External hard drive not recognised after using disk utility to format

i formatted two external hard drives using disk utility on my mac mini, now they do not show in finder. they can be seen in disk utility but the repair options etc are greyed out?

Try http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Allan

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External Hard Drive not recognised after horrible crash and reformat.

There's yet another problem with my MBP.
First of all this happened: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=969838&tstart=0
Since I got it fixed I bought a 500GB Freecom external Hard-drive and used it to back up all my stuff. It was a case of plugging it into the USB port and it mounted on the desktop. I've had it for about a month.
I've only just got my MBP back from getting the keyboard replaced, then on Saturday night it crashed. And kept crashing. Then it wouldn't boot. Then it crashed when booting. Then it took me to a command prompt. I reset all the parameters laid out in the troubleshooting guide. I managed to boot in safe mode, but my Freecom drive wouldn't mount anymore. But it kept crashing and crashing. I finally managed to boot from the installation CD and I reformatted the drive and installed OS X (Tiger) afresh. But now my Freecom drive won't show up on the desktop at all!
I ran a Hard Ware test after the reformat, and the code 4MEM/2/40000000 came up, then again, 1FCA8574, then 41530574.
When I had the Freecom plugged in it would show in System profiler but not mounted on the desktop.
What is wrong? I am really annoyed because my Warranty ran out yesterday and I'm only after getting it back from Apple to get the keyboard replaced!
Please help!
(PS - I have Leopard on its way to me, would installing this help?)

(PS - I have Leopard on its way to me, would installing this help?)
Not likely with all the bugs and issues going on with it...

External Hard Drive not working thanks to disk utility format MS Dos?

hello everyone, i have a problem and i have no idea what to do, heres the deal.
a friend of mine bought a toshiba external 320gb hard drive, i have 100gb of video footage he needed, i opened the hard drive, used it without a problem, he took it home and he couldnt use it on his PC so i did some research and found out that to use it on a PC and MAC i had to format it using disk utility to MS dos, so i did that, after that both my macs dont recognize the HD and if i try a PC, it appears but you cant do anything with it, if i try to format it it says to insert a disk in that drive....
is there anyway i can fix this? or do i owe my friend a 320gb external HD?
thanks

Mac format is different than windows format. Fat32 is recognized by both systems, but has its limitations. You just need to reformat the drive to NTFS on a PC. I believe HFS+ was probably what your original drive was. If it was Fat32, it would have been recognized on the PC.
For future reference, just install the NTFS driver on your mac. You can find it here http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g. Reformat the drive on a PC, install the driver and you can read and write to Windows NTFS drives and never have to worry about it again. Just right click on it in Windows and format it to NTFS.
Hope that helps.

Reformat external hard drive for Windows machine using disk utility

I have a Maxtor 160GB dual-interface external HD. I used it for my Mac OS X. I erased and reformated the hard drive on my Mac to MS-DOS using Disk Utility for use on my fathers Windows XP. I hooked the hard drive up to the Windows machine and the hard drive was visible in both Windows Explorer and on the task bar. I right clicked on the hard drive and selected Format. The formatting takes a while but at the end an error appears indicating the hard drive was not formattable. How can I get a MS-DOS formatted hard drive (from a Mac) to be used on a Windows XP machine with a NTFS format?

Turns out it is possible:
Maxtor Support..
I would use your Disk Management utility within Windows to repartition and reformat the drive. To access Disk Management, right click on My Computer, go to Manage, and then choose Disk Management. Within Disk Management the drive should show in your list of disks (Disk 0,1,2 etc etc). I would delete any partitions that are on the drive. To delete a partition, just right-click on the partition and choose delete. Make sure you’re deleting the correct drive. Once the entire drive says unallocated then the drive should be ready to partition and format. Just right click within the Unallocated Space on the drive and choose the New Partition or New Volume option to set up the drive.
I followed the instructions and everything worked.

