External Hard Drive Not Being Recognized By MacBook

My Toshiba external hard drive (1TB, brand new) does not show up anywhere on my MacBook Pro (Also brand new). The light on the external hard drive comes on so it's not a connection issue, like the cord being broken. But nothing happens when I plug it into my MacBook, aside from the light coming on. It doesn't pop up on the desktop or in disk utilities or finder. I don't have my old PC laptop any more, all my files from that computer are on this hard drive and all I want to do is transfer them to my MacBook. And even though I don't want to lose any of my files, I can't even erase anything on the external hard drive to reformat it because it's like...not talking to the MacBook...

Your Mac should be able to recognize many different types of drives (including Windows-formatted drives) immediately for Reading, provided they are in good working condition and not damaged. There should be no need to transfer to a different type of drive.
If there is no recognition of this drive, see if it can be seen in Disk Utility.
If your aim is to transfer the data on it DO NOT use ERASE or PARTITION as these will completely erase all the information on the Drive.
If the drive is present while the Mac sleeps, it is likely to drop out and not be seen any longer, especially if it is a USB-powered drive.

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WD Passport External Hard Drive Not Being Recognized on PowerBook G4

I bought a WD Passport 320GB USB 2.0 powered external hard drive that isnt recognized by my PowerBook G4. The funny thing is that the external HDD works perfectly on my friends MacBook! What's the deal with that?
I called AppleCare but they just told me to take it into my nearest Apple Store... LAME!
Can anyone else help?
Message was edited by: WRDinc

I had the same problem. See below for the answer from WD (...sigh...):
Cause:
Many 15" and 17" Macintosh PowerBook and Mac Book Pro Laptops do not provide enough power through a single USB port for the WD Passport™ external USB hard drive to work correctly. The WD Passport™ external USB hard drive requires a minimum of 1000Ma (Milliamps) of power for proper usage.
Resolution:
You can purchase a WD Passport™ Power Supply or a USB 2.0 Power Booster Cable from links below to the Western Digital Online Store.

External hard drives not being recognized by Lr4

When I hooked up my two external hard drives to my computer this week, Lr4 is not recognizing them. Each folder has a question mark by it.
Appreciate any help..thanks!

Hi Jim,
I spent some time doing maintenance on Lil's computer. We were on public networks for 10 days and so I ran some cleanup software to help ensure that we don't have some virus or other malware messing things up.
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External Hard Drives not being recognized

I have 3 external hard drives. Had them for a long time now. I recently made only one change: I decided to start using the 'sleep' mode.
I noticed the sleep mode and external hard drives didn't get along real well, so I simply took the externals (used only for backing up data) and turned them off.
Its now been about 2 weeks, time to fire them back up and backup my data. Only one of the 3 is being recognized. The other two seem to come on, make the usual whiny noise and such, but aren't seen in the finder.
I've tried restarting my computer, turning off/on the hard drives, unplugging/replugging them from power, unplugging/replugging them into USB. I've verified connections, that kind of thing. Nada.
Any ideas on what to do to help my computer 'see' that they are there? this is a bit baffling to me and disconcerting, to say the least. I've never had problems with my computer recognizing the externals before.
Ideas are appreciated.
PowerMac G4 1.42 duel Mac OS X (10.4.6)

'sleep mode' ?
Do you mean the drives are triggered to not spin up for a period after powering on ? This is a feature designed for enormous banks of drives, so that when they are powered on, only a fraction spin up immediately, then another set, usually 12 seconds later, then another set, etc, until all are up to speed. This is reduce the power surge from spinning up 700 hard drives simultaneously in a commercial solution.

Why is my Toshiba external hard drive not being recognized by my new Mac?

So: When I moved from Colombia I packed my stuff in an external hard drive, that was at the end of last year, Today I got my new MacBook Pro and I can't transfer my stuff because it doesn't even pop up anywhere. I read some other people's post and no: It doesn't appear in any of the two places people say it should appear (or I am not seeing it) whenever it doesn't automatically appears in desktop.
Funny story: It appears that my Mac's hard drive is a toshiba, the same brand as my 1tb external hard drive.
Suggestions?

I'm having the exact same problem... I have my Toshiba 1TB Hard Drive which I formatted to FAT32 so I was able to watch films on my PS3 off of it and recently got a MacBook Pro 13" i7 8GB RAM 750GB HDD, which is unable to read it (and I'm experiencing the same White Light when used with a PC and PS3 - which is when it works, and Blue Light when it is plugged into my MacBook and unable to open).
I've tried to follow as many instructions as possible that I've found on the internet but nothing seems to work - it won't even appear in Disk Utility, I don't know what to do. All I need to know is whether this a problem that can be fixed or not - otherwise I'll just get a new Hard Drive.

