External hard drive gone!!

Don't know if it's the right forum to post, but anyway:
I pluged in my external harddrive (Western Digital 2TB),but suddenly i could read the files, but i couldn't open them! So I tried to remove the disk usig disk utilities but it couldn't. And after a few tries i turned of my computer and removed it. I started it up again and pluged in the disk and got the error-mesage "The computer couldn't read the disk". I looked in disk utilities and didn't see the partion. Everything was gone!! 500 gb of more or less important stuff!! The most important things I have an copy of on my internal disk, but i need the partion back!!! It was fine yesterday... Please help me!!!

If it's port powered use a powered USB hub
Try it on another computer, if it's a NTFS drive, update your software to read/write that format
Other than that, if the drive is not being seen, not much we can do, it or it's cable, or is likely dead.
 Most commonly used backup methods explained
 Data recovery efforts explained

Similar Messages

  • Iphoto library stored on external hard drive GONE

    My iphoto library has been stored on an external hard drive for a couple of years now, has always worked perfectly until today...I noticed that my desktop photo was gone, so I opened iphoto, and it says that the library cannot be found...at which point I noticed the hard drive is no longer showing up on the desktop of my imac. Also tried connecting it to our macair...also doesn't show up and asks if I want to initialize it...HELP!! I need my pics!

    Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Sounds like a hard drive problem rather than an iPhoto one. If the drive won't mount so the library is available iPhoto won't work. So I'd run Disk Utility and see if it can see the drive. If it can then run DU and try to repair the disk. Otherwise you'll have to take the drive in to a service provider to see if they can mount the drive and save the files.

  • 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?

  • WD My Book External Hard Drive Gone!

    Hey everybody,
    I have a Western Digital My Book Premium Edition 500GB External Hard Drive. When trying to make a copy of my harddrive (preparations for Leopard) the driver it uses to run was deleted. Do you have any idea how I can restore it and get it back to normal?

    I have a 1 TB Western Digital My Book Studio Edition. It worked as a stand alone drive for a while, using Firewire 800 to 400 cable. Yesterday I used it as a Time Machine drive. Took about 5 hours to back up 240 GB. Today I had about three power outages. The WD drive has not worked over Firewire since. I have tried various suggestions involving powering down both drive and iMac and attempting to connect. The Western Digital drive is not showing in Finder, System Preferences, or Disk Utility.
    As it is a triple interface, I was able to connect it via the slower USB. Drive contents are intact, and Time Machine backs up over USB. I tried both Firewire ports on my iMac. I connected my other Firewire drive to the iMac. It works, so that proves the iMac Firewire port is OK. It is looking distinctly like the Western Digital My Book problem is either a faulty WD Firewire port, or possibly a faulty cable.
    I should have a chance to try a different cable over the weekend. I will also be able to try the drive on a different computer. That should establish where the problem is.
    I don't know any general way to force my iMac to search for a Firewire drive it simply does not see.

  • Transfer to External Hard drive gone wrong. Help!!!

    I improperly transferred my Itunes, with all my music, to my external hard drive. Not knowing that I had to consolidate my library before hand, I just moved the Itunes application and my Music folder (which contained all of my current music plus a past library from another computer) to the hard drive. When it worked just the same as the Itunes on my internal, I deleted both my original Itunes application and music folder, only to find that after they were deleted, the external Itunes no longer worked as it had before. Now I have all my music and the Itunes application on my external hard drive, and I know there must be an easier way to put them back together then replacing each file one by one. Can someone please help a serious SNAFU? Thanks, at3.

    If they're still in two folders (iTunes app and Music) on your external, can you not just copy those two back to the internal drive and expect it to work properly again? It's my understanding that music you wish to be active in iTunes must be on your internal drive.

  • External hard drive gone wrong and copied everything to Imac HDD filling it completely

    I have had my iMac backed up to an external hard drive for years and randomly the External hard drive is now not readable and it has seemed to copy everything to my imac hard drive filling it completely.
    any ideas how to firstly fix the external drive without losing everything on there and second why it would have copied everything to the Imac?
    I cant even do a restore from a back up as its all backed up to external drive and its saying its not readable.

    If they're still in two folders (iTunes app and Music) on your external, can you not just copy those two back to the internal drive and expect it to work properly again? It's my understanding that music you wish to be active in iTunes must be on your internal drive.

  • Time Machine external hard drive gone.