Windows based WD external hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility to reformat to Mac... how can I erase the drive

We have a WD external harddrive previously used with a PC that we want to completely erase and reformat for use with our iMac desktop for use with Time Machine. The drive shows up on the desktop of the Mac, but it does not show up in Disk Utlity, assuming because it's Windows format. Outside of the standard "erase" feature in Disk Utility, is there any way to reformat this drive for Mac OS X? Or how can I get this drive to show up in Disk Utility? Note: The drive functions properly, has power, and we are able to view its current contents through the desktop icon, so it is a working drive. And we are ok with losing all the current data on the drive.

Hmm strange, I had just moved my external Lacie drive from my windows machine to my iMac and it was showing up in disk utility still formatted fat32 or whatever. I would disconnect the drive and restart the machine then replug the drive and try again.
Also not that it will make a difference ( I dont think it will but hey why not ) try accessing disk utility from the install disk?

External hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility

I'm attempting to transfer something from my Mac to my Windows with a Toshiba 1 TB USB external drive. When I plug it in, however, it doesn't show up in Disk Utility, Finder, or the Desktop

No I don't, I was using it less than a half an hour before then I plugged it in, and it wasn't popping up again.

External Hard Drive not mounting. In Disk Utility, the partition in the drive is greyed out.

So my Seagate 500GB drive, didn't mount the other day, and I investigated a bit and tried repairing the disk and this happened... please someone give me hope! Ihad so many important and irreplaceable videos and documents on this drive!!!

Anyone? Please?

I have an external hard drive that shows up in disk utility but Verify and Restore are greyed out.

I have an external hard drive that shows up in disk utility but Verify and Restore are greyed out. I am trying to determine what is wrong with the drive.
I need the data on the drive and it won't show up in Disk Warrior. I have tried different Mac's and different USB cords only to find the same outcome. When selected in Disk Utility the information read as such...
Disk Description : WD Elements 1023 Media                      Total Capacity : 500.11 GB (500,105,740,288 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB                                                               Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External                                                     S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
USB Serial Number : 575837314135304D36373132        Partition Map Scheme : Unformatted
As the drive shows in Disk Utility there must be some life left in it surely. There is a possibilty that the physical connection between the USB cord and the external drive is damaged but since the drive shows up I believe it's unlikely... before I give it to the pro's is there anything else I can do to diagnose the issue?

Hello,
I have just experienced the same thing!
Although my external drive shows in Disk Utility, it does not show in Finder.
And the Verify/Repair buttons are also greyed out.
Also, although the drive is 2TB. DU shows it as having Total Capacity of only 4.14GB! (Which should be the Free Space).
I was wondering if you solved your problem, & if so, would you share your solution.
I´m afraid to Erase in case I lose all my Data on the drive.
Thanks in advance for your reply!

Lacie External Hard Drive Not Recognized After It Previously Was

I have a 1 Tb Lacie Big Disk External Hard Drive that I have used for a couple years now. I have a Mac Pro, an iMac and a G5 computer that I have previously used with it. After I transferred it between computers yesterday suddenly it will not show up on any of the computers. I have tried different cables and inputs, computers, other hard drives with the same cables (they worked), restarting the computers, etc. The hard drives powers on like normal and you can hear it running, the blue light comes on in the front, but it never gets the disk loaded on the computer. There is a "auto/on/off" button on the back that I have tried switching between but nothing seems to work. Please let me know if this is a common problem and any way to get it to work as I would prefer not to lose the information on the hard drive, especially when it seems to be functioning just fine aside from not appearing on the computer.

Even backups need backups too.
And a 'good' case is one where you can pulll the drive out and pop it into your Mac pro drive bay.
power supply bricks are known issue.
Mac OS updates that affect those models.
LaCie almost by their own invented the term and idea "reset firewire bus" routine after all.
Years and you can assume not forever but eventually it could and will fail.
I'd pick up a "spare" or replacement unit, one with eSATA/FW800/USB3
http://www.macsales.com/firewire
CallDigit 2 x SATA plus 2 x USB3 $139 - USB3 card and interface works better even on legacy (how long and old is USB2 now?) USB drives.

