External hard drive - not detected by PC

Hello,
I recently got a seagate hard drive and mounted it on a case to use as an external hard drive for my pbook 12inch. I went through the formatting on my PB, and everything works fine with it on the PB.
However, when I try to connect it to my PC, the hard drive doesn't show being mounted. My computer detects that a new hardware is connected, but I can't find the drives in the My Computer folder.
Does anyone know what I need to do? I'd like to use the Hard drive to back up my PC as well.

If you've formatted it through the PB then it will be in HFS+ - don't Windows use FAT32?

Similar Messages

External hard drive not detecting

Hello,
I have installed Win 8 to my system which is having a 2.5GHz processor. That's fine.
But When I am connecting, an External SATA I hard drive through enclosure, Its not detecting.
But It is able to detect all other external hard drives.
please let me no what to do.
Thanks in advance,
Giri.

Hi Giri,
What's the size of your External HDD?
Please know that if the disk format is MBR, system can only recognize 2 TB of it. Please understand that the MBR Partitions can define a disk drive capacity up to 2.2TB. If we need to use more capacity of the HDD, we need to convert it to GPT format.
Also, you can try to change to cable power connector to see if this issue can be caused by insufficient power supplication.
Thanks for your understanding.
Kate Li
TechNet Community Support

External hard drive not mounting

external hard drive not mounting

I fixed mine by uninstalling the software that came with the harddrive such as Tuxera and reinstalled it now myharddrive works again and i did not have to delete the harddrive and reformat it.
I tried a lot like reseting the Pram And connecting other harddrives but by unstalling the original software it works all over again. I hope this works for you because i was getting pretty frustrated myself.
Im running a 2012 macbook pro with 10.9.3
boom mind blown

I am planning on using my time capsule as a network and essentially an external hard drive - not just back up, is this ok?

I am planning on using my time capsule as a network and essentially an external hard drive - not just back up, is this ok?

Most users should use the Time Capsule for backups. This assumes that "original" copies of your data are on the computer and backups of this data are stored on the Time Capsule.
If either the Time Capsule or the hard drive on your computer fails, there are at least copies of your important data on the other drive.
If you are asking if you can place "original" files on the Time Capsule, do you have a plan to backup those files?
If the Time Capsule drive has a problem....and your only copy of your important data is on the Time Capsule....you will lose everything.
If you are asking if this is OK, the answer for most folks would be "no".
Can you clarify if this is what you are asking?

Why is my External Hard Drive not showing in Aperture 3.6 Import?

Why is my External Hard Drive not showing in Aperture 3.6 Import?
Only my computer hard drive is and I want to import from an external drive. I have always been able to until I updated to Aperture 3.6 and Yosemite.

Only my computer hard drive is and I want to import from an external drive. I have always been able to until I updated to Aperture 3.6 and Yosemite.
I had the same problem. On the folders on the drive with the Aperture library did show in the Import panel. After I clicked the computer icon in the upper left corner of the Import panel, suddenly all drives appeared.
You can also try to drag the folder you want to import into the Import panel, to point the file chooser to the drive.

I can't import my movies to work on them. They are coming from a external hard drive, not directly from the camera, its type mpeg-e (.mts)

My movies are type MPEG-2
I can't import my movies to work on them. They are coming from a external hard drive, not directly from the camera, its type mpeg-2 (.mts)
What can I do ?

1. Is your external HD connected by firewire?
2. mpeg2 is the final compressed delivery format of a DVD, not intended for editing, and iMovie cannot handle such files, so you need to convert them first:
For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html
which is free, but you must also have the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
which is a mere $20.

External WD 1 TD hard drive not detected on MBP 13.3" OS X 10.9.1

Hi all,
I have a WD 1 TB hard drive that is not detected by my MBP 13.3" which has OS X 10.9.1
The check box for external disks is flagged in Finder>preferences
I have also looked to see if the hard drive is deteced in disk utilities but it is not.
I have a lot of data stored in the external drive which I cannot afford loose.
Any help on this is highlt appreciated!!

dead SATA card extremely like. .... a VERY COMMON problem,
read here all about it:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD

Hp external hard drive not recognised hp by pc

I have had my HP PC for some time and had never completed a back up so purchased a HP external harddrive. Part-way through the backup process (an hour or so later) the pc displayed a "backup failed" message.
I have since attempted to connect the external HP 500GB passport harddrive to my HP pc and also to other PC's and Laptops in the house, however, eventhough the light comes on the external hardrive once connected to a PC it is not indicating that it is attached the the computer and the drive is not discoverabale.
The external harddrive is useless in its current state and can not be used for anything, and I have yet to successfully complete a backup of my PC. Do I need to buy another external hardrive and start again? and what can I do with the original harddrive so it is recognised by a PC?

