External Hard Drive Won't Mount Via USB

I have a Western Digital (Model #WD2500...) Hard Drive that is about 3 years old. I initially set it up on a PowerBook running Mac OS 10.3.x. I have two newer laptops both running Snow Leopard, and neither will recognize my drive via USB 2.0.
The weird part is that the drive will mount when connected via Firewire (400 in this case). My newest laptop is on of the new MacBook Pros and it only has Firewire 800. I'm guessing I could probably get a 400 to 800 Firewire cable, but it would be much easier to just use the USB 2.0 connection. Any idea why the drive won't mount over USB 2.0?
I went to the Western Digital site, and there didn't appear to be any new drivers or firmware for this product. The drive seems to run perfectly well over the Firewire connection, so I don't see what the issue is with USB. The documentation that came with the drive indicates that it should work with USB. This is very baffling to me, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much!!

In most external drive enclosures that have both USB and Firewire interfaces, the Firewire interface is able to draw enough power to run the drive. Firewire can provide up to 45 watts and up to 30 volts of power per port (not all devices supply the full wattage; my MacBook model provides up to 8 watts). USB 2.0 and earlier can only provide 5 volts at 500 milliamps (up to 2.5 watts). Some newer laptop drives are at or under 500 milliamps, but just barely, and the enclosure itself needs some power.
It sounds like the USB port on your enclosure is bad. Firewire is going to provide faster transfer rates anyway, and you don't have to bother with the power supply. Based on your comments, I suspect it still might be a bad power supply, or maybe it's not the right one for the drive. Those things are easy to mix up.
If you're brave enough to crack the external drive open, what you'll find inside is a standard off-the-shelf hard disk drive, with either a SATA or PATA interface, in an enclosure. You can move the drive to a new enclosure easily.

Similar Messages

External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

Hello Everyone,
I am hoping that one of you fine mac experts may be able to assist ~
Problem: External Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB external hard drive
won't mount on desktop=ie: no access to my important files.. Please Help!
Details:
External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
(using for document / file backup-not as a startup disc)
on my Mac G3 350 MZ Blue & White Tower /768 ram/ running OSX 10.1.5 & OS9.2~
~
Problem: Started using the external 500 GB HD 2 months ago -with no problems-until this morning. Tried to double click to open it to access files
and got the "beach ball of death" and needed to restart.
My trusty G3 started up fine, however, the external HD was now
not showing up on the desktop as normal. I troubleshooted -by restarting,
trying different a/c plugs/ different USB ports , ran disk utility..called
seagate -not much help . Seagate said to try the HD on another mac-which I did-
a G5 tower- same problem.
~
The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
and when click "mount" same two messages keep showing:
message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
mount.please use disk utility to check the disk"
~
message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
restart:" you have inserted a disk containg no volumes that mac osx
can read to use unreadable volumes,click initialize to continue with the disk inserted ,click continue"
~
( I really need access to these files- and do not want to re-initialize the HD!!)
I ran Disk Utility /first aid "verify & repair , the following info came up:
Repairing disk "main backup 2007 ".
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length ( <<<IN RED )
Repair completed. "
~~
Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
still comes up when re-running disk utility...Hard drive would still not
mount on desktop-even after restarting .
~~~~~
If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
appreciated. I have tried to call seagate several times in the last several hours-
1st time-they disconnected me after being on hold 10 minutes-2nd call
I was put on hold for 40 minutes ..Finally spoke to someone ( they are not mac users or mac experts!)and he said I would need to send it to Seagate's Data Recovery-... for a fee of course!
~~~
At this point, I am hoping to just get the files and photos off
the hard drive- I heard about Disk Warrior-should I use that and if so
what version?
Thank you very much!
L

Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
If you boot from the CD and run it from the CD, absolutely yes. If you attempt to INSTALL it from a download or a CD, probably not.
Have you ever used Disc Warrior and is using it complicated?
I own and use Disk Warrior. You select the drive to be rebuilt, it builds a proposed new directory from the information and file fragments available.
When complete, it will provide a list of problems encountered, tell you what files have been placed in the "Rescued Items" folder, and allow you too look at your drive using the proposed new directory. Your only decision is whether the new directory seems to be an improvement over the old \[in your case, hopelessly corrupted] directory. You then tell it whether to replace the old directory with the proposed new directory, or to abandon its work and leave your Hard Drive unchanged.
Is there a good chance that the ext HD will still have my files on it- or do you think from what I've described that they are gone ?
From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
My other thought was to take the external HD there and have them try to recover the files.
Make sure you completely understand the costs involved. File recovery using a service like DriveSavers can run into many hundreds of dollars. They are prepared to disassemble your drive in a clean room and replace controller boards and read/write heads to achieve success. Your drive has serious, but not fatal, Directory damage. The Hardware, and most of your files, are likely just fine.

