External Hard Disk Issue

I have a Seagate Free Agent external USB hard disk (250 GB) which I had reformatted to FAT32. This draws power from the USB port and seems to work perfectly on my Linux (Fedora Core 8) and Windows (XP) boxes. On the Mac, when it is plugged in, it asks me whether it should Initialize, Ignore or Eject. I choose "Ignore" and then go on to mount it from the terminal using the commands sudo mkdir /Volume/FA sudo mount /dev/disk2s1 /Volume/FA. The device name has to be found out first using Disk Utility. After it is mounted, I can read, write, delete etc. without any problem.
Question: Why does it not mount this disk automatically? Even when it is mounted why does it not put a disk icon on my Desktop?
I have no issues with smaller FAT32 pen drives which show up on my Desktop a few seconds after I plug them in.
Thanks

It should mount the disc automatically. I have no idea why yours does not. If OS X asks to initialize a drive it's because it does not recognize the disk format, so perhaps it has something to do with how the drive was formatted or partitioned or both.

Similar Messages

  • Disk write cache corruption on an external hard disk

    Recently I purchased an external hard disk, to put all of my pictures of my baby due to space limitations on my internal laptop drive. Since my Canon camera 10 megapixel pictures take up a ton of space this was occurring at an alarming rate. My intention was also to back up to DVD but never got to it. This is both a comment and a question.
    Now said baby, is getting really good at pulling cords etc. He managed to do this on the external drive firewire cable. As far as i know the drive was not in the process of actually writing. However, after a few minutes and trying to re-plug the drive the OS crashed with a Grey Screen of Death hardware error that tells you that you need to push the power button..
    This apparently corrupted the drive's directory. Upon reboot the drive would not mount. Since there were time machine backups on the drive too Diskwarrior was not able to reconstruct the drive in the built in memory available on the computer. Time machine stores millions of files and Diskwarrior apparently wants to keep it all in memory at once. Since my computer has 2GB you would hope that would be enough but apparently not. So that failed. Other utilities seemed to be able to find the files but not restore the directory. I also took it to the apple store they were not able to recover it.
    I have to say this is extremely distressing, and hard to believe that a simple accident like this could cost the loss of thousands of pictures. I did send it to a rescue company but that was expensive but I think apple needs to do something about this situation.
    On Windows there is a way to disable the write cache for external drives. This is not available for Mac OS X. This would prevent this rather common occurrence of a plug accidentally becoming disengaged when the drive is not in the process of writing. This reduces the odds but I still think apple, in order to become clearly superior, needs a better solution.
    I know Apple has experimented with ZFS would this not eliminate this possibility of this kind of disaster? Is this in Snow Leopard desktop? I know they are thinking this is a business customer focused technology but clearly if it can eliminate this kind of thing then I think it is extremely useful to their non server customers. Perhaps there are other ways of dealing with this issue but ZFS is designed to deal with these issues. HFS+ is extremely fragile to disk corruption.
    I know my situation is not that uncommon and this is not the first time this has happened to me with an external drive. You would think I had learned. I hate to think of how many other people have had the same thing happen to them.

    Disabling a write cache would not help you with the problem you are having. Besides the write cache is on the hard drive and operates independently of the operating system. But nothing can protect you from disconnected an external drive improperly, and if the drive is in the process of being written to, and the problem comes from directory corruption, not file corruption, as in the case you have described, disabling a write cache would not have made any difference.
    For the future the magic word is: Backups.
    < Edited by Host >

  • Want to use a Lacie External Hard Disk with Windows and Mac? Can I?...

    Hi, I've just purchased a Lacie Extreme D2 external hard disk, I'm looking to use it to move film clips from my Mac G5 to my Sony Vaio laptop. I'll connect the Mac using Firewire 1 and the PC using USB 1.
    I understand there is an issue with setting the compaitibility of the hard disk to either Mac or Windows format but I'm wondering if I can set it to both, so it's possible to transfer these files? The hard disk is Windows and Mac compatible but does it have to be partitioned a certain way?
    Any help is much appreciated.
    Thanks,
    Alex

    Format the drive as FAT or use the Mac format (HFS Extended) and install MacDrive on the PC.

