External hard drive stopped working on Mac after attempt to connect it to a PC

I have an external hard drive that is new and has been working beautifully. It is formatted for a Mac. Forgetting this, I tried to plug it into a PC. Of course it didn't work, but now when I try to plug it into my Mac it doesn't mount. How can I fix it?

Try repairing it, per #6 in Using Disk Utility.

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External hard drive stops working with AP Extreme after Time machine touches it

*sigh*
Ok.
I had a 1.5TB external HD connected to my Airport Extreme (henceforth to be known as APE) working fine, albeit with unexpected slow transfer speeds....not the point. Moving along.
Updated to 7.6.1 firmware. Ugh. I wish apple would have their standard idiot mode plus an advanced option.
Getting to the point.
I decide that im going to try Time Machine but there is no way that im going to try doing the inital backup over wireless. I disconnect the external hard drive from the APE and connect to my computer start the backup and decide encryption is a good idea. Turns out, bad idea as it puts some kind of encryption on the whole volume not just an image which i assumed it would do. I decide that this time machine idea is stupid and wonder why the **** its trying to backup 130GB of data after i excluded a lot of data. Anyway. I remove the time machine data, do into disk utility and remove the encryption and plug it back up the the APE.
No dice. The drive will not load at all on the APE and i believe it has something to do with some funky timemachine encryption voodoo. I want to avoid formatting this drive.
So.
Help?

I reformatted and its now working.
*Ugh*

Formatting a PC-formatted External Hard Drive to work in Mac OS

So I have a 300 gig external hard drive formatted for Windows XP with NTFS. I recently got a Macbook Pro and as it stands in Mac OS X the hard drive is read only. I can copy files from the hard drive to my Mac, but I can't edit files on the external HD or copy from my Mac to my external HD. This of course is a problem and so I need to reformat it to work in Mac OS. While I will not be using PCs anymore, if possible I would like for the external HD to be Mac and Windows compatible.
First things first I have to get all 300 gigs of files off the external HD in order to reformat it. This will be a pain but I have the means to do this. Once I get everything off, how and with what method should I reformat it to work in Mac? Should I use the HFS file system or MS-DOS? Also, what utility in Mac OS lets me reformat it. As I said, I probably won't be hooking up this external HD to Windows anytime soon, but if there is a way to format it in Mac to work with Windows, then fine.
So what exactly are my options here? I understand that I can format the hard drive in Mac OS with either MS-DOS or FAT32. I just don't know which is better/faster/more reliable in Mac OS, as I'm still a Mac newbie. I don't have files that are over 2 gigs as far as I remember, so I don't think that will be an issue. If it helps, it is mostly media files (videos, music). I've read up online about formatting a drive to work with Mac OS, but there's just so much info I'm getting confused. Thanks.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
So from what people are saying, I can format the drive in Mac OS as FAT32 (aka MS-DOS) and it will work fine between the two operating systems.
I've been reading more though and it seems that FAT32 drives can not be larger than 130 gigs? Or is that just for partitions.
I have a 350 gig hard drive and I don't plan on having any partitions. Can I just format the drive as FAT32 in Mac OS and the whole 350 gigs will be available? There's so much conflicting info in articles I've been reading.
thanks

External hard drive stopped working, won't load

Hi There,
I have a LaCie external hard drive and I have tons of files on it. It all of a sudden stopped working. It is still getting power, but it won't connect with a computer. No warnings popup but it doesn't load. I've tried it with firewire and usb as well as on a powerbook g4 labtop and an iMac g4. Any suggestions on how to get to the files? Thanks

Welcome to Discussions - The power brick, even though it seems to be working, may be shot. Try using a brick from another drive and see if that will allow the drive to mount.

HT1452 I want to reset the permissions on a western digital external hard drive to work between mac and windows... How can I do this easily?

I have a MacBook Pro and have recently bought a Western Digital external hard drive. I used it on my windows laptop first and unfortunately now on the Mac it is read only. How can I set it so that I can use it successfully between the both the Mac and windows laptop?
Thanks

MacQuack wrote:
You will need to pull all the information off first. The formatting will erase it all.
Use Disk Utility (in Applications >> Utilities or use Spotlight to find it). On the left select your WD drive and then select the Erase tab. Where it says Format, select exFat in the drop-down menu. Next, click Erase and done. It will take approx. 5-15mins to re-format.
Cons: You will be unable to store files 4GB or larger in this format (usually only dmg/iso files or large Outlook files). Also, you will be unable to use Time Machine or other auto-backup programs.
That is not entirely correct, there is no 4G limit using exFat, FAT32 is the one with the limit.

