External hard drive NOT mounting to mac

I have never had problems with my external hard drive (I just bought it a few months ago), but suddenly it is not mounting on the iMacs at my work or my Macbook pro at home. The drive does NOT show up in Disc Utility, but when the drive is connected via USB, the light on the drive comes on and it is clearly operating. It will not mount on any mac product all of a sudden. I have no idea why this is happening someone PLEASE HELP thanks

you have a MacBook Pro, we are Mac Pro users.
It uses bus-power? has its own power brick?
Formatted for Mac (HFS)? Used on PC Windows and Mac?
Do you have it backed up?
Has there been an inadvertent outage or crash?
MacBook Pro

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Lacie firewire 800 external hard drive not mounting in mac os 10.4.8

I have a pm g5 Dual 2ghz system ,i have connected an firewire 800 lacie 1tb external hard drive to the system,now the problem is it is not mounting on the desktop shows in the diskutility repaired the disk say's disk volume ok any way to mount the external hd on the desktop

Hi Veena, Welcome to Apple Discussions.
And you've tried choosing the volume and pressing the "Mount " icon on the tool bar of Disk Utility?
Have you shut down your Mac and disconnected your firewire cable from both ends and let it sit about ten minutes then reconnect and try. Also, it is important to disconnect the AC power to your Mac, this helps to reset the FireWire port(s).
Do you have TTP or DW, both of which you could use to try to mount it.
It is also possible that you have a bad cable or a bad port, do other FW devices work?
-mj
[email protected]

2 different brand USB external hard drives not mounting- Firewire ok

Hi, first timer here so apologies in advance.
i have to different brand external hard disks and they both show up fine with a firewire connection. the trouble is that i need to use the usb connection and neither show up. (shows up in system profiler though but not disk utility.) why USB if i can use Firewire? I will be using the disk to connect to a Wii console via usb port and the Wii is not recognizing either disk either?
Any ideas on how to get one of these disks to mount by USB?
cables are fine as work with USB only hard disks.
Thanks in advance

Hello Bob,
Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately it does not show up at all in "disk utility". But appears in System Profiler under USB. This is true of 2 different external hard drives that mount fine with the firewire cables. One is a 3.5 inch and the other is a 2.5 inch portable. The USB cable is not faulty as tested it with another USB peripheral. Now a big believer in coincidences. Am i doing something wrong?
any other thoughts?
thanks again

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

External hard drive not mounting on emac, works fine on windows xp machine

I am running an emac 1ghz powerpc G4 with 768MB sdram and version 10.4.9
I have an external hard drive that up to a few days ago ran smoothly. It contains all my itunes, iphoto, and imovie libraries.
Now it will not mount. It lights up, it runs, etc but I can't use it. I tried restarting machine etc. No avail.
it is a usb drive. Today I took it downstairs and plugged it into my daughter's windows xp machine. It recognized it right away (I was shocked too) and everything is there good as before.
I plugged it into every usb port in the emac and nothing. I am using the same cord on the xp and it works fine.
Any idea what it could be and how to fix it. I read on hear a lot to use disk utility. However when I run it it just freezes. When I turn that external drive off disk utility runs fine.

I am running an emac 1ghz powerpc G4 with 768MB sdram
and version 10.4.9
I have an external hard drive that up to a few days
ago ran smoothly. It contains all my itunes, iphoto,
and imovie libraries.
Now it will not mount. It lights up, it runs, etc
but I can't use it. I tried restarting machine etc.
No avail.
it is a usb drive. Today I took it downstairs and
plugged it into my daughter's windows xp machine. It
recognized it right away (I was shocked too) and
everything is there good as before.
I plugged it into every usb port in the emac and
nothing. I am using the same cord on the xp and it
works fine.
Any idea what it could be and how to fix it. I read
on hear a lot to use disk utility. However when I
run it it just freezes. When I turn that external
drive off disk utility runs fine.
Your external drive is formatted FAT32 or FAT, or the Windows box would have a problem seeing it. (Unless you have MacDrive on that box, that is.)
If it is formatted FAT32 or FAT, you are NOT going to be able to use Disk Utility (or any other Mac utility) on that drive. Disk Utility doesn't do FAT.
I'd copy the contents of the drive elsewhere then start up Disk Utility first and then plug the drive into the Mac and format it FAT32 from Disk Utility. If that doesn't work, format it FAT32 on the Windows machine. Note: if this drive is larger than 32 GB, you're going to need to generate two or more partitions, as while WinXP can read FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB, it can't create them. Macs and Linux boxes can create large FAT32 partitions. Second note: if the drive is smaller than 4 GB, you might want to think about formatting it FAT instead of FAT32. Indeed, Windows may insist. Do not let Windows format it NTFS; Macs can read NTFS volumes, but can't write to them.

