External hard drive disconnect--photos disappeared!

My external hard drive (with my iphoto library stored on it) was disconnected when iphoto was open, and when i reconnected the drive and reopened iphoto, the display claimed there were no photos and didn't give me the window to find the library. All the files are still on the external hard drive, so I just need to re-link it. How do I do that?? Thanks

In Finder, navigate to your user's Library >Preferences folder. Find the file named "com.apple.iPhoto.plist" and drag it to the trash. When you next start iPhoto, you should be offered a dialog to either create a new library, or find an existing one (I'm assuming you have no iPhoto Library folder in your user account Pictures folder).

Similar Messages

Import to iPhoto from external hard drive 'importing photos' remains on

Hi,
When I import to library (from the file list) from my external hard drive the photos are added to my library. However the 'importing photos' from the source pane remains on with the dial rotating! This stays on unless I 'force quit' iPhoto.
After using force quit the images are successfully shown in the library.
When I attach a camera and import this problem doesn't happen.
Thanks.

Lockboard
Before we define this as an unacceptable bug, how come everyone else doesn't have the issue?
One key difference between png and jpeg is metadata - jpeg's have it and png's don't. What's the source of these jpegs? What colour profile have they? What Exif data is travelling with them? Have they been processed in Adobe's Lightroom, for instance? Finally, have you tried opening one of them in Preview, saving it and then trying to import it?
Regards
TD

I want to create a new folder on my external hard drive for photos. Even though I added the new folder button to the tool bar it is not highlighted so I cannot click on it to create a new folder on this drive.

I have an external hard drive that I would like to pre-make a new folder before I import photos into it. Even though I added the new folder app to by toolbar, it is not highlighted and I cannot use it. It will only let me create new folders if I upload to iPhoto. That is not where I want to store everything. So I need to figure out how to turn on or activate New Folder on my toolbar for all possible downloading options.

If it's a drive that you've previously used with a PC, just double-check the format - click the drive once on the desktop to highlight it, and click cmd-i (the command key and the i key together) to see the Info window. That will tell you, under Format, how it's formatted.
If it's "NTFS", that's the current Windows format. You can read but not write to it with a Mac. If you want full read/write access, you should look into Paragon NTFS, which allows you to do both. Note that some features of te Mac (Time Machine, for example) will only work with Mac-formatted drives.
Matt

External Hard Drive disconnects when I pick it up from idle.

It started doing this recently. I'm guessing its a power issue, I recently had my logic board replaced but I narrowed down the symtom.
When I connect my external hard drive, it works fine. No problem, I pick it up, move it all around, jiggle the wire, nothing.
But when it is idle, then I suddenly pick it up, it suddenly disconects ONLY from idle.
I used different wires, even replaced the HD case, gives me all the same problem.
It never did it before, it only started happening in the past 2 months.
I have to DJ with this laptop and hard drive so I cant be continuing to have this issue.

Sounds like a good plan, you can never be to safe and having a second External HD is safer than one.
The only thing that I would do different, is setup the 3T as my TimeMachine Backup and then erase and move my Photos, Videos and perhaps even iTunes Media to the 1T. That way you will have room to backup both the Internal Hard Drive and the 1T External Hard Drive to the 3T using TimeMachine.
Take your time, study and use the > Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions if you get stuck or aren't sure how to make the move.
Also see > iPhoto: How to move the Library folder to a new location
iMovie ’08: Storing or moving your video library to an external hard disk
and > iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

External hard drive save photos

we recently switched from windows to mac..i use a external hard drive (passport) to save all of my digital photos. I'm having trouble moving my pictures to the passport. In the past..I just drag and drop, but the mac won't let me. I am able to see all of my previously stored pics, but cant move my new ones. any suggestions?

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
You can do similar with iTunes but best to ask on that forum for details.
Regards
TD

External hard drive disconnected

My external hard drive has about 75% of my iTunes music on it. The hard drive became unplugged and the sounds could not be found. When I plugged it back in, iTunes was not able to find the songs itself. I have to find every individual song. Is there a way, that, if I show iTunes where one song is, it can find the rest from that source? iTunes was able to do this on version 6 and before.
Windows XP

Did the drive letter change from before? If so you can change it back to the original letter, then restart iTunes.
To change the drive letter, right-click on My Computer on your desktop and choose "Manage". In the "Computer Management" window that appears, click "Disk Management". Find the external HD in the list of drives, then right-click on it and select "Change drive letter...".
If the letter did NOT change, then I think all you need to is restart iTunes.

External hard drives and photos

i have read some of the other support answers to this, but don't fully understand.
i have hooked up my external hard drive in order to back up my iphoto libraries. (side note-if i do this, will the libraries move as one entity into a newly created folder, or will i have to create a folder in the hard drive... i cannot do this by control click, but maybe once is is reformatted?; and will they keep the same order). i have learned by reading different forums that i will need to reformat my hard drive to Mac OS extended (journaled)... and i read somewhere else about some sort of partitioning with mac os extended with no journaling for media storage. i will be using my external hard drive for, mainly, storing pictures and video. can i get someone's opinion on if i should partition or not?
also, in order to reformat, i understand i need to erase in the format the external hard drive has already, but once that is complete, will it give me the option to reformat? and once my hard drive is reformatted to mac, will i be able to hook it up to a pc in order to share my pictures with someone else?
new to mac, sorry that i may come off a bit computer illiterate, it is because i am. if you have enough patience to answer my question, pleeease tell me what to do in a speaking-to-a-three-year-old way.
sorry for the twenty questions, my head is full of 'em.
xoxo....