External hard drive won't mount, even after disk repair.

My Toshiba external hard drive won't mount on my MacBook Pro 10.8.5. I can see it in my disk repair, and when I repair, "the partition map appears to be ok." But I can't access the icon to be able to open the hard drive contents on my desktop. Help!

Hello maccynicwhoalwayshasmacs,
Thanks for the question. After reviewing your post, it sounds like trouble with an external HD mounting. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you resolve or isolate the issue.
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Have a nice day,
Mario

Can Time Machine back up a second external hard drive that is attached via usb to a Time Capsule?

Can Time Machine back up a second external hard drive that is attached via usb to a Time Capsule?
I have a iMac with 10.7.4

I want to back up the data on the external Hard Drive that is attached to the Time Capsule to the Tim Capsule using Time Machine.
Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately, that will not work. You will need to connect the drive directly to your Mac if you want Time Machine to backup the drive to the Time Capsule.

External Hard Drive won't mount on desktop!

Hey, guys.
I ran into a problem this morning that I've never ran into before and I wasn't sure where to write it but I thought this is best.
Here it goes...
Last night I had a power surge and when I restarted my computer, my external hard drive did not mount on my desktop. I than proceeded with restarting my computer, I relinked all my connections and I cant seem to get it fixed. I have a lot of material on my external drive that I dont have backed up (I know, a stupid move) anyways, I dont want to lose that information. Also, when I open up disk utility, the icon for my external drive is there and the partition I made for my external drive shows up also but the title of my partition for my external hard drive is not in bolded font. I tried to click the button to mount my external drive cause the specs tell me that it is not mounted but when I press the mount button, it does nothing. I than tried clicking the unmount button and than restart my computer and still nothing.
What problem am I facing and how can it be fixed?
Thanks.

Dear Jason,
Gary's advised is, IMHO, a very sound one.
The only thing I can think of about your problem, given the information you have provided us, is to run Disk Warrior on your external HD.
In fact, DW is particularly indicated in events, like:
"...you should run DiskWarrior when you suspect that there is directory damage on one of your disks. Directory damage can result in the disk not mounting (not appearing on the desktop when the computer is started), missing files or folders, an inability to move or copy files, or crashes when files are used...".
You could actually buy your copy of DW Licence on-line and download it directly onto your internal HD, starting from this "Information you must read before you make your purchase" page. A hardware copy of the software you have so purchased, will follow by postal service (or currier, if so you choose), shortly.
Follow all the instructions you will find in the download to install the DW software onto your main internal HD and then run it on your external hard drive.
DW has saved my data several times and in similar situations as you are experiencing. IMHO, you should seriously give it a try and, even in the unfortunate event it does not manage to solve your problem, it is one of those Mac OSX utilities which ANY Mac power user MUST have handy at all times.
So, no matter what, my opinion is that it is always well-spent-money those used to purchase your copy of DW: in the long run, you won't regret it.
In the event that even DW is unable to retrive your precious data, my suggestion is to contact Micro Com data recovery. It's going to cost you some money, but if you make a leaving out of the data you've lost on your external hard drive, it's going to be worth it.
All the best.
Costa

Since installing Maverick my MacBook Air is no longer showing my external Hard drive, which I connect via USB.

I know the external hard drive is working and the USB port works also.
I have seen lots of complicated answers on here but nothing I can understand.
Any help appriciated.
Lesley

The WD hard drive itself is probably fine, the enclosure has likely failed. WD externals are notorius for cheap enclosures failing. Try a different cable first. You can take the drive out and install it in a better enclosure, like one from OWC.
http://eshop.macsales.com/