External Hard Drive not mounting on Desktop

Hello,
I use a 250 gb Lacie external hard drive (firewire) for backup. For the past week, the external hard drive has mostly not been mounting on the desktop.
I don't think it's a power issue, because after turning the unit on both the light indicating power turns on and I can hear the motor operating.
As indicated on the Lacie web site, I went to disk utility in system preferences and repaired disk permissions for my Mac's hard drive volume. That doesn't seem to have made a difference.
Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what I should do?
Thank you,
Manny

Hi gavvx, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Feel free to start a new topic of your own will get more individualized attention, and many more helpers!
It can be hard to sometimes find where to start a New Topic, so here's the link...
http://discussions.apple.com/post!default.jspa?forumID=758
Did you try highlighting them, then the Mount button in Disk Utility?

External Hard Drives not Mounting after Yosemite Upgrade

I've just upgraded to Yosemite, and none of my external (USB) hard drives are mounting (they don't even appear in Disk Utility).
Any ideas?

MacBook Pro 2009. 250 SD, HD 8Gb Ram.
I have had this issue for about a year...with no resolve!
Apple and the User community have not been able to solve issue.
I have had to work around it since the Oct 2013 Mavericks upgrade which “killed” (rendered unmountable) both my USB and Optical drives.
Hundreds of replies and remedies have not corrected my issue. Hundreds of replies stating that if there was a global issue it would of been fixed by Apple, not true. And dismissive replies stating that there must be a hardware issue are very discouraging.
So now, hoping to help the voiceless masses, I'm forced to share my experience.
As I stated, I have been having the issue since one of the Mavericks upgrades. The upgrade rendered externally attached drives unmountable...They are all seen in Disk Utility. They are just not mountable. Regardless of the flavor of the disk format, either Mac or PC, they are found, seen and refuse to mount. I can see them using Terminal commands, I can see them in System Report. I can reset all the memory I want...turn it off, reset, sleep, turn on, restart...NOPE...And the optical drive takes in disks but ejects them after an attempted mounting. Keep in mind, there are no physical issues with either USB or optical drives.
So now...I have had enough and need to correct the issue or buy a new equipment - starting to get into software development and need working equipment!!!
For the past month, I have been visiting the Apple store to assist in my issues...Back Story: I'm an IT Field Tech for the largest department store in the country and I have the good fortune of dropping in the Apple store anytime I want...The Geniuses booted the MB with a bootable image of Mavericks, and the USB and Optical drives WORKED fine...So, after I had stumped the Geniuses with my problems, we agreed that we would attempt to format and re-image the MacBook...Fine, do it, it's backed-up, how you ask? - Via my wireless My Book Live 3T drive, which only took 24 hours to backup, AKA Time Machine!
Great news! The re-image of Mavericks proved to work! I WAS able to mount external drives attached! How is that possible? Don't know, don't care! It just worked! So happy!
But wait! I then took the laptop home. Connected to my WiFi, to update Mavericks to the latest version...Good so far! Then it came time for a Time Machine restore, AKA Migration Assistance restore...So, I proceeded to migrate data back to my MB via wireless drive, good so far, booted in Migration Assistant, and I chose to restore everything except the network files, thinking that may be an issue...22 Hours later, the MB migrated without issue...all apps and personal files had migrated! YAY!
BUT NOW THE USB AND OPTICAL DRIVES FAILED TO MOUNT!!!
Great now what? I know, I will just re-image and start again...WAIT, I don't have a Mavericks Install Disk, no problem, I will just create a bootable USB drive with the Mavericks Install Image I downloaded onto my MB this month...NO YOU CANNOT, because you have no use of the USB drives!...And, Apple stopped making OS CDs back in 2009...Oh, and that wouldn't of done me any good, because the optical dive was unusable, anyway!
SO, back to the Apple store with my head hanging! At this point, Yosemite came out the previous Thursday, so no more Mavericks images, great! Perhaps the new OS will alleviate my nightmare!!!!...So, they re-imaged my Mac with Mavericks, drives worked again! SO, I took my MB home and attempted to download the new OS, Yosemite...which only took 2 days due to the amount of traffic on Apple's servers!...Anyway, Yosemite finally installed without out issue! Drives still worked! And so, I shutdown and restarted the system...No issues, USB and optical drives worked beautifully! Yay, Yosemite!...Fixed all my troubles!!!...Not so fast...
And so, I, again, attempted to do a Time Machine restore, via WiFi, this time it took 24 hours to restore...AND it worked! All apps and personal files transferred without issue, So happy! Put the laptop in Sleep and left it home and went to work! Came back from work, tested the system without issues. Rebooted...USB and Optical drive are NOT MOUNTABLE!
So now, what is the file that the restore keeps pushing to my MB that kills the USB and optical drives?
I would just stop restoring from a Time Machine backup, but the only way to get into the TM image is to use Migration Assistant. I cannot view the date in time of the image in TM's Star Wars time line. So, I'm forced to back up everything from the image in Migration Assistance. Not sure that it being an encrypted image has anything to do with it...
...Regardless, what is being “restored” to the MB that continues to configure the OS in such a way that makes all external drives unmountable...keep in mind, my external keyboard, hub and mouse are usable via USB.