-if i do this, will the libraries move as one entity into a newly created folder,
Drag one Library icon from the Pictures Folder to the external and that gets everything.
i have learned by reading different forums that i will need to reformat my hard drive to Mac OS extended (journaled)... and i read somewhere else about some sort of partitioning with mac os extended with no journaling for media storage. i will be using my external hard drive for, mainly, storing pictures and video. can i get someone's opinion on if i should partition or not?
I see no advantage to partitioning the drive.
i understand i need to erase in the format the external hard drive has already, but once that is complete, will it give me the option to reformat?
This is all in the Help to Disk Utility. In essence you don't wipe the drive to "no format" you reformat the drive the the new one. It's an all in one process.
nd once my hard drive is reformatted to mac, will i be able to hook it up to a pc in order to share my pictures with someone else?
No. Not unless they install additional software on their PC.
Regards
TD

Why does my external hard drive disconnect itself/take SO long to load?

i use a Hitachi HTS545025B9A300 Media external hard drive and it is connected by 2 usb ports. it's driving me insane, and when it does so happen to behave and connect longer than 5 minutes, it takes me up to an hour to transfer something on my laptop from that range from about 600-800 MB. help!

helloangela wrote:
i use a Hitachi HTS545025B9A300 Media external hard drive and it is connected by 2 usb ports. it's driving me insane, and when it does so happen to behave and connect longer than 5 minutes, it takes me up to an hour to transfer something on my laptop from that range from about 600-800 MB. help!
It is possible that the drive is failing as suggested above but it's also possible that your cable is flakey. Have tou thought to try a new one?

Time Machine External Hard Drive Disconnected Incorrectly

I have an external USB hard drive functioning for my Time Machine back-ups. I usually turn off my iMac by using the sleep function. Often, when I activate out of sleep, I get the error message that the hard drive was disconnected incorrectly (I assume this means not ejected properly). But I haven't disconnected the USB wire. I can't figure ot why I am getting this message so often. Any ideas? Thanks.

mr1213 wrote:
I have an external USB hard drive functioning for my Time Machine back-ups. I usually turn off my iMac by using the sleep function. Often, when I activate out of sleep, I get the error message that the hard drive was disconnected incorrectly (I assume this means not ejected properly). But I haven't disconnected the USB wire. I can't figure ot why I am getting this message so often.
It may be that your TM drive isn't "waking up" quickly enough for Time Machine.
An improper disconnect (yes, not ejecting first) can cause directory damage to the disk. Do a +Repair Disk+ (not permissions) on your TM drive, via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder).
Depending on your drive, one or more of the following may help:
Un-check the +Put the hard disk(s) to sleep ...+ option of System Preferences > Energy Saver.
See if it has an auto-sleep or "spin down" mode you can disable.
Check with the maker to see if there's a firmware upgrade for your model.

External hard drive for photos

Looking to move all of my photos from imac hard drive to external. What is the best way to do this? I dont want to keep copies on computer- just copy all to the external and then will make cds as back up.

What happens when you import new photos to the library after doing this? It sounds like a risky proposition to me, akin to tampering with the iPhoto library from inside the Finder.
You can use iPhoto in its alias mode. There are pros and cons to it. Old Toad explains them and has written tutorials on how to properly use an alias-based library. See this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3800456&#3800456
or search for "alias library tutorial" with user name Old Toad.

Windows 8.1 external hard drive disconnecting

Have this problem on two late 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina (full spec) and late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina (also full spec), all now running Windows 8.1 Pro with the latest update.   Two machines were clean installs into new bootcamp partitions and one was an in-place update to an existing Windows 8.0 Pro install.
Issue Description
Updated bootcamp from Windows 8.0 Pro to Windows 8.1 Pro through the MS store last night.    Made sure to download the new, correct Bootcamp drivers for the 2012 Macbook (the drivers are different between the 2012 and 2013 models).
External USB drives now disconnect every 10-15 minutes.
I am using the High Performance power plan and in USB settings disabled USB selective suspend.   In Device Manager under USB Serial Bus Controllers double-clicked all USB root hubs and cleared the checkbox on the Power Management tab (so the computer is not allowed to turn off the device to save power).
Also tried removing the Quick Removal policy on the attached drive but Windows still disconnected the drive, even though a Windows Explorer window was open showing the root contents of the idle drive.
Contacted MS support and they won't support Windows on a bootcamp partition.
Out of ideas based on internet searching, sounds like it might be a driver issue in Bootcamp.
Installing KeepAliveHD from Codeplex to write a file to the external drives as a workround to the problem.

