External Harddrive no longer showing up

so my old hard drive (external) has been playing up for a while, i daisy chained it to another and to my imac and tried to transfer everything so i can wipe it and reformat it. i transferred most things but now it just won't show up on my mac...
I'm using firewire, and it just won't show up no matter what i do, so even if i've lost everything i can't reformat...
any tips?
Message was edited by: Time Machine now won't back up

Based on what you have done, I think you have eliminated as causes:
Software (the system or settings)
The iMac's FireWire port (try the other port if you have not already)
The FireWire cable
So the only remaining possibilities are:
The hard drive itself
The external drive enclosure (if the case has two FireWire ports, be sure to try both)
You can test the hard drive apart from the case by removing it from the case and putting it in another case that uses the same type of drive.
Is this an iMac G4? If so, does it have USB 2.0 ports or is it the earlier model with USB 1.1?
Also, is this external hard drive (the one with the problem) the type that has its own power supply, or is it the pocket type that gets power from the FireWire connection?
One more question: If you run Disk Utility with the hard drive connected directly to the iMac's port, does it appear in the sidebar?

Similar Messages

External harddrive does not show on desktop

Trying to back up data for genius bar appointment, but external harddrive is not showing on desktop.

Look in Finder > Preferences > general tab > check external disks.

My external harddrive is not showing any files after a mac partition

I transfered my files from my pc to the external harddrive. The instructions for the external harddrive said I needed to partition the drive to make it mac-compatible. After partitioning, I couldn't find any of the files that I transferred.
Can anyone help me find the files on the external hard drive?

abbey road wrote:
I transfered my files from my pc to the external harddrive. The instructions for the external harddrive said I needed to partition the drive to make it mac-compatible. After partitioning, I couldn't find any of the files that I transferred.
Can anyone help me find the files on the external hard drive?
Hi and welcome to Discussions,
did you do the partitioning after you have copied the files to the external harddisk ?
If so, then they are gone.
A repartitioning of a harddisk deletes everything that is on that harddisk at that moment.
If the files are still on your PC, then just reconnect the external HD to your PC and copy the files again.
Regards
Stefan

External harddrive won't show in windows explorer Windows 7

I have an interesting problem or so I think it's interesting. I have a n HP Pavilion DV6-7001ax, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit just turned a year old. My problem is I had a 1tb western digital My Book Essential it's alos about a year old. Two days ago for some reason It stop showing up in windows explorer. I tried everything I know to get it to come back but no luck. I thought the drive was dead, however I hook the drive up to my wife's desktop and after it installed the drivers it works just fine, she's using Window 7 Ultimate x64. I tried it in my daughters laptop, she has a HP Pavilion also model under mine, the drive works just fine she's using windows 8 64bit and I have another laptop wich has Window 7 Home Premium 32bit and the external drive works just fine on it. So I tried and tried and tried but it won't work. My wife and daughter both have a 1tb seagate external drive and both work just fine on my laptop. Note: I've plugged in several different USB devices and they all work except my WD external drive. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Signed
Seriously Frustrated

AntonBC57,
Turn off the computer.
As you turn it back on tap the F10 key. This will load BIOS setup utility.
Press F9 to load defaults.
Press F10 to save and exit.
When the computer boots back up, check to see if everything is working.
Open up command prompt and run the following command SFC /scannow.
This will scan the system files and correct any errors that it can.
Here is a link to command prompt.
When you go to open command prompt, right click and run as administrator.
Since it has not been to long since the problem started, you can run a system restore.
This will take the system back to when everything was working correctly without affecting your personal files.
Here is a link on how to do a restore.
Let me know how everything goes
Have a good day.

My external harddrive is not showing up on my computer when I plug it in. What can I do?

I have tried plugging in my external hard drive a few times in the last week and when I do, nothing shows up on my computer. The light on the ext hard drive light up like something is happening, but it doesnt pop up on my mac like usual. I recently had some work done on my mac for liquid damage, but have used my ext hard drive since and it worked fine. It's just stopped in the last couple weeks. Does anyone have any suggestions?

If it's port powered, get a powered USB hub, Mac's can turn off USB if it's drawing too much power.
Also try a SMC and PRAM rest
Step by Step to fix your Mac
This drive is not formatted NTFS by any chance? Perhaps your NTFS software needs a update?
Does it show up in Disk Utility? Can you repair it?
Search online for "unmounting external drive Mac" and hopefully you can find something. I need to go to bed now, sorry.

External Harddrive no longer recognized

Hey all.
Ok, so I have a 15" MBP and I bought a 1 TB external HD firewire 800 because I needed stuff for my video editing. Everything worked perfectly, I would unplug it and plug it in all the time (properly and improperly). Well I recently moved and it won't be recognized by the laptop anymore. It is plugged in and on and everything works fine. When I plug it in, the harddrive makes noises and then nothing happens. It does NOT appear in disk utility either. There is a switch on the harddrive to make it so whenever the harddrive is plugged into something, it turns on. When I plug it into the laptop it still turns on yet the laptop does not recognize it.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
A couple of possibilities are a bad FW cable, a failed FW chip in the external drive, and your FW 800 port not working.
Do other FW peripherals work? If not try a SMC Reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411?viewlocale=en_US
If so, try another FW cable. If the drive has USB capability, see if DU sees it with a USB cable.
If the Mac can see the drive with USB, but not with FW, you might be able to put the drive in a different enclosure and have FW capability again. Look for an enclosure with an Oxford 924+ chipset.
Good luck!