  • Unable to capture files into external hard disk because of 'drop frames '

    I haven't been able to capture footage from my DV camcoder thru firewire to an external hard disk in FCP because i get a message saying 'drop frames were detected'.
    This happens when i selected this external hard drive as the scratch disk in FCP.
    When i deslect it and select my user hard disk as the scratch disk, the capturing works perfectly. But i just want to capture all my capture files into the external hard disk, not my user hard disk.
    The external hard disk's speed is 3500 - could that be the problem? Is it too slow? Its connected thru USB and it is Mac Os Extended Journaled. Its got 250gb of space, so that's not the issue.
    Can anybody help me?
    Thank you.

    No, its a Panasonic gs180, a really good camera.
    The camera itself is connected to my computer through firewire. Its the hard disk enclosure that is connected to my emac through USB. Anyway, i'm sure that's not the problem, casue like i said, the capturing works fine when i use my user hard disk as the FCP scratch disk.
    The problem i have is when i try to capture footage from my camera to the external hard disk enclosure. When i press 'capture now' and press play, the playback stutters and a messsage appears saying, "drop frames detected" and the capturing stops.
    I feel like i need to adjust something in FCP itself - like a preference or something - just not sure what.
    Thnx for your suggestion though and if you know what i should do, please let me know.

  • ITunes showing Album Covers of external hard disk i/o internal hard disk

    Greetings from Malaysia again. Searched through the Discussion Group, but couldn't find anything there. Thus, hope to get your assistance on this matter.
    I have some music stored in the internal hard disk of my G4 iBook. However, recently I decided to have all my music stored in an EXTERNAL hard disk, ie in addition to what's in the iBook, to sync with my iPod. Both have the artwork or album covers. The issue is when I boot up ONLY the iBook, even without the external hard disk on, iTunes (Version 8.1) is showing the Artwork/Album Covers (and list of music) of the EXTERNAL hard disk instead of what's in the iBook. I've even tried the "Option key/Choose Library", but to no avail. I've even tried changing the location, after starting up iTunes in the Preference settings, but still the same story.
    Is there any way to have iTunes reflect the correct Artwork/Album Covers (and list of music) when I have the external hard disk connected, as well as otherwise?
    Thanks in advance for your help.
    Regards.

    Moved the existing library. Created a new one, and moved all the songs to the new library. Subsequently, when using the "Option" key to select the library, it ended up as what I wanted, ie iTunes showing the album covers for the songs/album in the respective library - ie external hard disk, and internal in the notebook.

  • How do i burn idvd projects in a dvd format to an external hard disk

    I have an iDVD project but it is too big to burn to a dvd (11GB!) so I was wondering if I can save the proejct like a dvd onto my External Hard Disk. This is really urgent and important for a school project.
    Thanks in advance.

    iDVD does not care about file size (it compresses a movie file by about 4:1 o the standard mpeg2 format), only about length.
    A standard DVD will hold up to 120 minutes of video, but this includes titles, transitions etc.
    iDVD encoding settings:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/7.0/en/11417.html
    Short version:
    Best Performance is for videos of up to 60 minutes
    Best Quality is for videos of up to 120 minutes
    Professional Quality is also for up to 120 minutes but even higher quality (and takes much longer)
    That was for single-layer DVDs. Double these numbers for dual-layer DVDs.
    Professional Quality: The Professional Quality option uses advanced two-pass technology to encode your video (The first pass determines which parts of the movie can be given greater compresson without quality loss and which parts can’t.  The second pass then encodes those different parts accordingly) , resulting in the best quality of video possible on your burned DVD. You can select this option regardless of your project’s duration (up to 2 hours of video for a single-layer disc and 4 hours for a double-layer disc). Because Professional Quality encoding is time-consuming (requiring about twice as much time to encode a project as the High Quality option, for example) choose it only if you are not concerned about the time taken.
    In both cases the maximum length includes titles, transitions and effects etc. Allow about 15 minutes for these.
    You can use the amount of video in your project as a rough determination of which method to choose. If your project has an hour or less of video (for a single-layer disc), choose Best Performance. If it has between 1 and 2 hours of video (for a single-layer disc), choose High Quality. If you want the best possible encoding quality for projects that are up to 2 hours (for a single-layer disc), choose Professional Quality. This option takes about twice as long as the High Quality option, so select it only if time is not an issue for you.
    Use the Capacity meter in the Project Info window (choose Project > Project Info) to determine how many minutes of video your project contains.
    NOTE: With the Best Performance setting, you can turn background encoding off by choosing Advanced > “Encode in Background.” The checkmark is removed to show it’s no longer selected. Turning off background encoding can help performance if your system seems sluggish.
    And whilst checking these settings in iDVD Preferences, make sure that the settings for NTSC/PAL and DV/DV Widescreen are also what you want.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1502?viewlocale=en_US