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

External Hard Drives not recognised

I have a few different external hard drives on which I have stored photos and movies etc. I used to keep them attached and on all the time, but decided some time back it might be better to leave them off until required. I now have OSX 10.5.8 on my Mac Pro and Macbook Pro and neither will recognise my external hard drives. 1 is a LaCie and the other a iOmega.
Have tried a reboot on both machines with the drives switch on, and off, disconnected and re-connected cables, nothing works, they just don't appear!
Any ideas?
Thanks
Douglas

Maybe the following will help....
Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 30 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that didn't work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try.
If that still didn't get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
For those of you with Macs that are not PowerBooks or iBooks, a bad internal PRAM battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good! Also, here is Apple KB HT1317 on getting FireWire to work.
Here's another Fw Faq.
DALE

External Hard Drive not recognised on Intel but is on G4 iBook

Suddenly yesterday my iMac 5,1 running 10.6.8 stopped seeing the Time Machine External Hard Drive. The warning was that it had been disconnected not ejected properly,which I wasn't aware of. I couldn't afterwards get my iMac 7,1 running 10.9.2 to recognise it either. I tried Disk Utility verifying and repairing on both computers. Wouldn't finish, said needed backing up and re-formatting. It wouldn't erase on either because it couldn't be unmounted when it wasn't showing as mounted in the first place. Most of the data were backed up elsewhere and there was a recently used Time Machine I could put in its place.
Then I plugged it into my ancient G4 iBook running 10.4.11 and there it was on the screen with the contents accessible. I've tried verifying and repairing it there but either it's very slow or not really happening at all.
So what's going on? Ideally I'd like to copy the contents over to another drive but will have to get one first, then reformat somehow. I can imagine my G4 iBook will struggle with that. I've reconnected to the iMac 5,1 but it's still not showing there.

Well, this is embarrassing. A suggestion from an older thread on Macrumors.com called "Hard Drive does not appear in Finder / Desktop", solved this problem. Simply drag the missing drive icon from the desktop to Finder! Perseverance and different search wording AND reading a lot of stuff pays off.
If other's problem is not solved with this fix, you might benefit from this 10.5-based thread. They also mention an Apple 10.5 fix. Both URL's below.
The op's problem was that the drive did not appear in Finder OR the desktop but was operational. There was a lot of in-depth information with this fix embedded.
Thanks for the interest and suggestions.
Max
http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-209905.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA25203?viewlocale=en_US

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? ----------------↓

External hard drive not recognized after power outage

After a power outage last night my WD external hard drive is not showing up. The power light is on on the drive, the DVR is working normally, except my external drive is not showing up. I unplugged power from the DVR and restarted it, but no change.

I have a 2G Samsung drive in Rosewell external encloser running for over a year. Two times have lost power and DVR would not recongize external drive. The procedure I used was to reboot twice via menu>settings>customer support>in home agent>reboot STB. Mine required two resets, the first reboot looks like DVR recongizes drive but does show as available but second reboot shows disc activity during last part boot up of box then external would show with all recordings and normal operation. I have not lost any recordings.

WD external hard drive not recognized after improper eject

I have a WD Passport external hard drive that I've been using for a while with my MacBook Pro. The cord got yanked, causing the drive to improperly eject. Now my computer isn't recognizing the HD. Help! Of course EVERYTHING important is on this drive!
I tried plugging it into a Mac desktop, which also did not recognize the drive.
I plugged a different Passport into my MacBook Pro, and it was recognized, so I know it's not the USB Port that's causing the problem.
I used the cord from the HD that mounted with the problem HD. Didn't mount with the new cord. So I know it's the passport that's causing the problem, not the MacBook, not the USB port, not the cord.
I ran the disk utility, and the HD does not appear...It is powering up though- the light on the HD is lighting up. Oh please help!
Did I kill my disk? Of course I just moved my entire iPhoto library to this location, and I haven't backed it up yet....

No. It may just require a 00 Phillips driver depending upon the enclosure. Do the swap on a towel so that the little screws don't bounce away from you. You will have to pull the HDD out from the connecting plug. Do it in a straight line,don't bend it, and you may have to slowly increase pressure to get it out of the connecting plug.
It's not rocket science.
Ciao.

External hard drive not recognised after using disk utility to format

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