I understand your HP external hard drive is not working on any PC you connect it to. If I understand correctly, the drive is not listed in Computer where other drives are listed.
With the drive connected, go to Start>right-click computer>manage. Select disk management on the left of the new window that opens. Disk management will have a list of detected drives and a visual diagram of the detected drives as well. If possible, please upload a screenshot of disk management. Screenshots can be added by clicking the photo icon and browsing for it on the PC.
What model is the external HDD?
Has a different USB cable been tried? The cable might be providing a good connection for power, but not necessarily for the data connection as these two functions rely on different pins. Just don't want to overlook something as simple as a faulty cable. If you don't have one to try with, then don't buy one just yet as I would like to see what disk management shows.
I'll keep an eye out for your reply.
↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

Time Machine & external hard drives not used daily

I have a question about Time Machine and external hard drives that I used for storing digital files. I do not need to turn on these drives every day. Or even every week. Is Time Machine going to "forget" them (delete their files from backups) if I don't turn them on regularly? What do I do to make sure they are safely backed up and that they stay backed up even if they aren't turned on every day?

As I said, then, "Time Machine will simply pick up wherever it left off." Just be sure to properly eject the drive before disconnecting or shutting off.
The "speed" question is a new one not present in your original post. You can address that in the following:
Kappy's Personal Suggestions About Mac Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utility is: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption. Drive Genius provides additional tools not found in Disk Warrior for defragmentation of older drives, disk repair, disk scans, formatting, partitioning, disk copy, and benchmarking.
Four outstanding sources of information on Mac maintenance are:
1. OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney.
2. Mac maintenance Quick Assist
3. Maintaining Mac OS X
4. Mac Maintenance Guide
Periodic Maintenance
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) See Mac OS X- About background maintenance tasks. If you are running Leopard or later these tasks are run automatically, so there is no need to use any third-party software to force running these tasks.
If you are using a pre-Leopard version of OS X, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced after Tiger. (These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion and should not be installed.)
Defragmentation
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive except when trying to install Boot Camp on a fragmented drive. But you don't need to buy third-party software. All you need is a spare external hard drive and Carbon Copy Cloner.
Cheap and Easy Defragmentation
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive. You will use Carbon Copy Cloner to create the backup and to restore it.
1. Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the
       external one.
2. Boot from the external hard drive.
3. Erase the internal hard drive.
4. Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the left side dropdown menu.
4. Be sure the Block Copy button is not depressed or is ghosted.
5. Click on the Clone button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the upward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the
       mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the
       drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is
       failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be
       reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the
       DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the
       drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended
       (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to
       GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait
       until the process has completed.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the left side dropdown menu.
4. Be sure the Block Copy button is not selected or is ghosted.
5. Click on the Clone button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.
Malware Protection
As for malware protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. Starting with Lion, Apple has included built-in malware protection that is automatically updated as necessary. To assure proper protection, update your system software when Apple releases new OS X updates for your computer.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Protection:
1. Mac Malware Guide.
2. Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware
3. Macintosh Virus Guide
For general anti-virus protection I recommend only using ClamXav, but it is not necessary if you are keeping your computer's operating system software up to date. You should avoid any other third-party software advertised as providing anti-malware/virus protection. They are not required and could cause the performance of your computer to drop.
Cache Clearing
I recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX 2.4.3, Mountain Lion Cache Cleaner 7.0.9, Maintenance 1.6.8, or Cocktail 5.1.1 that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Corrupted cache files can cause slowness, kernel panics, and other issues. Although this is not a frequent nor a recurring problem, when it does happen there are tools such as those above to fix the problem.
If you are using Snow Leopard or earlier, then for emergency cleaning install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. (AppleJack works with Snow Leopard or earlier.)
Installing System Updates or Upgrades
Repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand.
Update your backups in case an update goes bad.
Backup and Restore
Having a backup and restore strategy is one of the most important things you can do to maintain your computer. Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. You can never have too many backups. Don't rely on just one. Make several using different backup utilities. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
     1. Carbon Copy Cloner
     2. Get Backup
     3. Deja Vu
     4. SuperDuper!
     5. Synk Pro
     6. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance and backup and restore.
Always have a current backup before performing any system updates or upgrades.
Final Suggestions
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity or 20 GBs, whichever is greater, as free space. Avoid installing utilities that rely on Haxies, SIMBL, or that alter the OS appearance, add features you will rarely if ever need, etc. The more extras you install the greater the probability of having problems. If you install software be sure you know how to uninstall it. Avoid installing multiple new software at the same time. Install one at a time and use it for a while to be sure it's compatible.
Additional reading may be found in:
1. Mac OS X speed FAQ
2. Speeding up Macs
3. Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
4. Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up
5. Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines
6. Five Mac maintenance myths
7. How to Speed up Macs
8. Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
Most if not all maintenance is for troubleshooting problems. If your computer is running OK, then there isn't really a thing you need to do except repair the hard drive and permissions before installing any new system updates.