My external hard drive stopped working so I had a tech fix it by moving it to another case since the power supply is in the case. It was working fine till I started getting these messages saying USB over current device, my USB is drawing too much power.

I need to know how to rehabilitate the hub since it gets deactivated as soon as I plug the external drive. By the way the drive contains important information

Buy a drive or drive case that is not bus powered.
Look for help in MacBook Pro forums.
Helps to include what drive and drive case you used and switched to (you didn't need a tech).
You can find good selection and assortment of reliable cases from OWC :
http://www.macsales.com/firewire
Not knowing what macbook whether you can use USB3, Thunderbolt and other interfaces that would be better.
WD My Book 2TB External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 File Backup and Storage - Western Digital
Direct you to the proper forum for MacBook :
MacBook Series Forums
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks?view=discussions
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro
Mac OS X Forum
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
This forum deals with a desktop/tower 65lb Mac Pro
http://www.apple.com/support/macpro

When I plug a LaCie external hard drive into my new Mac mini, [os 10.9.1], to use with Time Machine it effects the performance of my internet and email. Turn off Time Machine and unplug the hard drive and the internet and email are working normally again

When I plug a LaCie external hard drive to work with Time Machine into my new Mac mini, [OS 10.9.1] it drastically effects the performance of the internet and email, turn off Time Machine, unplug the hard drive, internet and email go back to normal. Why?

Maybe:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/usb-3.0-hard-drives-can-cause-wi-fi-inter ference

Problems getting an external hard drive to work on the new Airport Extreme

I have spent hours trying to get my 320GB external hard drive to work with the new airport extreme 802.11N. I have spent hours pouring over all of the posts here discussing possible solutions, all of which have not worked. This morning, however, I gave it another try and FINALLY, I have it working. I tried something simple. Here it is:
Using the Apple Disk Utility Program, I formated my drive using the MS-DOS mode, called my Hard drive "ItunesHD". It took about 20 minutes to complete (i'm assuming because of the size of the drive). I then unplugged the router and hard drive, turned on the hard drive, then the router. After my macbook pro reconnected, I clicked on the iDisk utility icon in my menu bar, provided my password and FINALLY saw the network drive icon on my desktop!!! It seems that formatting my drive using MS-DOS compatibility mode finally worked for me. I'm not saying this will work for anyone else who is having this problem, but you can at least try it. I tried all of the MAC formatting options and have had no luck.
What I would like to know now is (..if anyone has these answers, please let me know):
1. What is the maximum SINGLE drive capacity that this router will understand...500GB, 1TB, 2TB? I would like to get the biggest bang for my buck.
2. Keeping #1 one in mind, I purchased an Apple TV (still waiting on it to arrive) and I would like to know if it will read multiple hard drives connected to the Airport Extreme router (...say (2) 500GB hard drives). I know you can have multiple libraries in iTunes (which to me is a cheesy solutions, there should be an option in the preferences that would allow you to save your music in one place and your movies in another). Anybody have any idea on this one?
I basically want to rip all of my dvd movies on a big hard drive connected to my airport extreme to use with my AppleTV , so I just need to find out about the maximum size and hooking up more than one hard drive and getting the AppleTV to recognize them all.
thnks
MacBook Pro Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Sorry you had so much trouble hooking up a hard drive to the base station. I've done some experimenting with the feature and this is what I've found out.
You can use either the native Mac format, Mac OS Extended, or the Microsoft format known as FAT. Apple calls FAT, MS-DOS File System in Disk Utility.
If you use Mac OS Extended, the Macs on the network will be able to connect to the drive using the native AFP (Apple File Protocol) or the Microsoft native SMB (Server Message Block) protocol. PCs will only use the SMB protocol of course.
If you use MS-DOS File System both the Macs and the PCs will only use SMB to connect to the drive over the network.
Basically I've found everything works as expected with regard to volumes connected to a network.
One thing I don't have installed is the iDisk Utility. I'm wondering if it may be the cause of the problems you were having. But reading through your post it may also be the difference between expected behaviour and the proper procedure for discovering and mounting network volumes. Let me explain.
You only mention having trouble getting the drive to show up on your Desktop, you didn't describe how you went about discovering the network drive. It isn't just suppose to show up on your desktop when you plug it in to the Extreme base station. It doesn't work like the iDisk or disks connected directly to your computer using USB/Firewire.
Normally with network drives you're suppose to either browse for them using the Network icon in the Finder or using the Connect to Server command in the Finder's Go menu, you would type the address in directly for the network volume you want to mount. Try it and see what happens.
Now to answer your other questions.
I don't have a volume large enough to hit any limits the base station may have but I did read a post about someone who said they had a 1.5 TB volume connected and could only see 1 TB of it. They were forced to partition the drive to see all available space and of course the volumes showed up as two separate drives. One thing wasn't made clear though. They didn't say what volume format they were using to format the drive, Mac OS Extended or MS-DOS.
Everything having to do with the AppleTV is just speculation at this point since no one has one yet but from what has been demonstrated so far, AppleTV relies on iTunes. In other words, it won't pull data from network volumes on its own, a computer running iTunes needs to feed it.