  • Finder freeze when opening folders of my Western Digital external hard disks

    I'm facing a big issue. I'm runnin' Mac Os Lion, I realized a clean install a few days ago. Everything is going fine, but every time I plug an external hard disk on my MBP, I can see the disk appearing on my desktop or in the finder, and when I open it, the finder freezes, I have to reboot manually, or wait to relaunch the finder. My disks are in HFS format, used to work great on Snow Leopard no longer than a week ago... What is weird is that my time machine (external hard disk usb) works fine... Moreover, I can see the disks in the Disk Utility, I can't click on "verify permissions" but on "verify disk" and it says that the disks are fine... Any idea ?
    PS : I could have erase everything on them and reformat, but I need the files inside...
    Thanks

    Hi!
    Here's a suggestion from BDAqua:
    In finder, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes".
    Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
    Drives with an extra number on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a number, and reboot.
    cornelius

  • Recently upgraded Mac 24" to Lion (clean install) and now no external hard disks work with Time Machine

    Recently upgraded Mac 24" to Lion (clean install) and now no external hard disks work with Time Machine.
    installed new internal disk first with fresh 10.7.3 Lion software. Also upgrade ram to 4GB. Work great, super fast.
    BUT.... my WD 1TB firewire400 external disks no longer work with the Lion enabled machine now.
    FURTHER... I read somewhere that WD is problematic with Lion but Seagate was not... so I went and bought a new 3TB Seagate GoFlex.
    When it didnt work properly either, I patiently searched and found a software/firward upgrade and applied.
    I re-partitioned disk to extened/journaled standard, etc.
    Then assigned the particition to Time Machine. Drive turned the blue/grey color, so I thought it would work.
    But, it has now been in "preparing" mode in Time Machine for HOURS....
    What is up Apple? So dissappointed. Ive read these type of problems are notorious with Lion and I wish I never upgraded.
    Are you trying to make issues with External disks, to drive people to iCloud?  That trick ont work in me. I will not reward bad behaviour Apple.
    Please provide a fix... I wasted hours/days screwing around with this, instead of using the Mac for what its intended!

    Solved by Pondini, on another thread I opened...
    Answer:
    Sounds like either:
    A directory problem on your internal HD.  Verify your internal HD, and Repair any other volumes being backed-up per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
    Something in OSX may be damaged.  You've tried the "combo," so a fresh copy of OSX (that won't disturb anything else) would be worth a try (and you don't need a tech for that).  See Installing the ''combo'' update and/or Reinstalling OSX.

  • External hard-disk not working with firewire under Snow Leopard

    Hi. I have a LaCie d2 external hard-disk that has Firewire 800, 400 and usb2. I previously used it on my old (angle-poise) iMac connecting using the Firewire 400 socket. I've just a got a new mac with Snow Leopard and I thought it would we best to connect to the LaCie with Firewire 800. However when I do this, the disc mounts ok, but browsing in the Finder is really slow and copying files from the disk to the imac seems to work at a really slow rate (less than USB1 speed) if at all ! However, I switched to using the USB2 connection instead and it works like a dream. What gives ? Is Firewire in Snow Leopard buggy ??