    I have seen other posts that are similar to this, but not exactly like it, and am hoping someone can give me some guidance. I had the read only message come up on the time machine after I did the latest update. It said it was read only, and that the disk needed to be reformatted. Well, now the disk is gone. It doesn't show up on the available disks to back up to. Any ideas?

    I just turned it off , unplugged the USB from my iMac, and plugged it into my MacBook Pro, and I can see it in the disk utility now. But when I tried to repair it, I got the following message.
    "Verifying and Repair Volume "Time Machine Backups"
    Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.
    Can I just erase and reformat?

  • How do i recover data from an external hard drive that was accidentally deleted?  After I verified the drive, a message appeared that said my drive needed to be repaired.  When I tried to access the drive again, the 700 Gigs of music is gone!

    How do i recover data from an external hard drive that was accidentally deleted?  After I verified the drive, a message appeared that said my drive needed to be repaired.  When I tried to access the drive again, the 700 Gigs of music is gone!

    Stop using the drive immediately, un plug it.
    Buy a copy of ProSoft DataRescue 4 and use it to search for deleted files.

  • External Hard Drive not in finder, but in Disk Utility, info gone? recover?

    My external hard drive shows up in disk utility, but not in finder. Usually, in disk utility, there will be visible the model/make of the hard drive (such as 232.8 GB MDT MD25...etc), and then below that, there be the actual name of the hard drive that I gave it (such as Jack's External Hard Drive). In disk utility, it only has the first one (the MDT... name) and not the other.
    How do I fix this situation? Is my hard drive dead? I don't think it is dead because I can hear it spinning and it shows up partially in disk utility. Oh and by the way, it doesn't give me the option of repairing the disk.
    Thanks

    Alright, so I bought an external hard drive enclosure. The screeching noise is gone. Disk Utility sees the same "232.9 GB MDT MD25..." stuff, but now also "sees" "ROCK" which is the name I named the hard drive. But the lettering in "ROCK" is gray, not black. Also, its not showing up in finder. When I start up the computer with the ROCK hard drive on, finder says something like, "The disk you have connected was not readable by this computer." I try to verify disk in Disk Utility but it says "Disk Utility Stopped Verifying ROCK because the following error was encountered: Filesystem verify or repair failed."
    So buying the enclosure, helped, but it seems the hard drive is damaged or the information is corrupt or something.
    What is the problem I am having? (Is it not mounting or is the data bad or whats going on?)
    Is there something I can do right now that can make this all better?
    My last resort will be to try data recovering software (last resort because it costs around $100).
    Thanks for all your help so far everyone.

  • External Hard Drive - where's my music gone?

    Hi - I've just got an external hard drive & have copied all of my music onto it. I've gone into 'preferences' on iTunes & changed the 'music folder location' to the new drive (the E drive). However the path iTunes follows for all of my music is still to the old (C) drive. What am I supposed to do!? Should I re-import my entire music library, or consolidate my library, or something else? Also, I'm assuming I can't put my iTunes software directly onto the hard drive? CHEERS!
    iPod Photo 60gb   Windows XP  

    If you want to make another drive (direct or portable) on your PC the main music location for iTunes, move all song files there, as well as any future imported music from CDs, here is one method (see the links below):
    You will maintain your playlists, ratings, comments, etc. This will only move your music folders location, NOT your iTunes program files. It is my opinion that programs (i.e. – iTunes) work better when installed on your main hard drive. At the very least, it makes it easier to manage all your programs if they are centrally located on one hard drive (the Windows default standard).
    See these links for some step-by-step info:
    iLounge: Moving your iTunes Library to a New Hard Drive
    MacMuse: iTfW: Move iTunes music/Library to new drive
    iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
    If you are moving the music to an external hard drive or network drive, after the transfer (and to work correctly), the drive must be running prior to your opening iTunes. If not, iTunes will reset the location of your music folder location to the default location (usually: ‘C:\...My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music’). If this happens, you need to manually change the path back to your external location, or future CD ‘Imports’ will be deposited on your internal HD.
    Also make sure that the new drive always loads as the same Drive Letter, otherwise you will lose the references within iTunes.

  • I have just gone through the start upo process for a new iMac and skipped the section to upload data from my old computer from an external hard drive. How do I do this now?

    I have just gone through the start-up on my new imac and opted to skip the bit where I sync / upload info from my old computer which is on a My Passport external hard drive. I would like to do this now. How do I? Thanks.