My macbook hard drive stopped working and I loaded another hard drive and can access time capsule but it doesn't show any of my old files and I don't understand why

My 7 year old macbook hard drive stopped working and I put in another hard drive but when I went to restore my information from airport time capsule it only shows today and nothing older. Help?

Did you do a TM backup after you installed the disk? It may write over the previous backup.. but it should actually start a new one.
Read the info about using migration.. see http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Or the Mac is probably looking at the backup as from a different computer.
See the details of how to use TM to restore to a different Mac.
Q17 here. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I would read through 14-17 carefully.
You should be able to do a full recovery of the TM backup to a USB drive plugged into the computer.

How can I use my external hard drive from PC to Mac without reformatting???

Ok, so I am computer illiterate. I have always used PC's and have just bought a MacBook. When I plug in my external hard drive into my new Mac, it says it needs to be reformatted to use with Mac, which would cause all data to be erased. Is there anyway to get around this?
Please help me!

OK... as Woggledog indicated, OS X cannot write to NTFS formatted drives. NTFS is a proprietary Microsoft format. Conversely, Windows can neither read nor write to an OS X formatted drive.
Both Windows and OS X can read and write to FAT32 (this is a fairly old format). The down side to FAT32 is that the largest file you can work with is 4GB. That is probably fine for most people... but if you're working with large files (videos, virtual drive images, large backup files, etc...) FAT32 is not suitable. There are applications that you can purchase for both Macs and Windows machines that will allow them to read and write to the other format.
An immediate option provided you have the space on either your PC or Mac is to create a folder on either machine and move everything from your external drive into that folder. Then you can format the drive to FAT32 and then copy everything back over to the external drive (and delete it from your Mac or PC's internal drive). It might take some time depending on how much data you have... but you'll only have to do it once... and this is assuming you have enough space on one of you machines to copy the data from your external drive.

Viewing External Hard Drives on both PC Mac and in Parallels.

If someone could give me a clear answer on how to use an external hard drive b/w my Mac, Parallels and my work computer (PC) that would be most helpful.
I bought a external hard drive overseas and was having no problems with it on a PC but when i bought this Mac Book Pro i could only view and retrieve data and not write to it. I then partitioned it in the disk utility (master boot record) and am now unable to see the drive on a PC where all my files are, but it works perfect with the Mac.
I figured it was my dodgy hard drive from indonesia so i just bought a LaCie and i can't see it in the Parallels where i need to use a PC program even when i disconnect and connect when parallels are loaded. I haven't tried it on my work PC yet.
Is it possible to use a EHD between all 3 (Mac, Parallels and a PC)? if so how? and if not what are my options to maximizing the ability to access data on all three?
Thanks would appreciate any insight.
Mac Book Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
the reason why your MBP could not write to the HD was, because it was most likely formated using NTFS as file system, which OSX can read from, but not write to.
The best file system for all three is FAT32, which is read- and writeable for all three.
Two problems with FAT32:
1. single files can not be bigger in size as 4GB
2. Windows can not format partitions with FAT32, that are bigger than 32GB.
The first limitation can not be overcome with FAT32.
The second can be overcome, when using Disc Utility from OSX with MBR as partititon scheme and MS-DOS (OSX name for FAT) as file system.
Or you can use command-line program to do this with your PC: http://www.heise.de/software/download/h2format/40825
(Sorry, link is in german).
That way all three should be able to see and use the external HD.
Although it is a fact that Parallels can be picky sometimes with USB-connected drives, but with the newer versions of it, this problem has become less evident.
And since up to now Parallels does not support FireWire, you must USB with it.
Regards
Stefan