    There's no problem with the drive.
    Maybe true, and the drive would probably work fine with Leopard. One thing that's obvious is that Apple did make changes in the way that FireWire works in Snow Leopard. Many drives and drive manufacturers work well with SL, but there have also been reports of firmware issues by Western Digital and other companies.
    Have you checked with your vendor to see if they are offering a firmware update for your drive?
    BTW, I got a new FW case a few months ago while at a Fry's electronic store. The brand new USB2 and FW400 cables worked fine. The FW800 cable did not, but another cable came to the rescue. Just saying...

  • Recovery from external hard disk

    Dear Hp representative,
    I have copied recovery file from recovery partition to external hard disk. 
    After that, I have deleted recovery partition and now I can't restore computer to factory settings.
    I have tried to make new recovery media but it says that recovery partition doesn't exists although I have made new partition and copied the recovery file to it.
    Please help.
    Thanks
    Karlo

    Hi @Karlo12333 ,
    Welcome to the HP Forums!
    It is a great  place to find answers and information!
    For you to have the best experience in the HP forum I would like to direct your attention to the HP Forums Guide Learn How to Post and More
    Unfortunately coping the partition does not work.  I don't thing you will be able to create recovery media from the copied partition on the external but if you have not yet created recovery disk you can give it a try.
    If you cannot create the recovery media you will need to contact HP support to obtain a recovery kit.
    Please call our technical support at 800 474 6836. If you live outside the US/Canada Region, please click the link below to get a support number for your region.
    World Wide Phone Support
    Good Luck!
    Sparkles1
    I work on behalf of HP
    Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
    Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

  • Cant write/edit data on my external hard disk! Help please!~~

    Okay guys, currently, i'm using Tiger version 10.4.11. My problem is that i cant edit data or write data to any external hard disks, like the maxtor One Touch and so on. Only thing i can do is to extract the data from the disks. I have tried to write on multiple hard disks but in all my attempts i have failed. i've tried to edit my network settings, but no results.
    So, i seek help from anyone out here!

    Hello, yea.. thanks man =)
    Basically, its a shared hard disk between my macbook and a windows PC. So i kinda use the PC to write all my backups and data on the hard disk.
    I have quite a few hard disk and they all have the same issue. It says 'The item 'file x'cannot be moved because 'my hard disk' cannot be modified.'I've used the software provided from the hard disk manufacturer, Maxtor/Seagate, to reformat the brand new portable hard disk which i bought yesterday.
    Its connected via USB, same as all the other ones i have.
    eh. the get info for it says
    Kind: Volume
    Created: --
    Modified: Thursday, 23 Aprl 2009 3:24AM
    Format: Windows NT Filesystem
    Capacity: 232.88 GB
    Available: 232.57 GB
    Ownerships & Permissions: You can only read.
    erm... its a portable drive which i carry around, so i guess its not a network drive? and how doi determine the network settings? Sorry man.. not really good at these =x

  • Can I store my Aperture library on an external Hard Disk?

    I have a MacBook Pro with very few free space on its internal hard drive. My Aperture library is getting very heavy and i would like to move my Aperture library to an external HD. I know that you can keep files where they are and see them in your aperture library, but the thing i'm trying to do is to STORE AND OPEN MY APERTURE LIBRARY (.APLIBRARY FILE) FROM AN EXTERNAL HARD DISK. Is this possible?

    It is possible to put the Aperture library on an external HD as long as the HD is formatted correctly see: Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture
    However keep in mind that depending on the HD type and the way it is connected to your Mac performance may be an issue. For the best possible outcome the external drive should have a large cache, high RPM and be connected via firewire.
    The other option to explore is to put the masters on an external drive and keep the library on the internal. This will give you relatively good performance using a standard USB drive.

  • I have Itunes on an external hard disk, now it's not possible to upgrade my Itunes.