    See the  Second Chance to Use Setup Assistant  here...
    http://Pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html
    Also see here  > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889?

  • HT5097 I recently upgraded my macbook to Mountain lion.  Before doing so I used time machine and an external hard drive to back up my entire laptop.  When we upgraded my computer came back like new. All pics, music, videos documents etc gone.  How do I ge

    I recently upgraded my macbook to mountain lion.  Before doing so I used time machine to back up my entire laptop with an external hard drive. 
    When I got my computer back it was clean....all pics, music, documents, bookmarks etc. are gone.  How do I get these files off the external hard drive and back onto my laptop with the new upgrade?

    I recently upgraded my macbook to mountain lion.  Before doing so I used time machine to back up my entire laptop with an external hard drive. 
    When I got my computer back it was clean....all pics, music, documents, bookmarks etc. are gone.  How do I get these files off the external hard drive and back onto my laptop with the new upgrade?

  • I imported files from an external hard drive to Itunes on a new computer.  they imported & play fine, but the ratings & playlists are gone & i am unable to update any info.  I found a file name playlist on old drive & imported now most files are missing!

    I imported files from an external hard drive to Itunes on a new computer.  they imported & play fine, but the ratings & playlists are gone & i am unable to update any info.  I found a file name playlist on old drive & imported now most files are missing!  Help!

    Can you locate the iTunes Library.itl file on the old drive? Ideally you would have simply copied over the entire iTunes folder structure from <User's Music> on the old computer into <User's Music> on the new one to transfer the library will all playlists, ratings, play counts etc. intact.
    tt2

  • I moved my FCP events and projects folder onto my external hard drive and now everything is gone on FCP.  When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened.  I still get the missing files image.

    I moved my FCP events and projects folder onto my external hard drive and now everything is gone on FCP.  When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened.  I still get the missing files image.  When I try to import the folders manually something pops up that says it is incompatable.  It is possible to retrieve everything that was lost?

    "When I tried to reload those folders onto FCP nothing happened"
    Brownale6 how can  u reload folder in to FCP.
    As you said folders are moved to external disk but have you checked it should be like this
    For Event
    external disk>Final Cut Events>your event folder.  
    For project
    external disk>Final Cut Projects>your project folder.

  • My external hard drive icon is gone?

    my external hard drive icon is gone?

    Ferd II,
    I'm having the same problem as Michael in Canada.  I'm using a LaCie 320GB hard drive to backup my MacBook Pro via Firewire cable about once a week.  Today when I plugged in the hard drive, no icon appeared.  Disk Utility shows the external drive and Verify and Repair confirm it's OK.  I checked System Preferences and Finder Preferences and the icon should appear.  I've done a Restart and Shutdown, with the external drive unplugged and plugged in, with no success.  I've looked at the possibility of resetting SMC and PRAM (from another similar post) but after reading those suggestions, I'm not seeing the symptoms that should correct.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Maybe you are looking for

  • FF 23.0/24.0 on linux x64 cannot open any websites (and localhost) after working 24 hours

    OS: Debian 7 x86-64 Browser: FF 23.0 /opt/firefox/firefox: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64 /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64 I'm running FireFox and open in it from 3 to 20 tabs . Earlier in this s

  • Installation error message on Win7 32bit

    Hi everyone, I hope someone can help me with my installation error issues.    I get the following error message when attempting to install CP5 as a trial version: ------------------------------------- Summary -------------------------------------- -

  • SIL behaving strangely and battery oddness

    Hey all, I'm a proud owner of a 5.5 MacBook Pro but I'm stumbling into some oddness about the status indicator light :/ I noticed right now that it's not lighting up when I'm actually using my Mac, if I close the lid it'll go into the flashing mode b

  • SQL Data Modeler 3.0 EA1 trying to create primary key on OT

    Hi, I'm trying to modify a primary key of an object table that was reversed (imported) from an Oracle 11.2.x RDBMS and am getting the error message "Incomplete Index definition". It is showing in the window "Index Columns Assignment". I get to the 'P

  • Cisco 877W router and external ADSL modem

    Cisco 877W router and external ADSL modem In order to support ADSL2+ on a pre ADSL2+ router and in preparation for a later migration to BT infinity I am trying to configure the Router using an external adsl2+ modem appropriately. The original configu