External Hard Drive not mounting on bootup

I have a USB2.0 Hard Drive formatted with ntfs, which holds my music. I have an fstab entry for it using ntfs-3g and I can mount it fine after booting up. But the drive doesn't automatically mount like it should. It looks like the system is mounting the fstab entries before it is finished detecting my external drive. Anything I can do to fix this?

fwojciec wrote:I let my external ntfs drive be mounted by hal - I have no entry for it in /etc/fstab. In order to have it mounted with read/write privileges I had to create a hal policy like this wiki page describes: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HAL … ntfs-3g.29
I'm not sure if this solution is what you're looking for though...
I actually tried using hal to do it and it didn't work right for some reason.

Seagate external hard drive not connecting to Mac

I plug in a Seagate GoFlex 500GB external hard drive into my PowerBook (specs at bottom of post). I go into Disk Utility to try to resize one of my partitions so I can back my Mac up. I click the final "Continue" button, and a few seconds later I get an error saying that the partition was not completed correctly and that the drive was removed. It was not. It shut itself off briefly (less than a second because I saw the light (normally always on) go out and come back on)!
I disconnect my hard drive and plug it into a PC. I pull up Disk Management (Windows equivalent of DU) and I try to resize the volume. Not possible. Okay. But they both are read and I could open each one's folder. So I plug it into my Mac again and after several seconds of it not showing up, I hold it to my ear. First, it spins up. It clicks the whole time. Next, it gradually spins down while making four whines/beeps (inaudible unless you are holding the unit up to your ear), each seperated by 3/4 of a second. Then it spins up again and repeats. I now plug in another 640GB unit and it clicks rapidly (inaudible unless held to ear). Both drives are then plugged into the PC. In Disk Management they show up. I format one of the volumes on the 500GB drive (I realized I did not need the data) and I removed the volume's drive letter. But the drives do not show up on my Mac anymore. (The 500GB model used to!!!!!)
One drive had a USB 3.0 adapter. One had a 2.0 adapter. I swap around the adapters and I achieve the same result. BTW, I also have a keyboard in the other USB port. It was there from the start.
The 500GB drive is NOT corrupted. In fact, I used to use it for Time Machine. My TM data is still on that drive and I dare not erase it. The drive is not powered by an AC adapter, either.
I don't want to go out and get another hard drive because I'm looking to sell my PB.
What went wrong? How come it no longer connects? I can't have killed the drive becuase it reads on a PC.

Solved the problem.
First of all, it seemed that it would not connect the second time because I plugged in the drive to the USB port on the RIGHT side of the keyboard. It worked fine on the LEFT side USB port. Huh?
Second of all, it shut off because of an issue with there not being enough power. (thanks a brody, the computer was underpowered, see below)
My solution: My father had a card that you could put in a PC card slot that provided two more USB ports and a port for an AC power adapter. I couldn't find the adapter cord (it was DC-to-USB, likely not enough power) but I plugged in a Palm Pilot wall plug (making it the equivalent of a powered hub, thanks a brody again for the underpowered system solution) and it backed up like a charm.
Thank you all for all your help!!!

Lacie External Hard Drive not recognized on Mac but recognized on PC

I just got both a MacBook Pro and a LaCie 1TB Rugged Safe External Hard Drive just a few days ago. I just plugged in my external and I installed the needed software from the drive, restarted and the drive wasn't found in LaCie Safe Manager. I tried restarting the computer without the drive plugged in, with Firewire and USB, and then I even tried it on my PC -- which it worked on there. I was able to make an account onto the drive and put my finger prints and everything on the drive, but when I came back to the Mac it didn't work at all.
I can't say it's the drive itself because it worked on the PC. I don't Tried the Disk Utility and it's showing "999.91 GB LaCie" and then "NO NAME" under it, but tabed over.
And help/suggestions?