    I have an external hard disk drive for my Itunes. Until now it's always been possible to upgrade Itunes.
    Now I keep getting message E-drive not found. The hard disk is on the F-drive. And I can't find where I need to select the correct drive before installing.
    It seems that it's not possible to select the drive where you want to upgrade your Itunes.

    For "Invalid Drive" errors when uninstalling or reinstalling try b noir's user tip:
    "Invalid drive X:\" install errors.
    For other problems see Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates.
    tt2

  • I am unable to copy files from my macbook pro to my external hard disk.

    I am unable to copy files from my macbook pro to my external hard disk. I tried to copy a movie 800mb in size to my EDD and  it shows the loading box and it says zero kb loaded out of 800mb and sometimes it loads a a few kb of the file, then after a while it ejects my hard disk and gives a message saying you should have ejected it properly. and it sometimes gives this message
    "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “....” can’t be read or written.
    (Error code -36)".
    This happens with a range of files if they are more than a few mb in size, so I am pretty sure its not the file problem. It also occurs sometimes when i try to copy from my EDD to my mac.
    I have tried everything. I formatted my EDD to MS-DOS (FAT) format because i need to use it with mac and windows. I tried resetting The SMC and the PRAM and NVRAM. I tried verify and disk repair on disk utility. But the same thing happens over again and it is really frustrating. The problem doesnt happen with my PC.
    My EDD is an  Apollo 320GB hard drive from Imation.
    Also are there any particular EDD brands that may not have this issue with MACs and can be used on mac and PC?
    Thanks in advance!

    Hey guys,
    So this is follow up from my debarkle with the EDD. I found out my problem with copying files from Mac to EDD and vice versa was a result of a not so good EDD ( i had an apollo hard drive from imation) that was not very compatible with macs. So i did my research and found out that the best hard drives were Western Digital and Seagate. I bought the newest western digital EDD 1TB and formated it to FAT32 and guess what...no problems so far. The only problem is that FAT32 format doesn't copy files larger than about 4 gigs so i couldnt copy a movie from my brothers computer onto my EDD that was 1080p. You could probably resolve that by partitioning a small part of your hard drive in ExFAT? but yeah, hopefully that helped guys.
    Aaisha

  • How to move all or partial data from Mac to an external hard disk?

    Hei,
    I need to learn how to move the movies/projects/events from mac hard drive to another external hard drive.
    So basically, I have always imported all events from my video camera (the original clips) to iMovie located in my MacBook Pro hard drive. But after videoing for one year, the hard disc is starting to get full, and I cannot continue using only the laptop's hard drive.
    So I would like to move part OR all of my iMovie related stuff to another external disk drive (connected with USB wire). How do I do that? Is it possible to have some events located in Mac's own hard drive, and some clips/projects in the external hard disk? How to arrange all this?
    I know that "projects" are linked to the original event clips, so if I would be able to export some part of my iMovie data to the external hard drive, I should export both, for example, everything from the same year (the events) which is linked to the projects that are using those data.
    Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

    ok First with IM9, you can easily move stuff around. Here are some lessons learned from my experience managing projects across 6 different drives.
    1. All Drives must be formatted macos extended journaled
    2. The large terabyte drives are great for long term storage of events
    3. When you are working on a project, if possible, try to move the clips the current clips you will need to your internal hard drive. This is only necessary if you care about any time machine back ups.
    4. I have also worked on project straight from the external drives. I also use portable drives such as WD passports. These are small 500 gig drives that can travel with you. I have three of those. LOVE THEM.
    5. One way to move projects and clips and keep things organized is to move the project using command drag. It will ask, do you want to move just the project or project and clips. Then voila all clips and project are then moved to that drive!
    6. REMEMBER...MOVE WITHIN IMOVIE using COMMAND Drag. NEVER EVER USE THE FINDER. This is for both projects and events. Using the Command Key will ensure the projects are moved and not just copied!
    7. Last but not least, if you have changed the dates of events using change date function in imovie....For some reason, there is a bug. It inconsistently will change the date. Don't know why and have reported the issue, but it is still not fixed!
    But its still a great little app!

Maybe you are looking for