External Hard Drive - Dead?

HELP! I have an external hard drive that has all of my photos and music on it, but it doesn't show up on my desktop or in Finder anymore. It does show up in the Utility section, lights up, makes noise, etc. But if I reformat it, I'll loose everything. Any suggestions?

Elizabeth,
It does show up in the Utility section, lights up, makes noise, etc. But if I reformat it, I'll loose everything. Any suggestions?
Well don't reformat it. Since it shows up in disk utility Data Rescue II can probably save your data:
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
You can run a demo version to see what it can rescue and that will allow you to save 5MB of data. If that works then it will cost $99 for the full up version.
Good luck and next time save all important files on multiple hard drives.
Richard

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My external hard drive doesn't show up in finder, is it dead?

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Can I use an external hard drive on my iMac if the internal drive is dead?

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Hard drive dead/Boot from external hard drive?

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this is confusing

Hi Bob.
I was actually confused in trying to navigate where to ask the question in the first place within the Support Community framework. I've been away from the Apple world for many years now and obviously this world of technology moves very fast, yes? So that's the reason my opening query mentions confusion.
Before I visited here I spent quite some time Googling the topic finding tons of answers going back MOSTLY 6-8 years all of which were fairly specific and geared toward now obsolete versions of the question or assumed my Apple computer was up and running or I had an "unformated" external hard drive.
I didn't find anything wrong with the advice to use MacDrive but of course I was hoping not to have to use my credit card to do this------------what has to be fairly routine process. After I Googled "alternatives to MacDrive" I found a free ten day trial run for Paragon. It worked for all the picture files but can't see the old movie or music. I'm still working it out. Maybe I'm missing something. Anyways it's hard to communicate with experts who seem to want you to already be on a certain level or they will simply leave you in the dust with their "help."

My WD external hard drive is no longer show up on my computer-it no longer recognizes it.

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dead sata bridge card. very common problem.
see all about it here:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD
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External hard drive gone kaput

I have an old Mac mini (1.42 GH PowerPC G4, Mac OS X 10.4.11) with an 80 gig internal startup HD, and an external 250 gig Firewire HD. For the last couple of days, the external HD has not been getting recognized by the Mac. When I run Disk First Aid, the drive shows up, but the disc itself - "disc2s10" - is greyed out. When I run "Verify Disk", and subsequently "Repair Disk", I get the following response:
"Checking HFS Plus volume
Invalid node structure
Invalid node structure
Catalog file entry not found for extent
Volume check failed
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error"
I've tried everything - power on, power off, disconnecting and reconnecting every cable both on the Mac and on the external HD, but nothing seems to work.
I tried looking at solutions in the Apple Support section, but frankly, I've not had much success and am not even sure whether I did the right things.
Losing the disc would be a disaster - not least because I've painstakingly organized 18,000 songs in my iTunes library, and those songs are all stored on the spoilt HD!
The only other thing I can add is that the disk went bad after I Installed the latest Apple security update a few days ago. I don't know whether that had anything to do with this.
Finally, I've had some problems in the past with this HD - which is housed in a casing that has the same form factor as the Mac mini - in that it sometimes did not mount. But I believe that has been due to some loose internal connections between the disk and the casing. At any rate, that has not been a major problem.
Clearly, since the Mac mini says the disc is unreadable, it can "see" the disc.
Could somebody please help? Thanx.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
When you get this message, does is also show a -9972 error number? If so, the Apple disk utility can't repair the drive. As Boece recommended, Disk Warrior, or similar, program would be your next step, and it can often repair what Disk Utility can't repair. However, if Disk Warrior can't repair it, then you want to look at other software to try and recover the data, as the next step would be an erase and restore. And if that didn't work, then the drive is toast. There are services that can recover the data off a dead drive, however, they are not inexpensive.
Some other thoughts ... can you open the hard drive case and pull the short cable off the hard drive and put it back on? Make a difference? Do you have another mac available to you that you could hook your external hard drive up to? Just to see if there's any difference in accessing it? Is it only a USB connection or can you also connect via firewire?

I am going to buy a new external hard drive and have some questions first

Although I asked this question several years ago, I would like to ask it again, just if in case technology in general or external hard drives in particular have changed in any significant ways.
I need to replace a 1 terabyte LaCie external hard drive that died on me after a few years.
1. I am afraid of buying another LaCie. What other brands are reliable? I heard that Western Digital is. Also another brand beginnibg with S (so helpful, I know).
2. Do I have to look for a drive that is MAC FORMATTED? I vaguely recall this term from years ago. I also remember another term that I was to look out for, but I don't remember what it was. Something like ”chronicled“ but obviously not that.
3. Should I get more than 1 terabyte? Right now I have an old, old 125 gigabyte LaCie that still lives, but it is so small that it is almost nothing
4. What do you think about buying external hard drives fron Costco as opposed to from the Apple Store?
~L