Thanks for the ideas, JaEvo and Paul Cuciti.
EDIT: I tried this, http://vimeo.com/7539772. I did this on the Mac but I still don't have anything. I tried both USB and Firewire. I have power to the drive because, after I swipe my fingerprint, the red blinking light turns steady green. Also, I don't know if Macs make a sound when something is connected to the computer, kinda like a PC, but mine doesn't make a noise when I connect in the drive -- I don't know if that'll help anything or not.

External hard drive not visible on Mac Mini

I just purchased a Mini with Lion. The Seagate Freeagent external hard drive is visible from finder on the Mini but it is "read only" and it is not visible on the wireless network to my macbook. How can I make the external hard drive read write and make it visible on the network?

OS X can read an NTFS formatted drive, but not write to it.
Sharing drives | Utilities - Page 1 | Macworld
If you want to use the drive for sharing files between Window's and Mac's, then MS-DOS / FAT-32 works fine, except that it has a 4GB single file size limit.
If you are going to use the drive exclusively with your Intel Mac's for sharing, backup and booting, then use GUID Partition Table / Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the Partition Scheme and Format.
Format a Drive to Boot Intel Macs | Tips | The Mac Observer

Please help... External Hard Drive not mounting

Hello, Please help me if you can:
I have all of my data backed up onto a Seagate External Hard Drive, purchased just a few months ago. I just got a new laptop (MacBook Air) and need to get my data off of my hard drive, but it isn't showing up on my Desktop or Finder. It shows up in Disk Utility, but when I ask it to "repair" it says:
"Invalid B-tree node size
The volume could not be verified completely.
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
The problem started after I added some data to it - I accidentally unplugged the Drive without Ejecting first. The next time I plugged it in it allowed me to view my files but not add anything else to the Drive, and now when I plug it in it doesn't even appear. I am running Lion.
I would be happy to back up the files as it says, but as it doesn't show up anywhere I can't find the files to access. Can anyone help me find a way to get the files off of the disk, or fix the disk so that it is readable?

Hi, Brian, and welcome to the Discussions!
You might perhaps launch System Profiler (from Applications/Utilities) and see if the device is listed there under the FireWire heading in Hardware Overview.
Can you hear the LaCie spin up when powered on?
You might download the free trial version of Data Rescue II and launch it to see if it recognizes the drive. This software often does when DW or Disk Utility won't. If it does, run a scan with it to see if the data on the volume is viewable.
You can test the FireWire port with another Firewire device, or by hooking up to another Mac via a FW cable and trying to boot into FW Target Disk Mode. Visibly check the port at the Mac end first to insure that there are no bent pins at the connector (so you won't damage another device).
You can try resetting a "dead" FireWire port by shutting down, unplugging the external FireWire devices, and disconnecting the Mac's power cord for thirty minutes or so. Before doing this, run Disk Utility's Repair Permissions process on the startup volume first, to see if that corrects it.
Gary
1GHz DP G4 Quicksilver 2002, 400MHz B&W rev.2 G3, Mac SE30 Mac OS X (10.4.5) 5G iPod, Epson 2200 & R300 & LW Select 360 Printers, Epson 3200 Scanner

WD Elements External Hard Drive not mounting

My external hard drive is not mounting it is connected by via USB connected directly to my Macbook. When I connect it error "The disk you inserted is not redable by this computer". I can see it on Disk Utility however all options are grayed out. I also tried connecting it to my sister's windows machine same thing not mounting. I've tried this suggestion http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2176 but I got an error "Error: -69877: Couldn't open device".
By the way it's a self powered 2.2TB WD Elements
Badly needed help!

I had the same info (with a WD essentials encolusre where I just replaced a 750 with a 2TB), but after closing both DiskDrill and Disk utility, the terminal worked. So have a look if there are any other disk monitorings on.
good luck

