External hard drive doesn't mount

I have a Thermaltake dual bay with two 1.5TB hard drives set up but the RAID got corrupted. I re-partitioned one of the hard drives so that I can just do a copy but somehow the other drive was not working...guess it didn't see the RAID. I deleted the RAID "slice" and not the drive just shows disk2s2 on the partition and won't mount. Using the iskysoft freeware I can recover the files it seems but it's $90. Is there a way to mount the drive?

Run Disk Utility to copy a partition disk2s2 image dmg.
Then connect this image in Disk Utility and try to repair the disk.
If it does not use a professional data recovery software such as Disk Drill (you can check whether the recovered files in the free version) or DataResсue.
Do not write to the disk you want to restore!
Alex
Apple Support Professional

Similar Messages

External Hard Drive Doesn't Mount on Desktop through FireWire 400

I have an external hard drive that mounts on the desktop when connecting to my iMac via USB, but it fails to appear on the desktop when connecting via FireWire 400. It was glitchy in Tiger as well, and had problems since installing Leopard. I was able to get it to work once, after using Leopard Cache Cleaner (a 3rd party program), disconnecting the hard drive, and unplugging the iMac. I moved my computer this week, and had to unplug it and when I powered it back up, the hard drive doesn't appear on the desktop again through FireWire 400 (still works fine with USB). It also doesn't appear in Disk Utility through FireWire.
What good are FireWire if they fail to recognize a hard drive so often?!

upgrade to latest system, that computer will accept, then try again

External Hard Drive doesn't mount, not showing in Disk Utility

I have had this Western Digital external hard drive for a few months now and until this evening it worked fine. It won't show up on my Macbook Pro and it is not present in the Disk Utility section. The light on the external hard drive is on so it doesn't appear to be a power issue. I have another of the same exact hard drive and it works fine. I tried switching USB cables and even power supplies and I can't get it to work. Does anyone know how to recover the files or is the hard drive toast?

Something's wrong inside the case; it's either a problem which is preventing the computer from properly connecting to the drive or the drive itself is dead.
Data recovery from a failed drive can only be done by a professional service, which can charge hundreds or thousands of dollars.
(93717)

WD 400 GB external hard drive doesn't mount after software update.

I had been using my WD external hard drive with TimeMachine for almost a year. Just recently the WD doesn't show up on desktop, however you can see it under the Apple's "System Profiler". Any suggestions?
External HDD:
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Version: 0.00
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Western Digital
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: Unknown
Product ID: 0x0900
Serial Number: 57442********************938
Vendor ID: 0x1058

c14user,
Looking back at your original post: "Partition Map Type: Unknown" is a little suspicious. I'm wondering if, while the disk was formatted correctly, perhaps the partition scheme was not changed from Master Boot Record when you first began using it. I made that discovering recently on a drive that I could no longer select as a Time Machine disk. If so you'll need to re-partition the disk either GUID or Apple Partition Map.
*_How Should a Time Machine Hard Disk be Prepared?_*
For Time Machine to work properly, the hard disk must be formatted “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” and its’ Partition Scheme should be either GUID or Apple Partition Map.
Time Machine is incompatible with disks partitioned as Master Boot Record (MBR). Unfortunately, this describes nearly every hard drive you can buy because MBR is a Windows partition scheme. (Naturally, this DOES NOT apply to Apples’ Time Capsule.)
For some, Time Machine begins to perform as expected with a new external hard disk. But then the initial full backup or subsequent incremental backups fail. The user only later discovers the hard disk was still partitioned as Master Boot Record (MBR).
One article on Time Machine made this observation: “Virtually everybody will have to open Disk Utility and repartition the disk as APM or GUID. It doesn't really matter which one because the Time Machine disk will not be bootable anyway. APM allows a disk to boot a PowerPC, GUID allows the disk to boot an Intel processor but both are easily digestible by Time Machine on either kind of processor.” [http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html]
Procedure
Connect the hard disk you wish to use for Time Machine backups.
Launch Disk Utility.
It will appear twice in the pane on the left. (Make sure you recognize that it is different from the 2 icons that represent your Macs' internal drive.) The upper entry represent the device as a whole, including the controller inside. The lower entry represents the hard disk contained within the device.
Click on the upper icon of the external hard disk.
Select the "Partition" tab.
For "Volume Scheme" choose "1 partition". (Chose 2 partitions if you intend on storing other data on the disk besides your Time Machine backups.)
Name the disk.
Format should be "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
Click "Options".
Select either GUID or Apple Partition Map. (See above for significance)
Click "OK".
Click "Apply". Then click “Partition”.
Once the external hard disk is repartitioned, select it again in Time Machine preferences and use it for your backups.
Let us know if this was helpful.