External Hard Drive Won't Mount in 10.2.8

Greetings,
I have a MacBook Pro running the latest version of Tiger. I have a Maxtor 300 GB external hard drive (Mac OS Extended [journaled] ) which I use with my MacBook to store music, video, other media, and backups. I connect that drive to my MacBook via FireWire, normally, but the drive can also do USB.
Since wireless connectivity is so nice, I thought it would be nice to be able to access that hard drive from anywhere in my apartment, without being tethered to the drive by a FireWire cable.
Enter my wife's iBook G3 and Mac OS 10.2.8.
She has this computer from her school where she teaches. It has a G3 processor running at 600 mhz with 128 mb of ram. Since she rarely uses the old machine, I wanted to use it to "serve" my external hard drive to my MacBook.
But when I connect the hard drive to the iBook via either USB or FireWire, it does not mount. I ran Disk Utility and the drive is visible in the pane on the left of the interface, but when I verify the disk I get lots of error messages that say, "Reserved fields in the catalog record have incorrect data."
I don't want to let the iBook repair the disk because I am afraid it my screw the whole thing up and I would lose all my data...not a good proposition.
So, my question: What is going on here? Is this drive simply not going to work with 10.2.8?
I wish I could upgrade the machine to Tiger, but it does not have the minimum system requirements!
Thank you very much for your help. I apologize if I missed something else in the forums that addressed this same issue.
Macbook Pro 2.0 Ghz Intel Core Duo 1 GB Ram 15.4" LCD Mac OS X (10.4.7)

All you need to upgrade the iBook for Tiger is another 128 MBs of RAM. It has both Firewire and USB ports. You do want to upgrade it for what you plan to do. The problem you may continue to have, however, may be due to the fact that the age of the computer is such the disk controller does not support hard drive volumes larger than 128 GBs, which is probably the reason the drive won't mount.
The reason you get DU errors is likely because the drive was formatted using the Intel Tiger version of DU, while you were using the Jaguar version. That's a definite no-no.

External hard Drive will not mount via firewire tpo my Powerbook G4

I have a Powerbook G4 1.5, 2 Gb Ram and an 80 Gb Hard Drive. Well my problem is, I went and purchased a Western Digital External Hard Drive. The box states that this hard drive is compatible for both Windows and Mac. But for some reason I can't get the external hard drive to mount via the firewire. However it will mount by using the USB.
So can someone please provide some troubleshooting tips on how I can get this external hard drive to mount?
Thanks

hi there,
in your case, your drive is probably bad because the copy was interrupted. your hard drive may be finished, but more likely, just the file structure is damaged and/or you have bad sectors.
you have a few options:
*if you don't need the data back:*
• see if the drive appears in disk utility and try to erase/reformat (make sure to zero out data to avoid bad sectors)
• if it doesn't appear, try a pc. it won't recognize it, but it may allow you to reformat/initialize it. then, connect back into mac (which will recognize a pc formatted drive) and reformat as mac os x extended (journaled).
*if you need the data back:*
• try a program like data rescue II, file salvage, or boomerang data recovery first to recover the data
• see if the drive appears in disk utility and try to repair disk
• if that doesn't work, try disk warrior and/or drive genius
• if you aren't successful, you may want to try a professional data recovery service (or me first, to ensure that you actually need someone as high tech as drive savers)
• if you are successful and are able to recover the data, then erase the drive (zero out data) and then move the data back, to ensure you're working off a well formatted drive.
fyi, if your computer freezes in the future, be sure to try appleoptionesc first and force quitting the problem application. if that doesn't work, try controloption+appleeject (shutdown) and/or optionappleeject (restart). if those doesn't work, in this situation, the next best move would probably have been turning off the power on the hard drive. if that doesn't unfreeze the system in a few minutes, then hold the power button.
hope this helps,
brian
corewerkz/briancometa.com/

WD 3.0 external hard drive won't mount to Mac

I've had this Western Digital 3.0 external for some time and now it won't mount. I'm running Yosemite on my iMac. Full disclosure, I did drop the drive a day before it stopped being recognized on the Mac but it wasn't a hard drop and the external drive was running just fine immediately after the drop. I've seen some posts on here talking about WD external drives not working after updating to Mavericks but I didn't have that problem.
I've zapped the PRAM.
I've made sure it wasn't the cable - I have another 3.0 drive that mounted just fine using that same cable.
This WD external drive is self powered so it's not a power source issue.
I've tried updating the Firmware but since the drive isn't mounting, that did no good.
The USB port on the Mac is fine - plugged in another drive and other devices in that same port and they are all recognized and working fine.
Just to make sure, I tried using another port. No different result.
I tried the Option key on a restart to get to Disk Utilities but it's not seen there.
While the drive was working, I was pulling music from iTunes to my iPhone, just loading it up for a trip. I keep all of my music on this one WD external hard drive. I loaded up about 70 songs and intended to load dozens more. While pulling some songs over, things froze up. Wasn't able to do anything in iTunes or, as best I recall, anywhere else. Things just froze. I hard restarted the Mac - via the power button - and since, the external drive hasn't mounted.
About ready to try this possible solution as described in this discussion:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD
Soooooooo . . . help would be appreciated!