External Hard Drive not Mounting any more

Hi all,
I have noticed since couple of kernel updates, my external hard drive - plugged via USB doesn't get mounted any more. To access the drive I need to reboot the computer with the hard drive switch on.
See below for the dmesg output, regular usb keys get mounted normally, I have check autofs set up and it seems fine compare to the wiki,
Many thanks for taking the time to read my topic,
Looking forward for your replies,
[ 37.753349] usb 2-6: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd
[ 38.139340] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
[ 38.175765] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[ 38.175829] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[ 38.175830] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[ 38.240086] scsi8 : usb-storage 2-6:1.0
[ 38.240226] usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-cypress
[ 44.726882] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access ST325082 3A PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 44.727768] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] 488397168 512-byte logical blocks: (250 GB/232 GiB)
[ 44.728724] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[ 44.728727] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 33 00 00 00
[ 44.729729] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 44.753026] sde: sde1
[ 75.466677] usb 2-6: reset high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd
[ 75.591741] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk
[ 2243.446832] usb 2-6: USB disconnect, device number 4
[ 2278.086455] usb 2-6: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd
[ 2278.211117] scsi9 : usb-storage 2-6:1.0
[ 2285.078375] scsi 9:0:0:0: Direct-Access ST325082 3A PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 2285.079220] sd 9:0:0:0: [sde] 488397168 512-byte logical blocks: (250 GB/232 GiB)
[ 2285.080209] sd 9:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[ 2285.080212] sd 9:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 33 00 00 00
[ 2285.081222] sd 9:0:0:0: [sde] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 2285.101763] sde: sde1
[ 2285.105212] sd 9:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk
[ 2316.159787] usb 2-6: reset high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd

Yes I have checked System Settings -> Removable Devices - but there is no option for an external hard drive.
And yes it is a ntfs drive, but as I said it worked before couples of updates ago, and just to be sure I checked ntfs-3g - it is installed.
Oh, and I should have said, checking /dev/by-label the drive appear there once turn on, but doesn't get mounted, I use to have a line in the fstab file, but I removed it because it tried to mount it during booting process, and it work anyway.
Any other advice?
Last edited by sweetthdevil (2012-01-24 19:03:00)

ITunes Resets to local Drive Space when External Hard Drive not mounted

I have a large shared network drive where my son, my wintel box and I all have media placed on. All our computers are networked and authorized for each others music.
The problem is iTunes will default the 'iTunes Music folder location' to a local drive space if the external drive / path is not immediate available when iTunes is started (user:Music:iTunes Music vrs Eternal HD:Music:iTunes Music). This will sometimes will happen on boot, I have login mounting the external drive but that authorization / process once in a while times takes longer than starting up iTunes mostly due to an iPod connected to that computer. Since iTunes is not seeing that external drive (it isn't available yet). So the effect is iTunes defaults 'iTunes Music folder location' to the local music location - but - maintains the full library list (ie 10,000 question marks).
I have each computer maintaining it's own libraries on their respective drives which index to the music folders / files on the external (this is an itunes default to maintain the local library one each computer).
So ... How can I force iTunes to maintain the 'iTunes Music folder location' ?
(can the default location be changed ?... plist or some other file, or is this hard coded - or write a script to hold up iTunes to launch until after the external Hd is mounted)

I am sure that some will cringe at this
Note (my opinion) : I found when sharing with a Wintel box and Apple boxes it is better to use just smb. Mixing the smb AND afp arises to hang up problems and the afp is the side that seems to hang up the most. (that hurt me to type, I blame Finder - another story)
So - the script I use is fairly straight forward - Open Script Editor:
tell application "Finder"
mount volume "smb://[ip address of hard drive]/[drive directory you wish to mount]" as user name "[username]" with password "[password of said user]"
end tell
I recommend compiling the script (don't forget to save a copy you can also edit too - save as script). To compile a script : Save as Application, Run Only, No Start Up Screen. Since this has hard code Username / Passwords in the code - make sure you are happy with who will be running this script. So with the goal is to auto run when you start up, I tend to feel let it go ahead. If you wish to use afp (ie you are only sharing between macs - change the smb to afp in that code).
Next is to add this to your start up. Sys Pref > Accounts > Login Items
Just add the compiled application script to your user(s) login item.
Now for the - well, ugly part. Remove the iTunesHelper from the list.
Using Finder, Find iTunes - Show Package Contents, find iTunesHelper (it is iTunes:Contents:Resources)
Drag iTunesHelper into the Login Items (it should be listed now at the end of the list). Why this help I really can not tell you - I only have an idea of why - I have noticed that when my iPod may be plugged in when I reboot that iTunesHelper starts later in the sequence.
I did play around with changing the start up info on the unix side, for the brave only I would suggest. But - you can hard code a little better auto mounting a volume / hard disk / folder there on boot up. I did with to stay in the Mac GUI and AppleScript was just plain simple. The script can be modified to test if the volume is mounted etc time out try again etc etc etc... I kept it simple and straight forward.

External hard drive NOT mounting to mac

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