External Hard Drive not showing in my computer

I have an external hard drive that im trying to connect to my computer with usb2.0 and it doesn't show up in my computer. I can see it in Disk Management and it says its Online but doesn't assign a letter to it. I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64bit.
I have 2 internal drives. I have tried assigning the backup drive to different letters and that doesn't seem to work. Any ideas???

Hi,
I understand that the external USB hard drive doesn’t show in Windows Explorer but detected in Disk Management.
To resolve this kind of issue, I would like to propose the following suggestions:
1.
Go to Device Manager, uninstall the USB hard drive,
scan for the hardware change and let Windows automatically re-install driver for your device.
2.
Open Registry Editor, navigate to the following item:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Find if your device is registered and assigned a letter.
As a work around, I suggest you accessing the external hard drive via a Command Prompt, copy out the data, then format the hard drive.
1)
Click Start, type: cmd in the Search bar.
2)
Right Click cmd and click Run as Administrator.
3)
Type the following command:
Copy [source] [destination]
Best Regards
Dale
Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ”

External hard drive not accessible, but visible in Disk Utility

Hello All,
I recently did a clean install on my iMac, and I cannot access my external hard drive through Finder. The system does detect the hard drive in Disk Utiliy, however Finder cannot see it. I also tried About this Mac > More info > Storage and it does not show up there. I checked my Finder settings per other threads and Finder is set to show all HD's.
The Disk Utility allows me to "Eject" the drive without any problems, but I cannot access anything on it.
When I plug this in Windows, I hear the Windows USB chime. I do not think that the HD went bad because it has not worked since I did a clean install on my iMac, and of course, all my documents are backed up to this drive.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

There is recovery software such as FileSalvage which may be able to find something.
http://subrosasoft.com/software/filesalvage
You can download a demo copy which will tell you what it will recover if that appears worth while you must pay for to recover the files.
You are going to need another disk for FileSalvage to recover the files. If should be at least as large as the disk being recovered.
Allan

External hard drive not visible in disk utility or finder

Hi all,
I have had a good look through previous discussions and I can't seem to find an issue relevant to mine.
My external hard drive has 2 partitions (1 time machine back up, 1 general hard drive). The issue is that the HD is running when it is plugged in however it is not visible in either disk utility or finder.
I am running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) on a 2010 MacBook Pro. I also have parallels desktop running windows 7. When I boot windows and plug in the HD I usually get the option to mount the HD to either OS X or Windows. With this issue the option window appears for a split second (not enough time to select either) and then disappears. It seems that the HD may be ejecting itself as soon as it is registered by the computer. I have tried using a different power cable for the HD and also a different usb cable, this doesn't help.
The external HD is a Samsung D3 Station, which i have had for 6 months now and never had an issue with.
Any help is appreciated
Thanks,
Bruce