Ziatron, you wrote ”All you do is open the enclosure and the hard drive plugs in. (done.)“ What enclosure?
This is the enclosure I like, it needs a hard drive to work : http://www.cooldrives.com/ox93saiihadr.html
But there are many others.
looking at my two dead laCie ext. hard drives and they don't have ”enclosures.“ Just holes in the back to receive the cables.
A hard drive enclosure is a box or case the actual hard drive goes into. Look at the images in the link above. You can see what is inside.
This hard drive goes inside the above cool drive enclosure: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD20EADS/dp/B001RB1TI S/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258862242&sr=8-1
You recommended getting a hard drive with a Firewire connection, but most of the hard drives have USB.
Well maybe, the better drives are Firewire.
Should that matter to me?
Yes, Firewire is "isochronous", basically meaning that you can pump "clocked" data though it in real time. USB works more like TCPIP, with the data chopped up into packets and later reassembled. (Thus, at a minimum, you have latency, that is, the wait for the data to be "put back together".) Second, the Firewire protocol allows more direct address to memory (including mass storage) with minimal intervention of the CPU.
Is USB a whole lot slower than Firewire if I am transferring materials?
Firewire is faster and _more reliable._
Take a look at the link below, "Build Your Own External Hard Drive". The enclosure I like is easier to use.
http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/tips/hard_drive/
http://macs.about.com/od/diyguidesprojects/ss/externalhdcase.htm
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I moved my iTunes to an external hard drive and now everytime I try to access it I get the error "folder iTunes is on a locked disc..."

Help. I moved my iTunes account (set up on a computer running on a school network) to an external drive, because I was out of network drive space. I changed my iTunes shortcut to point to my external drive. I am upable to pull music from a CD and copy it to the iTunes folder on the external drive. But when I try to open iTunes or use a previosuly set up device I get the following error message... "The folder iTunes is on a locked disc or you do not have write permissions for this folder." I have gone in and unchecked the read only on the folder and given my self all rights in my iTunes properties. Still I can't get in, and iTunes will only open to the folder on the external, it won't even open the iTunes page so I can see what I have. Help I need to be able to access those old files.

davidfrombillings wrote:
I thought I could just drag and drop my iTunes library to an external hard drive.
it'll work ... if done properly ☞
copy the entire iTunes folder (not just the iTunes music or media folder) from <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on your Mac to the external, then launch iTunes while holding the option (⌥) key, click on choose library when prompted, and select the iTunes folder on the external.
if I already have my iTunes going to the incorrect files how is it going to find the correct files again.
you could try if this script helps:
iTunes Track CPR v1.3
This script attempts to locate the files of so-called "dead tracks"--iTunes tracks designated with (!)--that you assume are not actually missing but are still located in the iTunes Music folder in their "iTunes File Order" (Music -> Artist -> Album -> file.xxx)."
Eric Ross wrote:
When you moved the file back did you go back into iTunes in your preferences and select the advance tab and then selected the location again or where your files are
the iTunes media folder location in preferences > advanced tells iTunes where to put new additions to your library, not where your content currently is.

Does an ipad have any storage? Basically looking to eliminate DVD's and just use the storage on my movies (in iTunes) could I just get an external hard drive or what is the basic purpose selling point on this apple tv?

i would ideally like to not use all my macbooks memory either and we have an xbox so all the streaming for like netflix we can do on this. I guess thats why I'm wondering if it is a better idea and if it is possible for us to just utilize an external hard drive. And if we do that will i have more space on my computer?

davidfrombillings wrote:
I thought I could just drag and drop my iTunes library to an external hard drive.
it'll work ... if done properly ☞
copy the entire iTunes folder (not just the iTunes music or media folder) from <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on your Mac to the external, then launch iTunes while holding the option (⌥) key, click on choose library when prompted, and select the iTunes folder on the external.
if I already have my iTunes going to the incorrect files how is it going to find the correct files again.
you could try if this script helps:
iTunes Track CPR v1.3
This script attempts to locate the files of so-called "dead tracks"--iTunes tracks designated with (!)--that you assume are not actually missing but are still located in the iTunes Music folder in their "iTunes File Order" (Music -> Artist -> Album -> file.xxx)."
Eric Ross wrote:
When you moved the file back did you go back into iTunes in your preferences and select the advance tab and then selected the location again or where your files are
the iTunes media folder location in preferences > advanced tells iTunes where to put new additions to your library, not where your content currently is.

Can anyone save my external hard drive?