External Hard Drive not being recognized

I made a topic some time ago but it never got answered.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1906969&tstart=0&messageID=906 6822#9066822
This hard drive has never worked on this computer and I am still not sure why. It does not show up in Disk Utility or in the System Profiler. It is formatted in FAT32. It is plugged into the wall and comes right up in Windows. As a test I used bootcamp and went into Windows XP. Plugged it into the same USB slot on the side and it came up. But upon rebooting into OS X it was no longer recognized. I actually got it to come up one time by opening USB Probe. After unplugging it and plugging back in, it no longer worked. I don't know what I did that one time but it will not come back. The time I had it running I moved files around to make sure it was working and it seemed fine. Does anyone know what I could do to get it working?
Model: Acomodata Model HD250UHE5-72
Thank you very much.

eddiefb3 wrote:
It has an external power source that plugs into the wall. As for the model,
Acomodata Model HD250UHE5-72
OK. They're supposed to be Mac compatible.
I guess you could see if it at least is recognized by the operating system even if it doesn't mount. You can open System Profiler in Utilities (or About this Mac > More Info...). The USB device tree should be under Hardware > USB.

External USB Hard Drives Not being recognized since recently.

Some quick facts:
Using early-2011 MacBook Pro, 15"
Two HD's worked fine recently (around before upgrade to Mavericks):
1 Lacie Neil Poulton 1TB Disk
1 Western Digital MyBook 500GB Disk
BOTH were formatted to Mac OS Journaled since day 1, so NO bloatware/manufacturer software. Purely storage.
The 2 drives are connected via a powered USB hub, but connecting it directly doesn't help. (strangely, the keyboard and mouse attached via USB hub work fine)
Tested with 7 different USB drives to test– none of them work
The 2 drives actually show up in the System Profiler, but not in Disk Utility.
Both Hard Drives work on my 2012 Macbook Air 13" (running on Mountain Lion) absolutely fine. Tried the 7 USB drives– they all work as well.
Tried SMC reset. Briefly detected the drives, but once I put it to sleep and turned it back on, it stopped detecting it again.
Help!!!!!

Both Hard Drives work on my 2012 Macbook Air 13" (running on Mountain Lion) absolutely fine. Tried the 7 USB drives– they all work as well.
Yes, youre having a problem with WD software and firmware, this has been a point of much discussion with WD software and Mavericks , and affecting drives OTHER THAN WD, via their software
you can read about it here, and ask WD about their removal software
http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/bd-p/passport_mac
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/11/27/western-digital-smartware-software-update-address es-bug/
From WD:
You can now download the WD Software Uninstaller. This utility will remove Mac WD SmartWare and WD Drive Manager software. You can find the uninstaller under any of the Mac Drive Downloads sections such as the My Book Studio below.
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=124&sid=214&lang=en

Hard Drive not being recognized on my Graphite Clamshell

I have a challenge for anyone. I have a ibook 366(clamshell) that is not recognizing the hd. It was working wonderfully one night I shut it down and the next day I get the flashing question mark. I've tried all of the normal stuff: zap pram, reset nvram tried to use command and s but it didn't go to the programmers screen and all the such. I can boot from a cd but none of the utilities see the hd. I have taken the hd out and connected it to a usb to ide cable that allows me to use it as an external drive and it is recognized without any problem on all of the other macs I connect it to and even on a pc (I know I said the bad word.)Does anyone have any clue what could be the issue. Every thing else seems to work fine. Just the hd is not being recognized. I even put in a different hd. I even formatted the drive using one of my macs that I only have 9.2.2 on and installed a os on it and it still didn't work. The hard drive worked fine and the os with all of its components seemed to be fine. I know it's an older system but it's something that I can let the kids play on and not be concerned with losing any of my files.
I appreciate any help
iBook 366 Graphite

Duane, Thanks for your reply. Is there any way to test this? I am going to try to see if any of the utility disks can recognize the hd. I've tried DW 4.0, the Utility Disks on OS 9, X. I've even tried FWB and a few other tools.

Hard drives not being recognized on Server 2012 R2

Hi,
I added 2 hard drives to my server but they are not being recognized by the operating system. They show in the bios but no where in the OS do they show. They used to be external hard drives but I took the hard drive out and installed them into the server.
Are there some type of drivers I need to download for them to be recognized? One of them will be shown but it tells me I need to reformat it. I don't want to do this since I have about 1TB of data on it.
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What server hardware is being used? May need the manufacturer chipset and support pack in the case of integrated disk controller.
Regards, Dave Patrick ....
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

Acomdata 500gb External FW Drive NOT BEING RECOGNIZED!!!

