody have any ideas what we can do to get this hard drive to be recognized by other macs?
any of even the smallest ideas would be greatly appreciated.
thanks,
tyler
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I can walk you through formatting the hard drive:
1. Hook it up to an iBook that recognizes it.
2. Go into your Applications folder, then scroll down to Utilities. Open Utilities and scroll down a bit and you should see Disk Utility. Double-click.
3. On the left side you should see your internal hard drive and your external one. Each hard drive will have a sub-catagory with the partition indented.
4. Your external hard drive will probably be the second catagory. Click it.
5. In the center-top you should see the tabs First Aid, Erase, Partition, RAID, and Restore. Click the Erase tab.
6. You should see Volume Format: and then a drop down menu, and Name: and a text box. Type in the name you want the external hard drive to be named.
7. In the drop down menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
8. Then, simply click Erase, watch the progress and it should be good to go!!
Hope I helped you out. Oh, and it might be the enclosure...and also what OS's? Since it's USB it is probably using a USB Mass Storage driver. Mac-wise, if formatting doesn't help, I would get a FireWire enclosure because FireWire is much faster than just USB 2.0. Oh, thats nother thing...Is the enclosure Hi-Speed USB? If it isn't, I would definitely get a FireWire one...If it is, the PowerMac G4 doesn't have Hi-Speed so you're not taking full advantage..Just some insight
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 512 MB Ram, CD-RW Combo Drive, 40 Gig HD, bought in October of 2005...
Message was edited by: Hilary_Rose

Toshiba External Hard Drive not recognized by computer. Please help!

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I have an external hard drive and it will not show up in "My computer" when I plug it in. I have tried other USB drives and other computers. I am starting to think it is a hardware issue but I don't want to lose hope. The blue light is coming on when you plug it in but it doesn't blink and there is no noise whatsoever. Is there anything I can do to fix this issue so that I can recover the information on it? Thanks in advance for any help. It is greatly appreciated.
Additional information: I'm not sure how old this thing is but the model number is HDDR160E03X.

Same problem: I can't see my Toshiba PH3100U-EXB (Gen 2) external hard drive when I plug it in. After awhile I get this error message (see attachment): USB Device Not Recognized. One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. FOr assistance in solving this problem, click this message."
When I click it, I get a list of USB ports and devices, with Unknown Device in bold face. No real information there.
Yes, I ran Disk Management and the Toshiba did not show up when I plugged it in and hit Refresh.
Does it make a difference that the last time I used the external hard drive, we were in Windows XP and now we're in Windows 7?
Please help! It's not just the backing up I'm worried about...it's being able to retrieve files later!
Thanks!
Attachments:
USB-NotRecognized.jpg ‏28 KB

External hard drive not recognized in Finder or Disk Utility

Two weeks ago, my 2007 black Macbook stopped recognizing the hard drive. I was told by some IT friends that the controller had likely failed and I needed to purchase a new laptop. I removed the hard drive and placed it into an enclosure (turning it into an external hard drive) and hooked it up to a new Macbook Pro which I purchased a couple days ago. The external hard drive did not show up in Finder or Disk Utility but the light on the enclosure was on and it was making a very soft whirring noise and got warm after a few minutes. I usually backed up the hard drive but, of course, hadn't done it in a couple of weeks before it died so everything I worked on in that time is lost to me at the moment. I'm trying to avoid paying tons of money for a data recovery service so any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

That whirring noise might be due to physical damage on the disk. I know data recovery services are costly but that remains only the solution for damaged HDD. You can get latest quotes on services from different dealers. Proceed only when your data is very important to be recovered.

External Hard Drive Not recognized when trying to boot from it.

So I am trying to boot from my external hard drive through firewire but my computer doesn't seem to recognize the external. There is some problem with my Macbook not booting up correctly and I want to backup my data before reinstalling Tiger. They did this at the Apple store and ran disk utility on it my Macbooks hard drive. I could access all my data, but now when I get home and plug in my hard drive, hold down option after booting, the only drive that pops up is the Mac HD. I read somewhere to try partitioning the external drive as Mac Journaled and I did so with my working Macbook Pro. Any ideas whats going on?

Well i got most of my information off the old one, now I am trying to reinstall Tiger to the MacBook. Problem is I initially tried to do an archive install and the install kept failing after the second disc when it asked for the second install disc.
The people at the Apple store suggested that I try to do a wipe of the hard drive and install. Now when I put in the Disc 1 install disc and boot from the cd drive it just sits for a while and then ejects disc 1 and goes back to the place where the install failed from before ie: it keeps asking for the second install disc.
I can't figure out a way to get around this and just do a clean install on the machine. Any thoughts would be great.

External hard drive not recognized after power outage

After a power outage last night my WD external hard drive is not showing up. The power light is on on the drive, the DVR is working normally, except my external drive is not showing up. I unplugged power from the DVR and restarted it, but no change.