Hi all,
This is probably the first time ever that I have to ask a question myself. Usually when I have any problems I can find a solution in other people's solved threads. But not this time and I'm really frustrated. If any of you can help me with this I will be eternally grateful.
I have a 1TB WD external hard drive with 500Gb of millions of files, really important data that is not copied anywhere else right now.
Around the time I upgraded to Maverick's I think (not 100% sure) I started having problems when I wanted to copy files from the HDD. Some files would randomly give the error "The operation can’t be completed because the item X is in use". Some not, but since I have millions of files, I would try to copy folders, and whenever one of these files gave an error, the whole operation would be canceled and all the copied files deleted. Copying one by one is not an option, especially because there are some that don't even work individually, maybe 1/3 of them, I don't know.
I started looking on the internet about the problem and I found many people having the same one. However, they circumstances were usually different, not wanting to copy from an external HDD, but maybe they just wanted to delete some file or talking about some network thing saying some terms that I don't understand like NAS, SMB shares, AFP, so I thought that that wasn't my case. For the ones whose circumstances were similar, I tried every single option that I found. Here is what I tried so far:
-Copying not the files but the "mother/s folder/s (in many different ways and it definitely didn't solve anything).
-Killing some process called "Unmount blabla" I don't remember.
-Disabling the icon preview in finder. I thought it would solve it because everyone said it did, but not for me : (
Note that so far, while I couldn't copy the files, the speed at which it tried or it copied some was a normal one.
Then I went to disk utility and tried to repair the disk, thinking something was wrong with it. The first time I could verify, but not repair. It didn't solve anything obviously. The second time I couldn't even verify it.
Then I decided to upgrade to Yosemite thinking this might solve a possible Maverick's problem.
My God, it didn't. Now, not only it keeps saying that the files are in use. Now every time I plug the HDD, it takes around 15 minutes without recognising it, until finally a message pops up "This disk can't be repaired. You can still copy files from it, but backup as many as you can and then erase the volume". (It seems it automatically tries to repair it now?)
As if that wasn't enough, once the device is recognised. It seems that the speed at which it reads the files inside has been dramatically decreased. If I try now to copy some files. Like an iPhoto Library of 4 Gb, it copies at approximately 0,05 Mb per second, with an estimated time of 24 hours for 4 mere Gb. It would take a whole year to transfer 500Gb. But of course, not even that since after waiting one hour, it gives the same problem "file in use".
It seems to be more the reading than the writing since when I copy big files that are not in populated folders (and that are not the "evil / in use" files) it does it faster.
Erasing is not an option, there are just too many important things. I know, I should have had 2 copies, but this is the situation now...
I tried downloading a recovery software and I tried with some Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery or something like that. The first times I tried recovering files from it, it would do it at the same ultra slow speed. One of the times, randomly it copied all the files at a normal USB 3.0 speed (I had forgotten how fast that was), but all the files were completely unreadable. When I tried to open them it said they were damaged.
However, it's not that the files are damaged because when I try to copy them manually they can be opened normally. But of course, at the slowest speed in the world and only a fraction of them.
If you can help me solve this issue, I really would be in debt forever. I haven't end up in a dead end like now and I really need to recover the data.
Thank you so much in advance.
Jose

The device may be formatted for Windows, as NTFS. The format is readable, but not natively writable on a Mac. To write to the device, you must either reformat it (erasing all the contents) or install third-party software to enable write access to NTFS.

Using Time Machine to backup and restore multiple external hard drives

I currently use Time Machine to back up my primary HD on my MBP as well as two other external hard drives that I use to store video editing and other large files.
Unfortunately, one of the external drives (500GB LaCie) recently died. I have purchased a replacement drive (1T LaCie) and I would like to restore my most recent time machine backup of the 500GB drive to the new 1T drive.
As I am new to time machine and have never actually tried to restore anything, can someone walk me through the process? I have already noticed that when I open time machine, the finder window shows only those drives that are currently mounted. Since the drive I want to restore is dead, I obviously cannot mount it...so I 'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to work.
Thanks!

This is a frustrating issue compounded by Apple’s penchant toward hopelessly poor documentation.
My problem concerns an old G4 (AGP) with an OEM Adaptec SCSI board and internal SCSI drives. That probably doesn’t matter but one of the drives (one of three) recently died. I had a back up with Time Machine to a firewire drive. But, when I put in a new SCSI drive and tried to restore - the fun began! At first I tried to select the old drive in the TM - from the “my computer” folder and copy it to the new differently named drive. That resulted in a “Preparing Copy” hang. 18 hr later I gave up! I then tried to open the TM drive directly and move the old disc (as a full folder) to the new drive - same result happened. Finally, I found this discussion. It worked for me!!! I renamed the new drive the same as the old one and starting from that newly named folder went into the Time Machine, found the latest copy and after a “select all” of all the files and folders there, accomplished a successful restore! Now, what I suspect really happened is the “select all” step. Using this this technique you have to actually go to the backed-up folder within TM and select all the files in it, then restore. Perhaps if I had done that with one of the other attempts it would have worked - who knows - I didn’t do the experiment? Thanks to Scott (a lot!) on this one.

How do I copy my iTunes library to an external hard drive?

I´d like to copy (note: copy NOT export) my iTunes library to an external hard drive but I just can´t figure out how! It says that the external hard drive can not be changed, therefor I can not drag and drop the iTunes files to it. The external hard drive is called iXternal (80GB). Please help, I´m on a tight dead line!

Select the external drive on the desktop and Get Info (Command-I).
At 'Ownership & Permissions:', click on the small triangle till it points down.
Verify that 'You can Read & Write'.
You should also see a checkbox 'Ignore ownership on this volume'.
If it is not checked, check it.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac 800 MHz, 768 MB RAM, 200 GB HD, DL burner Mac OS X (10.4.8) iTunes 7.0.1

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Hi guys,
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External Hard Drive - Dead?

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