I have been running an Acomdata 500gb FW External Hard Drive for my data intensive applications such as FCP and it has been working flawlessly for about the last year...
Yesterday I powered up the Mac and turned on the drive along with my external USB drive and the Acomdata drive turns on, lights up, and makes noise like it's working, but it is not being recognized at all by the Mac. I tried unplugging it, switching out the FW cord, changing the FW slot it was being plugged into, and everything else of that nature that I could think of. Of course the USB drive that has non-important work related stuff works just fine :/
So I'm wondering, does anyone think the drive has officially crapped out? It turns on and works so I can't tell. I'm PRAYING this is not the case, but I didn't know if there were any possible FW configuration settings that could have been changed or something like that. Any ideas?

Did you recently update to 10.4.10? Is there another computer that you can plug the external into to see if it's recognized? Have you tried plugging another FW peripheral into your main computer to see if it recognizes it?
Some people have had good results from the following:
1. Downloading and installing the combo updater of the system software update they've just applied via "Software Update...". In your case the update you need is at:
10.4.10 combo updater
2. Another trick is to restart each by zapping the parameter RAM:
Zapping the P-RAM:
After the startup tone, hold down <commandd><option><r> until 3 additional startup tones are heard, then release the 4 keys.
3. A 3rd tip would be to do Open Firmware resets on each:
After the startup tone, hold down <command><option><o><f> until the text screen is visible. When text can be entered, type the following commands, followed by the <return> key (there are no space characters in each command):
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all (the Mac will boot up after this command is entered).
Also, see if anything in this Apple KB article helps:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88338
Please post back with results,
Miriam

Mac air with external hard drive - not being found on Finder, Time Machine, Migration Assistant

I have been using an external drive (Imation Apollo) to access only, old files from previous computer (PC) on a new Mac Air. I had not transferred them across to new computer (didn't want to do that) just accessing them from the HD. It had been working fine until recently. Each time the external drive had been connected Time Machine would come up and ask if i wanted to use this drive for back ups, and I always chose 'Decide later'. So, as yetI hadn't as yet configured Time Machine to do back ups.
Recently I noticed that the extrnal HD was no longer showing up on Finder. Slight panic as i have 5 or 6 yrs of work saved on that HD
Further investigations - it's also not showing up either on on Disk Utility, or on Migration Assistant.
I've done the following:
Tried HD in each of different USB ports - made no difference, HD still not showing up
Tested different Hubs in each port with HD attached - no difference HD not showing up
Tried USB flash drives in the USB ports - These are working fine and show up on finder
Tried the HD on other comptuters (a PC though, don't have access to another mac to do this test)- working fine, the HD is showing up and is accessable
Interrogated the Console logs to try to see if the act of attaching the HD creates a log entry - couldn't find anything
Rebooted computer via shut down, power disconnect - no difference
Reset PRAM - no difference still not showing up
Reset SMC - no differnce still not showing up
So I think I have established that all the USB ports are functioning correctly and able to access other external drive devices, using hubs with external powersource is not the issue, identified that the external hard drive is working OK, and it appears that the Mac itself is functioning normally.
What would be the reason the Mac now does not allow this specific external HD to be identified and accessed. The only possible things I can think of are
if I had in fact pressed 'Do not use' when Time Machine asked 'do you want to use this drive for back ups'. Would that mean that the Mac now totally rejects this HD from being a source of accessible files - I hope not!
I also think that my husband may have disconnected the hard drive from my computer to access some stuff and he just yanked it out rather than use the safe eject method. Could this create an issue? The Hard drive works fine on his PC.
Why is my Mac Air now rejecting this HD and what can I do to access my historical files now.
Any assistance anyone can provide would be very greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Anna