External Hard Drive does not mount

My 2TB external hard drive does not mount and I cannot get it to. Have tried turning the hard drive off and then back on. No response. Any thoughts as to how I can get it to be recognized?

You can try doing a SMC reset, if it doesn't work the first time it's totally OK to reset the SMC several times.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

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

My external hard drive doesn't show up in finder.Time machine can't find it. Does this mean my external hard drive is dead?
I borrowed a friends and switched mine with hers. My acted the same way in her macbook. I switched the cords on the external drives, no change.
Also, Is there a way to retrieve the information from my sick external hard drive? Thanks for your help.

If the Disk Utility sees it, you might be able to repair it or recover the data on it with a product such as DiskWarrior or Data Rescue.
If the Disk Utility doesn't see it, contact professional support.
(64290)

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
and got the "beach ball of death" and needed to restart.
My trusty G3 started up fine, however, the external HD was now
not showing up on the desktop as normal. I troubleshooted -by restarting,
trying different a/c plugs/ different USB ports , ran disk utility..called
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.
and when click "mount" same two messages keep showing:
message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
mount.please use disk utility to check the disk"
~
message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
restart:" you have inserted a disk containg no volumes that mac osx
can read to use unreadable volumes,click initialize to continue with the disk inserted ,click continue"
~
( I really need access to these files- and do not want to re-initialize the HD!!)
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 )
Repair completed. "
~~
Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
still comes up when re-running disk utility...Hard drive would still not
mount on desktop-even after restarting .
~~~~~
If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
appreciated. I have tried to call seagate several times in the last several hours-
1st time-they disconnected me after being on hold 10 minutes-2nd call
I was put on hold for 40 minutes ..Finally spoke to someone ( they are not mac users or mac experts!)and he said I would need to send it to Seagate's Data Recovery-... for a fee of course!
~~~
At this point, I am hoping to just get the files and photos off
the hard drive- I heard about Disk Warrior-should I use that and if so
what version?
Thank you very much!
L

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 Hard Drive won't mount on desktop!

Hey, guys.
I ran into a problem this morning that I've never ran into before and I wasn't sure where to write it but I thought this is best.
Here it goes...
Last night I had a power surge and when I restarted my computer, my external hard drive did not mount on my desktop. I than proceeded with restarting my computer, I relinked all my connections and I cant seem to get it fixed. I have a lot of material on my external drive that I dont have backed up (I know, a stupid move) anyways, I dont want to lose that information. Also, when I open up disk utility, the icon for my external drive is there and the partition I made for my external drive shows up also but the title of my partition for my external hard drive is not in bolded font. I tried to click the button to mount my external drive cause the specs tell me that it is not mounted but when I press the mount button, it does nothing. I than tried clicking the unmount button and than restart my computer and still nothing.
What problem am I facing and how can it be fixed?
Thanks.

Dear Jason,
Gary's advised is, IMHO, a very sound one.
The only thing I can think of about your problem, given the information you have provided us, is to run Disk Warrior on your external HD.
In fact, DW is particularly indicated in events, like:
"...you should run DiskWarrior when you suspect that there is directory damage on one of your disks. Directory damage can result in the disk not mounting (not appearing on the desktop when the computer is started), missing files or folders, an inability to move or copy files, or crashes when files are used...".
You could actually buy your copy of DW Licence on-line and download it directly onto your internal HD, starting from this "Information you must read before you make your purchase" page. A hardware copy of the software you have so purchased, will follow by postal service (or currier, if so you choose), shortly.
Follow all the instructions you will find in the download to install the DW software onto your main internal HD and then run it on your external hard drive.
DW has saved my data several times and in similar situations as you are experiencing. IMHO, you should seriously give it a try and, even in the unfortunate event it does not manage to solve your problem, it is one of those Mac OSX utilities which ANY Mac power user MUST have handy at all times.
So, no matter what, my opinion is that it is always well-spent-money those used to purchase your copy of DW: in the long run, you won't regret it.
In the event that even DW is unable to retrive your precious data, my suggestion is to contact Micro Com data recovery. It's going to cost you some money, but if you make a leaving out of the data you've lost on your external hard drive, it's going to be worth it.
All the best.
Costa

External hard drive won't mount, even after disk repair.