Hello
Ihad EXACTLY the same thing happen to my WD hard drive... MINUS the dropping.
Was organising my iTunes and iPhoto library, kept crashing, over and over again, then the last time, i restarted and it won't mount.
Except not only is the WD hard drive not mounting, after the crash and restart of itunes etc neither is my Time Machine hard drive which is connected via a LAN cable.
Exactly the same scenario, all the ports work, all the cables are fine etc.
Just went BOOM - not happy and stopped working.
All my photos and music are on this one drive.
Did you manage to fix your issue?

External hard drives won't mount after upgrading to Tiger 10.4.9. Help!

Hi, I've just got the latest iMac. Very excited! I did all the software updates, connected my Western Digital extended hard drive so that I could copy some files over onto my new Mac. It was fine at first. Then when I wanted to open up the external hard drive icon on my desktop again and double clicked on it, everything disappeared from the screen for a few seconds, then reappeared but my external hard drive simply opened the window to my personal hard drive on the Mac. The WD links to my computer via Firewire. I then connected my USB external hard drive stick and it was the same story.
I used Disk Utility to test everything and everything was fine.
I then reinstalled Mac OSX 10.4.8 and plugged in my external hard drives. Everything worked perfectly. After copying over documents and a couple of programs, and downloading a few more programs, I ran my software updates again, upgrading the operating system to Tiger 10.4.9. I attached my external hard drive and it was the same problem all over again.
I the read up the online discussions and also chatted to an Apple dealer, and their advice was to download the Intel Combo and reinstall the operating system. I have just done this and my external hard drives will still not mount properly. Their icons appear on screen but double click them and everything disappears.
Please help. This is really frustrating as I have a backlog of work to do and I seem to be wasting hours on this. Not only that, this is a brand new machine which I rightly expect to work straight away.
I look forward to your response. Thank you in advance.

Hi, try to put your HDD in other Mac and look if appear the same, also you can try to repair permission.

External Hard Drive Won't Mount

I've got a new 500GB Toshiba external hard drive, connected to my computer via a USB. The first time I connected it, it showed up just fine, but after ejecting it, and connecting it again, it doesn't show up in Finder. I've gone to Disk Utility, and it does *show up* there; however, I can't verify or repair it (the buttons are all greyed out.) What can I do?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I am having this exact same problem with a WD hard drive, it was improperly dismounted from a Mac and i'm pretty sure the data is ok, but the partition table is corrupted. I tried diskwarrior and some other utilities without any success, although testdisk (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk) was able to read the drive and could see the data, i do not have another drive to back it up to. In fact i have this exact same problem with 2 external hard drives, caused by the same thing, is anyone aware of this being a recurring bug in OSX 10.4.11? One would think that Macs being such user friendly machines they would not be so prone to causing major problems on a routine bad dismount... My windows XP machine recognized the drive, and started to mount it but hung partway through the mounting process. I will check back if i find a solution, and please if you could post any breakthroughs you might have it would be appreciated. Good luck!

Fantom external hard drive won't mount

I am using an imac G3 with OS 10.3.9. Until yesterday my Fantom external hard drive mounted. I dismounted it and turned it off. I went to turn it back on later and it won't mount. I selected initialize from the dialogue box that says it won't mount and when disk utility comes up it show the two icons for the internal hard drive and just one for the external so I can't do anything with it. Thanks for your help.
imac Mac OS X (10.3.9)
imac Mac OS X (10.3.9)
imac Mac OS X (10.3.9)

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 did'nt 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. Yours is the 10.3.9 Combo update. Others reading, download the Combo that applies to your system.
If that still did'nt 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 battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Good Luck!
Cheers!
DALE
p.s. Hi to you too Sherry! Keep up the good work!

Two seperate external hard drives won't mount

HELP!
Neither of my external hard drives, both AC powered, suddenly won't mount. I've swapped all the cables and ports but no joy - it can only be the mac. Any idea?! Maybe I haven't mounted them since the last software/ security update, I can't remember...
I feel like everything is breaking down one by one and it always seems to be the result of an update.