An update for anyone who can help me:
I have tried the external hard drive in other computers (mac and windows), each time I get the same problem above.
I have removed the HD from the enclosure and purchased a docking station for it (3.5" SATA). When I plug it in to the laptop it disconnects itself straight away before it is visible. With the windows computers it installs the drivers and says that the device is ready to use, then disconnects before it shows up.
As the HD is not visible there is no option to re-format or anything.
This is very frustrating as I was using the HD with no issues and it randomly disconnected and I have not been able to access since.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Bruce

External hard drive not working with Time Machine

I have an Iomega network hard drive attached via ethernet cable to my Airport Extreme router.
I plugged the hard drive in. Everything works like it should. I can see the drive in Finder and I can read and write to the drive. I do share the network drive in a mixed WIN and OS X environment. I never had to reformat the drive and I can read/write to the drive with no problems from all of my computers.
I turned on Time Machine on my iMac and walked through the simple setup screens there. I never set anything up on the hard drive through the drive interface software. And Time Machine worked fine for about 4 months. Then all of a sudden, Time Machine just stopped backing up and I got all kinds of error messages saying that the TIme Machine backup failed.
So I went into Time Machine, turned it off, turned it back on. No luck. Same error messages.
So I started fresh. I deleted the prior Time Machine backups and I am back at the TIme Machine set up screen. OS X can see the TIme Machine share on my external hard drive and I tell the setup wizard that's the drive I want to use.
Then I get a window that says it's trying to connect to the external hard drive which I call "Cloud_Drive". After about 30 seconds, I get an error window that says
"There was a problem connecting to the server "Cloud_Drive-TimeMachine"
The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.
At this point the external drive is still visible in FInder and I can read/write to it from my iMac. I just cannot understand why Time Machine was working and then all of a sudden it stopped.
I did go into the software management of the drive and found an area in which to turn Time Machine on on the drive's side. Which I never did before so I turned it on and then I'm prompted to enter the name of the computer and the ethernet ID. I entered the name of the iMac and I have tried using the WiFI MAC address - no luck getting TIme Machine to work and I've also entered Terminal, found a MAC address under the line titled "ether" and still the same result.
I have also changed the destination of the Time Machine files on the external hard drive and the Time Machine wizard does write a sparcebundle file to that new location but still get the same error message above.

Is it a firewire ext. HD?
Yes, many are reporting same, there is a firewire fault and TB HD on external HD from LaCie (Seagate) and from WD especially.
Technicians are looking into it.
Until there is resolution, consider setting up a USB ext. Time machine HD.
Until then consider confining Mavericks use with USB HD.
Ive tested a long line of USB HD on Mavericks, all seem fine.

External hard drive not recognized after time machine locked up

I was backing up to an external hard drive (300GB Western Digital) and time machine locked up. I had to shut down the computer and restart. Now the external hard drive does not show up on the desktop?
I can see it in disk utility but I am not able to mount or unmount the disk, I keep getting an error that the disk is in use. I tried to erase/reformat the disk and no luck.
Any suggestions?
Thanks for the help

KTM450rider wrote:
Do I need to boot from the install DVD?
this is often the easiest and eliminates any "busy drive" problems. what's wrong with booting from the install DVD? takes a couple of minutes.
My main hard drive is OK... the drive that I am having problems with is an external hard drive that I was using to back up my lap top. I just want to get the external drive reformatted, but disk utility will not erase it. I get an error that disk utility shut down, "please check the drive and make sure that the drive is not in use or programs are still running"
Is their a way to do a hard or forced reformatting of an external hard drive, I don't care about the information on the drive
I also tried disk warrior to recover the info on the disk and all it does is crash my mac pro????
Thanks again for the help

Time Machine is causing my external hard drive not to be recognized or read

I have been using Time Machine on my MAC. I don't like it. I now have gone into preferences and stopped it from further backups. Now, I want to restore my Toshiba External Hard Drive and have it backup. When I look into my Macintosh HD, it does not "see" the drive. It doesn't appear in Finder. I am assuming that Time Machine configured it or reformatted it? So, how do I get it "back" from Time Machine? One person commented that this is an issue of formatting my hard drive, but the problem started with Time Machine. Where should I post this question, if not here?
Thank you!

I'm guessing that Time Machine hides it from Finder as most users aren't going to want to be mucking around in it. Try opening up Disk Utility and see if you can see it. You can reformat it from there as well.

External hard drive - not detected by PC

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