My Toshiba external hard drive won't mount on my MacBook Pro 10.8.5. I can see it in my disk repair, and when I repair, "the partition map appears to be ok." But I can't access the icon to be able to open the hard drive contents on my desktop. Help!

Hello maccynicwhoalwayshasmacs,
Thanks for the question. After reviewing your post, it sounds like trouble with an external HD mounting. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you resolve or isolate the issue.
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Have a nice day,
Mario

HT3275 When I press "select backup location" in the Time Machine section of System Preferences, my external hard drive doesn't appear as an option. How do I change this?

When I press "select backup location" in the Time Machine section of System Preferences, my external hard drive doesn't appear as an option. How do I change this? My external hard drive is a FreeAgent GoFlex Drive.

Hi, what Format is the external Drive?
They usually come PC Formatted for Fat32/MSdos, or NTFS... is there anything on it now?
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html
(To Install OSX on an IntelMac the Drive it needs the GUID Partitioning scheme mentioned at the bottom.)
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/DU.html

My external hard drive will not mount on the desktop?

My external hard drive no longer mounts on my desktop, the hard drive has been checked & is working-has anyone ideas?

Hello cuckoo55,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information on this, take a look at:
Mac OS X v10.6: How to show your hard drive icon on the desktop
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3746
In the Finder, choose Preferences from the Finder menu.
Click the General icon on the toolbar.
Select "Hard disks" in the "Show these items on the desktop:" section.
Close the Finder Preferences window.
Best of luck,
Mario

Forgot to eject external hard drive-won't mount, doesn't show

Hello,
I just bought a great running G-Technology (500GB) firewire/usb portable hard drive to replace an older much less stable drive. I wanted to copy the files from one to another when the imac disc just stated spinning forever. Having experienced this before I tried shutting off the old drive, but to no avail. So I panicked and shut everything down. Obviously, I didn't eject the new hard drive. After restarting I was able to get the old drive to appear on the desktop but not the new one. It doesn't show in Disk Utility and I've tried going to Go/Go To Folder/type:/volumes and where the icon of the new drive doesn't show up. I've unplugged it, restarted the computer with and without the new drive plugged in. The new drive light is on and power seems to be going to it when plugged in. What to do? I hope I didn't ruin the drive. It's less than a week old. Thanks for any help! Kris

If you are trying yo use the drive's USB connectivity, "portable" could be the key word. Some drives that must get their power from the computer's USB port ("bus-powered drives") may not get enough power under some circumstances. Their counterpart is the desktop or "self-powered" external drive that comes with its own power brick.
There are workabouts for your existing drive if it lacks its own power supply:
1) Try a different USB port. Not all USB ports provide the same level of power. Ports on the keyboard should be avoided--they can seldom power even a thumb drive
2) Get a self-powered USB hub. It adds to the power feed for the drive and usually fixes the issue
3) Get a USB "Y" cable like this:
1 Meter USB 2.0 A to 5 Pin Mini B Cable - Auxiliary USB "Y" Power Design for external hard drives.
It uses two of the comptuer's ports for extra power.
If you are connecting with FireWire, then the drive is likely faulty.