The issue appears to have been the StarTech USB 3.0 to 2." SATA enclosure with encryption.   (I say "appears" because anybody familiar with Murphy's Law knows that these drives will eventually disconnect once I click <Add Reply> to this thread. <g>)
The WD 4TB MyBook drives stayed connected for the entire weekend without issues.   A bare metal Samsung 840PRO SSD connected with a USB 3.0 to SATA 6G cable also had no problems.
To fix the problem I had to lookup the hardware ID of the device in Device Manager (the VID and the PID) and then create a new key under USBSTOR under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control.   For the new key I added a new 32-bit DWORD with a value of 400 (hex).   Disconnected and reconnected the drive and it hasn't disconnected since. Solution worked on all MBPr machines.
Interestingly there is a blog on MSDN that suggests the above-noted fix should not be required subsequent to a Windows update that was pushed on April 8, 2014 (all of our machines were fully-up-to date as of last Friday April 25, 2014 and they did need the fix).
The required registry key for the above-noted device enclosure (mfg PN S2510BU3PW) is 04C52028.

External Hard Drive Icons have disappeared from Desktop

I have 4 external drives, 3 G-Tech and 1 LaCie, I don't have them on permanently and today I switched them on for my usual backups but the icons didn't appear.My finder prefs shows External disks checked and indeed if I check/uncheck Hard disks they switch on and off but external disks there is nothing.
I can see the drives in Disk utility and can open them from there and my backup app "Databackup" can see them and backup files as normal. I've unplugged/plugged all relevant cables, shut down, restarted, verified disks (no problems) all to no avail. I haven't updated any software since I last used them (yesterday) so I'm at a loss.
Does anyone have any clue, I'd be most grateful for any input.
Thanks
Ed

Hello ED
You don't say which of your Mac's the Drives are connected to or if there FireWire / USB?
If there chained FireWire, disconnect them all and try connecting the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Drive in the chain directly to the Mac/iMac.
If there USB connected thru a Hub, by pass the Hub and connect them up one at a time directly to the Mac/iMac.
Dennis

External hard drive icon has disappeared

I have a 160gb acomdata external on FW. About a week ago the icon for the external disappeared (prior to the icon dropping out everything worked fine). Finder does not display it. If I use DU I can see the drive, get drive info and see the files on the drive, but DU will not let me do first aid on it nor can I mount the drive. What happened?

It's FAT32, here is the profile from system:
HM160HC:
Manufacturer: DMI
Model: 0x550
GUID: 0x1010055011EB12
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
HM160HC Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x353
Product Revision Level: 3.53
Sub-units:
HM160HC SBP-LUN:
HID Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x0
Unit Spec ID: 0x1430
When I connect it to my PC laptop same problem the system will not recognize it.

HELP: WD External Hard drive disconnecting by itself after Maverick OSX update.

Hello!
I just finished updating my OSX from Mountain Lion 10.8 to Maverick 10.9
I am using 15 inch Macbook Pro late 2011 processor is i7 and 4GB memory.
Before on ML I'm rarely or never expirience this where my external drive is disconnecting
by itself. I am using USB hub (10 ports) I have 2 HD's both are 1TB and on that usb port
my cooling pad is also connected as well the data plug for iphone. My USB port has another
power cable which is also in use.
Now I have three questions
1) Do you think that one of my HD has an issue? because this is the only one
that is disconnecting by it self? when I unplug and plug it back it shows to Utility Disk
but it is not mounting. I manage to restore it by clicking the repair button several time
but it keeps disconnecting by itself and I am not comfortable on doing this time to time.
2) Do you think updating to Maverick is one of the reason why this is happening?
3) What solution i can do to solve this issue.
Thank you in advance.

Hi to All
It seems my issue is already solved I didn't expirience any auto ejecting anymore after I formated my 1TB using the Disk Utility. I already bring back the files that I removed before from my 1TB and so far its all good.
Another tip is if you will plug your external HD's to a usb port give a one interval slot because if you do there's a possibility that it may auto eject again, this happen to me since updating to Maverick but in Mountain Lion maybe it happen to be once or thrice maybe because of bad ejecting that i've done to my 1TB.
This all is as per my intuition, observation and pure guts but now im good and my usb's are not auto ejecting anymore from the day I'd format it to disk utility using erase (of course in exfat format) until now. I wish this will help others too...
Have a nice day!

Importing photos from an external hard drive to Photos app as albums

it is driving me nut. I have spent hours searching for an answer, but they are all about iphoto or aperture, which I dont have on my newly bought (April 2015) macbook pro.
I have 5GB photos on an external drive; they are in different folders named after events (2005.4.13bday, 2006.3.3hiking..etc).
How do I import them to Photos as albums that have the same names as folders?
I tried dragging them directly into the app, but they are not imported as albums; I won't have any clue what these photos are, only dates.
I tried File/import, but it doesn't allow me to as it can never finishing loading the photos (stops at 5000 photos).
Please help. much appreciated.

Re-start the Import. When it comes to the first duplicate it will ask you if you want to import or ignore the duplicate. In the same dialogue you'll have the opportunity to apply that decision to all duplicates.
Regards
TD

External hard drive disconnect--photos disappeared!

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for