Hey, can i clone my Macbook Pro internal hard drive and then paste it all onto a formated external hard drive, then make the Mac use the external as the primary hard drive?

hey, can i clone my Macbook Pro internal hard drive and then paste it all onto a formated external hard drive, then make the Mac use the external as the primary hard drive? please help for i only have around 618mb left out of 189GB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If what doesn't work?
If cloning your internal drive to the external drive is not successful, I expect CCC will tell you so. Assuming that doesn't happen, you will have a bootable replica of the internal drive on the external drive once CCC has finished.
You can then do any of several things:
1. Replace your internal drive with a much larger one (320GB or 500GB, or even larger), and clone the external drive's contents onto the new drive so you'll have all your data in one place. Note that if you do this, you'll also need to buy an external drive that's large enough to back the new internal drive up on.
2. Boot from the external drive as a temporary measure while you clear at least 30-40GB of data off the internal drive, allowing you to keep using it and saving small amounts of data to it. The external drive will then contain the only copies of the files you've deleted from the internal drive, so you'll need a seond external drive large enough to back both the other drives up on.
If you can't comfortably clear a minimum of 30GB off the internal drive, you really need a larger internal drive right now, and you shouldn't bother fooling around with the inadequate one you have — you'll just quickly overfill it again.
3. Replace the optical drive in your MBP with a large conventional hard drive, giving you two hard drives inside the machine. You will then need one or more external drives large enough to back up both of the internal drives.
If you sense a theme here — back up, back up, back up — you are correct. It's flat-out foolhardy to own or use a computer without maintaining complete, up-to-date backups of everything at all times.

Upgraded to 10.10.3, the external hard disk keep working and spinning after I ejected successfully, and the HHD keep lights up, feel unsafe to unplug it

I tried on two macbook air, same situation.
This never happen on 10.10.2 or previous version. (The HDD light will off and it will stop running after I ejected before.)
I feel unsafe to unplug the external hard disk when its still light up and running.
I am using Macbook book air 2012 and 2013 with seagate backup plus....
Anyone have same problem? how to fix it?
or its ok to unplug the HDD while the HDD light is still on and running?
MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

I have a G-Tech external hard drive that continues to spin after I have unmounted it and if I disconnect it while it is spinning it makes a very nasty sounding clunk noise. In my case it started doing this after I enabled FileVault a couple of years ago. I have found that if I unmount it and then wait 6 minutes it will stop spinning. It is inconvenient but I only use it once a week and the clunk sound is scary enough that I put up with the wait.

I am not much of a computer technician. I bought a time capsule thinking I could use this for an external hard drive and keep my MAC hard drive free. Was I mistaken? One I back everthing up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC?

I am not much of a computer technician. I bought a time capsule thinking I could use this for an external hard drive and keep my MAC hard drive free. Was I mistaken? Once I back everything up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC and then use my TC as my hard drive??

Once I back everything up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC and then use my TC as my hard drive??
TC was designed to backup your Mac. The TC literature is pretty clear about this:
If your Mac's hard drive has a problem....it will sooner or later....you can use your backup on the TC to rebuild your Mac.
But.....if you move all of your data to the TC from your Mac....you only have one version of that data now, and it is on the TC.
Have you thought about what will happen when....not if....the TC has a problem? Since the only version of your important data was on the TC, and the TC has failed......you lose all of your data.....because you have no backup.
A much better plan would be to add a USB or FireWire hard drive and connect it directly to your Mac. Move the data on your Mac over to the hard drive.
Then, the TC will backup both your Mac and the hard drive. So, you have original data on on one drive and backups on another drive.
That would be a minimum backup plan. Most of us have more than one set of backups.

I have a Seagate Slim Portable 500 GB USB 3.0 external hard drive that worked great with my Macbook Pro 13" Retina but gets ejected and won't show files on any iMac.

I have a Seagate Slim Portable 500 GB USB 3.0 external hard drive that worked great with my Macbook Pro 13" Retina but gets ejected and won't show files on any iMac. My Macbook Pro and the two different iMacs I tried it on were all using Mountain Lion, so the only difference was the iMac versus Macbook Pro.

I just tried this, no luck...
I connected a different USB cable, still the same problem. Tried both cables with the problematic hard drive on two different computers, still the same problem.
At this point I assume I'll probably need professional help in saving the files, thanks for the assistance.

External hard drive stopped working on Mac after attempt to connect it to a PC

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