I have a 2G Samsung drive in Rosewell external encloser running for over a year. Two times have lost power and DVR would not recongize external drive. The procedure I used was to reboot twice via menu>settings>customer support>in home agent>reboot STB. Mine required two resets, the first reboot looks like DVR recongizes drive but does show as available but second reboot shows disc activity during last part boot up of box then external would show with all recordings and normal operation. I have not lost any recordings.

External hard drive not recognized on new macbook

we have an external harddrive that we used as the time machine for our previous imac. we just bought a macbook pro, and the harddrive is not recognized and does not show up on the sidebar. it is however shows up on disk utility but i dont know what to do with it/how to get files from my old time machine. please help! thanks

The hard drive will not show up on the sidebar or desktop unless Finder preferences are set to do that:
In Finder's General preference section, make sure "External disks" is checked in the list of things to show on the desktop if you want to see them there.
Likewise, in Finder's Sidebar preference section, make sure "External disks" is checked in the "DEVICES" section to see them automatically appear on the sidebar.
But you don't need to do either for the MBP to recognize the drive, or to get files from its Time Machine backup set. To do that, you should use the Time Machine "Star Wars" interface. Pondini's FAQ's (already mentioned) tell you how to do that. Tip 17 is particularly relevant.

External hard drives not recognized by imac

I am a new Mac user and have been having lots of trouble getting my external hard drives to mount. I have a simpletech and a seagate external hard drive both NFTS formatted neither of which is recognized by my iMac. They don't show up on disk utility or system profiier under USB ports. They both work on my PC laptop and a friends iMac (OS 10.6.4) just fine. I have a card reader and flash drive that work perfectly on my iMac. Apple support orginally thought it might be the logic board so they replaced it. The new one is having the exact same problem. Does anyone have any idea what could possibly be the problem?? This is driving me insane.

I'm having exactly the same problem with a new iMac purchased one week ago. I have two Maxtor drives and one WD, all firewire 400 drives, all of which mount briefly and then unmount and will not mount again. I am not new to Macs. The drives work fine on the older PowerPC Mac running 10.4.11. These drives contain my backups and aren't recognized by the new iMac. I cannot believe that 3 external drives are all going into failure mode at the same time since they were all purchased at different times and only used as backup drives, so they weren't on all of the time. Is there an incompatibility between 800 and 400?? I'm using a LaCie 800 to 400 firewire cable. Suggestions??

Now, USB External Hard Drive Not Recognized after 10.6.8 Update

My external Hard Drive is not recognized on start up. I have to unplug it and plug it back in for it to be recognized.
All this since 10.6.8 updated today.
I'm a fool for updating the same day.
This has happened before and I always forget the bugs in the software when it first comes out.

Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and close this thread. I found out the solution to my issue. Turns out it was a problem with a system file I changed right before installing. The error only occurred on a restart... the required 10.6.1 reboot was the first reboot since the change, so thus it looked like the culprit.
If you want a more thorough explanation of my problem (highly HIGHLY doubt it's gonna help you guys out), check this thread --> http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1480362&postcount=8
Sorry for the trouble!

WD external hard drive not recognized after improper eject

I have a WD Passport external hard drive that I've been using for a while with my MacBook Pro. The cord got yanked, causing the drive to improperly eject. Now my computer isn't recognizing the HD. Help! Of course EVERYTHING important is on this drive!
I tried plugging it into a Mac desktop, which also did not recognize the drive.
I plugged a different Passport into my MacBook Pro, and it was recognized, so I know it's not the USB Port that's causing the problem.
I used the cord from the HD that mounted with the problem HD. Didn't mount with the new cord. So I know it's the passport that's causing the problem, not the MacBook, not the USB port, not the cord.
I ran the disk utility, and the HD does not appear...It is powering up though- the light on the HD is lighting up. Oh please help!
Did I kill my disk? Of course I just moved my entire iPhoto library to this location, and I haven't backed it up yet....

No. It may just require a 00 Phillips driver depending upon the enclosure. Do the swap on a towel so that the little screws don't bounce away from you. You will have to pull the HDD out from the connecting plug. Do it in a straight line,don't bend it, and you may have to slowly increase pressure to get it out of the connecting plug.
It's not rocket science.
Ciao.

External hard drive not recognized by Mavericks?

I have a Western Digital My Passbook 500GB external hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro via USB.
It worked fine until I upgraded to Mavericks. Now it is not recognized at all in my Finder.
When I go to Disk Utility, it finds it and says "not supported". When I do "disk verify" it says it needs to be repaired.
When I try to repair it, it says it can not.
What do I do?

See: http://wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/wdsmartware.asp?id=wdfGeneric&os=mac
WD SmartWare update highlights:
Mac release 1.3.6 (updated 11/25/2013)
Fixed an issue related to reports of some customers, under certain conditions, experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9).For more information on this issue, please click here.*Please note that if you have a previous version of WD Drive Manager installed on your computer, this software package will automatically uninstall the old version and install a new version.

External hard disc not recognized

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