I can't answer why it isn't accessing it, but I have a slightly related issue w my back up drive starting to get noisy.
Realizing that redundancy is safety for critical data. I talked to my brother about my situation the other day & he said he has 3 small Western Digital portable HDs that he rotates for backup. He even keeps 1 in the safe deposit box.
I have read for some time that we should have multiple back ups & also have our critical stuff backed up off site. Amazon HD reviews had a woman telling about how she was very backed up on multiple computers & hard drives, but they were robbed or burgeled & all of them were stolen including her thesis that was on the computers.
Hard drives aren't that expensive. I just bought a new Western Digital 1 TB drive for $89.99. I plan to use it to back up the Seagate that is getting noisy & then maybe alternate them.
Also, when I came back to Mac, I moved practially all of my documents to Mac. I think I just dragged & dropped or something. Photos, Office, & pdfs do fine that way. & then you could back them up to a couple of different external drives & remove from your MacBookAir.
Unfortunately I think most of us do not back up until crisis & then it may be too late.
Also use Time Machine. For the 1st time in my computer life, my computer is well backed up--although now realizing the need for redundancy so will start backing up to at least 2 different HDs alternatly.
So, not sure why it isn't working & hopefully you have come up w a solution by now.
I think what I would do in a situation like this, since you can access it on the Windows machine would be to transfer the data to the Windows machine & then transfer it back to a different back up.
I'm looking into backing up what I still have in Windows using a thumb flash drive. I think it should all fit ok now that they have the larger drives & I don't have very much left in Windows format.

External Hard Drive not showing up on Macbook

My External Hard Drive with my Time Machine Backups on it are no longer showing up on my Macbook. The disk shows up on disk utility. Also when I boot into Recovery Mode and click on restore from Time Machine Backups my backups are listed.
I've tried to erase the disk and start fresh, but Disk Utility will not unmount the disk.

Choose Preferences from the Finder menu, click on the Desktop and Sidebar tabs, and check the boxes for it.
(111295)

WD External Hard drive not working with new Macbook Pro

I have recently upgraded to a new Macbook Pro and when connecting a WD 1 TB Passport external hard drive, it doesn't appear on the MBP, but when I connect it to my old Macbook running 10.5.8, it appears normally. Is this a problem with formatting or an issue because it is USB 2.0...
Any help appreciated as I have a lot of data on the hard drive and would like to be able to use it with my new MBP.

I'm on Lion, with similar issues with two WD external HD. But what I found fixed the problem was to:
1. go to the manufacturer's website (in this case Western Digital),
2. locate my external HD, download the download.
For instance, I downloaded the WD Drive Utilities for Mac (for My Passport for Mac USB 3.0):
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=219&sid=157&lang=en
Install the downloaded app.
3. Plug in external (this part, I think is important) directly into your tower or laptop (as opposed to through a USB multi-plug extender). Possibly this is because you access more power?
[I'm trying to remember in which order everything happened. But I think at this point the external hard drive mounted]
4. Install the software that is found on the external HD (in my case, it was a brand new device, so that had never been installed).
5. Run "WD Drive Utilities" and run diagnostics.
6. Test to see if it holds. Unmount the External HD. Unplug. Replug in and see if it mounts.
Note: I have not yet tested to see if plugging in the external somewhere other than directly into the tower also works. But I think the main problem is getting it to mount the first time and installing the software. That's what I think.

External Hard drive not working on my Macbook Air

I've been using my external hard drive for more than 6months now on my mac and for some reason today it won't show up. I've run a disk utility check on it, and tried repairing it but it just says that it has an error and can not be fixed. I am quite stressed about this because it works fine when I use it on my tv and I am able to access my files, but unfortunately because of the low amount of data storage on the macbook air I am unable to save a lot on it, therefore have my external hard drive to save everything on. I am a university student with assignments due very soon! I need help please and urgently!

The EHD has failed and needs to be replaced. If you have not been backing it up then you are about to learn a difficult lesson about why backing up is absolutely critical.
If you have another computer available and that machine can see the data on the EHD then copy the data to that computer. When you replace the EHD simply move the data back.
Good luck.

All external hard drives not being seen after working for months

I have a 27" iMac, 10.7.2.
This morning I had 4 external hard drives attached via a powered hub, 2 x 2TB and 2 x1TB (all Freecom) formatted as MAC OS extended Journaled, one acting as the time machine backup.
All were working and being recognised/seen on the desktop and finder and working normally. I shut down the system and moved the machine to a new office made all the same connections, but now none of the drives are available, they are not even visible on the desktop.
I have tried them directly connected to the usb ports with no luck, I have tried rebooting in safe mode and reset both SMC and PRAM (after looking at various threads)
I have also tried a USB stick which also does not appear on the desktop (or anywhere else), all other peripherals work with the USB ports.
This is a real problem as there is almost 4 terabytes of material and four years work!, any suggestions would be greatfully received.

You mentioned you did a SMC reset, because different models of Mac's have different procedures for doing a SMC reset you may have done it incorrectly meaning you didn't do one at all! Did you do it like this?
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Wait 15 seconds.
Attach the computers power cable.
Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.

External Hard Drive Not Being Recognized By MacBook

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