Ok, a small amount of success.... I've figured out that it's the USB adapter (Apple - The one I got with my ipod). So I changed the fuse in the actual plug, and that works fine with the laptop charger connected but not the USB part of the adapter plug - the actual square adapter than hooks onto the plug... So what can I do about that? is there another fuse inside that? I can't seem to get it open - Do I just need to buy a new one?

New partition on external hard drive won't mount

I have an 2TB external drive connected by FireWire to my 24-inch, Early 2009 iMac. I created 2 partitions 1 that is about 35 GB and another that is the rest of the 2TB. The 2nd largest partition mounts fine and is being used by Time Machine for my back up. The 2nd one I wanted to use for a Tech Tool Pro eDrive. However the 35 GB drive won't mount. Well it mounts, but after a few seconds it unmounts itself. This is the message I get as it unmounts itself:
8/18/13 7:18:45.788 PM fseventsd[43]: Events arrived for /Volumes/eDrive after an unmount request! Re-initializing.
8/18/13 7:18:45.789 PM fseventsd[43]: creating a dls for /Volumes/eDrive but it already has one...
8/18/13 7:18:46.039 PM fseventsd[43]: disk logger: failed to open output file /Volumes/eDrive/.fseventsd/00000000030d4f84 (No such file or directory). mount point /Volumes/eDrive/.fseventsd
8/18/13 7:18:46.039 PM fseventsd[43]: disk logger: failed to open output file /Volumes/eDrive/.fseventsd/00000000030d4f84 (No such file or directory). mount point /Volumes/eDrive/.fseventsd
Any ideas?
I've checked the partition with Disk Utility and no errors.
Regards,
Chris Johnson

If the drive has more than one interface (USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, eSATA), try one of the other interfaces.
Check that the data cable is securely inserted at both ends.
Try a different cable.
If you're connecting the drive through a hub, connect it directly to a built-in port on the Mac.
If you're connecting it directly, try a different port.
Disconnect all other devices on the bus, or as many as possible.
Test the drive with another Mac. Test another drive with this Mac.
If the drive is bus-powered, but has an AC adapter, connect the adapter.
Boot into Recovery and launch Disk Utility. Does the volume mount?
Start up in Safe Mode and test.
If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, and if another drive does work with the same Mac, then the drive has failed. You may be able to salvage the mechanism by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

WD external hard drive won't mount

Hello,
I have a WD my passport 1TB external hard drive that will not mount. It has two partitions, one is a time machine backup, the other contains critical files. I thought I was backing up this second partition via SuperDuper, but for other reasons it stopped doing it's backup two years ago, so I now have two years worth of critical files that are seemingly inaccessible (my bad). I have done all the easy stuff like try it on other computers, changed cables, changed ports, tried it on PCs and Macs (I have a 2008 MBP). I have also taken it out of it's case, and even switched out the PCB with an exact copy (through PCB Solutions in Canada). Not long after I replaced the board, I got access again to the hard drive (though not right away), I began copying files as fast as possible (which was slow) and got about 25% (51GB) of the drive copied (less corrupt files). This took a couple days.
Then I stupidly shut down the computer as the drive seemed to be getting hot and I thought it worth the risk not to fry the board/drive. Alas, the hard drive would not mount again. I have tried to access it through the Terminal, as it does show up there (after a couple minutes) if I do a diskutil list like this:
Melissa-McManuss-MacBook-Pro:~ melissa$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *512.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Melissa's SSD           511.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                                                   *1.0 TB     disk1
It does not show up in Disk Utility or Finder however.
It will show up in Disk Utility after the Finder gives up on trying to mount it. It shows up as "1TB WD My Passport 0171D Media", but does not show the partitions.
I have read other similar cases, I can tell you that the fsck. program does not show up in the Activity Monitor. So this is not my problem.
I am out of potential remedies, but am loathe to send it to the Data Recovery people if not absolutely necessary (for obvious reasons).
Thank you in advance for any potential help!

Your best bet is DiskWarrior,...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Hold option key or alt key when selecting when choosing Rebuild, then use Scavenge, that may make a temporary directory that can then be used for copying the files.
If DW doesn't even see it or work, then...
Data Rescue...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
rccharles on file recovery...
"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm
FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:
    * been accidentally deleted.
    * become unreadable due to media faults.
    * been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11073082#11073082

External Hard Drive Won't Mount Via USB

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for