External Hard Drive Doesn't Appear on Desktop / Won't Mount

I have an external hard drive that is used as a server for 3 computers . . . it is hidden from the Desktop.
The "home" computer is running 10.8.5, and the others (which also have the hard drive hidden) run 10.9.5 & 10.10.1.
I can access the drive by going to Go > Recent Folders, and also from aliases to the drive I already have on my Desktop.
The drive shows up on Disk Utility, and was fine when I verified the disk.
I also reset the SMC and PRAM, with no affect on the hidden folder.
The Thunderbolt connectors and Firewire 800 converters all seem to be in working order.
I've seen some fixes out there for the same problem with users running OS X 10.9.3. They've used a Terminal command to reveal the hidden files. Am not sure if the code for 10.9.3 will work for my 10.8.5.
Someone, please help!

upgrade to latest system, that computer will accept, then try again

External Hard Drive doesn't work after Time Machine cancelation

First post on the forum.
So far i've had 2 hard drives broken because of a simple Time Machine.
I own a MBP and an HP so my hard drives usually have 2 partitions, one for mac, the other for pc. About a month or so i was doing a Time Machine on my Iomega 1TB (the partition used for the time machine is formatted in Mac Os Expanded (with journaling)), and, because the time machine was extremely slow i stopped it. Then came the problems. I tried to connect the Iomega to the mac, but the partition in which i had the time machine doesn't mount. the other partition is mountable and i even managed to delete some files in it, so it worked. But now the partitions don't mount. I can still see the two partitions in Disk Utility, with the correct names i gave them, but cannot mount.
Right now i don't have the disk with me because i went to a "professional" to try and at least recover my files. What a joke that was. First they told me they had my recovered files and them the files were not mine. The switched the disks and gave me someone elses files. And now they ask me for 1100$ to recover my files because it is a hardware malfunction. Obviously i dont have that amount of money available and i cannot afford the recovery atm, and i do not believe that a software can cause hardware to fail. (just guessing)
Resume: 1 external hard drive, with 2 partitions, one mac os expanded and the other is a Windows NT Filesystem. None of the partitions are corrently mounting on mac but the disk utility recognizes the partitions and the names i gave them.
So guys can u help a poor little girl that needs her photographies so that she can go and show her portfolio to get a job. :/
Kinda desperate at this point.
ps: sorry for bad english, second language

One can't read the other.
Just to be clear Mac's can read/write FAT32 but windows cannot use OS X Extended. So to use a drive on both systems it needs to be formatted FAT32
FAT32 does have limitations and possibly the best solution is to use NTFS, a more modern, robust filesystem. The drawback here is that OS X does not natively read NTFS so a third party kernel extension is needed.

WD external hard drive won't mount

Hello,
I have a WD my passport 1TB external hard drive that will not mount. It has two partitions, one is a time machine backup, the other contains critical files. I thought I was backing up this second partition via SuperDuper, but for other reasons it stopped doing it's backup two years ago, so I now have two years worth of critical files that are seemingly inaccessible (my bad). I have done all the easy stuff like try it on other computers, changed cables, changed ports, tried it on PCs and Macs (I have a 2008 MBP). I have also taken it out of it's case, and even switched out the PCB with an exact copy (through PCB Solutions in Canada). Not long after I replaced the board, I got access again to the hard drive (though not right away), I began copying files as fast as possible (which was slow) and got about 25% (51GB) of the drive copied (less corrupt files). This took a couple days.
Then I stupidly shut down the computer as the drive seemed to be getting hot and I thought it worth the risk not to fry the board/drive. Alas, the hard drive would not mount again. I have tried to access it through the Terminal, as it does show up there (after a couple minutes) if I do a diskutil list like this:
Melissa-McManuss-MacBook-Pro:~ melissa$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *512.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Melissa's SSD           511.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                                                   *1.0 TB     disk1
It does not show up in Disk Utility or Finder however.
It will show up in Disk Utility after the Finder gives up on trying to mount it. It shows up as "1TB WD My Passport 0171D Media", but does not show the partitions.
I have read other similar cases, I can tell you that the fsck. program does not show up in the Activity Monitor. So this is not my problem.
I am out of potential remedies, but am loathe to send it to the Data Recovery people if not absolutely necessary (for obvious reasons).
Thank you in advance for any potential help!

Your best bet is DiskWarrior,...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Hold option key or alt key when selecting when choosing Rebuild, then use Scavenge, that may make a temporary directory that can then be used for copying the files.
If DW doesn't even see it or work, then...
Data Rescue...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
rccharles on file recovery...
"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm
FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:
    * been accidentally deleted.
    * become unreadable due to media faults.
    * been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11073082#11073082

External hard drive doesn't mount

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