External drives no longer show up - light is on but nobody home!

Hey all,
Still using an old iMac G4 and it works great... 10.2.8
(and ibook 10.3.9)
plugging in some Maxtor External drives and they don't show up (mount)
I hear them. The light is on.
Checking in disk utility shows that computer senses them and says I can repair permissions (have not tried that yet) but they never appear
on the desktop. These drives are more than 5 years old and haven't been used in about a year - my mistake. use it or lose it apparently.
If anyone can throw a life raft I'll grab it.
thanks,
Al

Dale,
They don't show up in Disk Util.
Nothing to click on.
When I plug them in I get a message saying do I want to initialize or ignore?
I am assuming initialize would erase everything but there is stuff on them so I don't want to erase.
thanks,
Al

My external hd no longer shows up in fcpx

The 500gb g-drive formatted OS Extended(journaled) holds all my projects in fcpx. It shows up when I first open fcp along with my projects but then disappears. I need to do some edits!!! Please Help!!!!

Check that the root level of the drive doesn't have a folder with a name like Video or Private or DCIM or sonething that makes the app think it's a camera drive.

External Harddrive doesn't show in Finder

Finder won't show my hard drive. It's never been a problem before, but now it won't show at all. Disk utility shows it is connected. What has happenned, and how do i fix it?
Thanks,
Vincenso

Is it connected via USB or Firewire?
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151?viewlocale=en_US
What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire device
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88338
Dealing with FireWire problems (drives not mounting, devices unrecognized, etc.)
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20041221081432908
Common fixes for USB device issues (unrecognized, etc.)
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20070824012114701
 Cheers, Tom

External drive shows in finder as a CD & no longer shows as "Journaled", after accidental unplug

I accidentally unplugged two external drives while using them. (I know, I know! Tugging on the wrong wire at the wrong moment...)
The result:
One large external hard drive now shows up in finder as a CD (i.e., shows on desktop as a mounted CD not as a hard drive).
The same external drive no longer shows formatted as "Journaled" in Disk Utility.
(The second external drive still shows up as an external hard drive on the desktop, and still shows up as Journaled in Disk Utility.)
Questions:
Is the damage to the external drive itself (so that finder thinks it is a CD, and is not Journaled), or to some information on the Mac?
Can this be safely repaired in some way, or must I reformat the external drive and restore its content form a backup (yes, I have one!, but it will take a long time to do.)
Thanks!

Once I got hold of my offsite backup I could boot from that, and discovered that the external drive showed as fine, i.e. passed disk utility, showed as journaled, etc., and looked normal, while it was Macintosh HD which had numerous errors beyond the ability of Disk Utility to correct. Restoring Macintosh HD from backup has fixed everything. Odd thing, the way running Disk Utility from the damaged partition showed such anomalous results for the external drive.
Thanks for your help!

My WD external hard drive will no longer show up on my Macbook pro.

My WD external hard drive will not longer show up on my macbook pro. The light turns on and you can hear it running but it won't show up either in finder or in the disk utility. This happened a while ago but I really want to get all my photos off the hard drive. Is there anything I can do to get my computer to read it again or get my data off of it?
I don't have access to another Mac to test it.
Thank you

dead sata bridge card. very common problem.
see all about it here:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD
verify HD on another Mac however, if same, dead SATA card most likely

My external hard drive is no longer showing up on the desk top, it wont even work when I plug it into my media player anymore, help?

My external hard drive is no longer showing up on the desk top, it wont even work when I plug it into my media player anymore, help?

Go to Finder > Preferences > General > and in the top section where it says external disks check that the box is ticked. If it is check the connections.

Why do my external hard drives no longer show up on my desktop?

I have three external harddrives all of which are connected through different ports, all show up in finder, all show up in disk utility, but none of them will show up on my desktop. I looked at a few other posts similar to mine but the answers given to other problems have not worked. There is no way all three of my cords are causing a connection problem and I have repaired and verifyd all the drives and still nothing. Any ideas?

Are the disks self powered? Try a SMC Reset:
SMC RESET
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and ALL peripherals.
Wait 15 seconds.
Attach the computers power cable.
Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.
The 5 second timing is important to a successful reset.

Holding down the option key when booting my iMac lo longer shows me my bootable external drives, the system just boots up to the main system. Also, holding down command, option,P,R no longer zaps the p-ram. the system just boots up.

Holding down the option key when booting my iMac lo longer shows me my bootable external drives, the system just boots up to the main system. Also, holding down command, option,P,R no longer zaps the p-ram. the system just boots up normally. Why do these key fonctions no longer work?

It could be your timing if on a bluetooth keyboard. I find it best to hit the keys as soon as i hear the chime, release and hit them again but this time holding them before the chime ends....like a fake pump in football.
But....you can always open up system preferences, startup disk, and select your bootable clone for booting. If it doesn't show up there, the Mac doesn't think it's bootable.

External hard drive no longer shows up connected

I have been using a Seagate Freeagent 500 GB external HD as a backup storage device for my Windows 7, 64 bit computer. After working well for several years it did not respond the last time I tried to back up and shows up as "disconnected" when
I search for the HD in device manager or control panel. It was assigned Drive I but that drive no longer shows up under drives. I have tried different USB ports without success. Oddly, the audible signal sounds when I remove the USB cable from
a port but does not sound when I reinsert it. I also tried powering down the hard drive and powering up again without success.

Hi,
If other PCs can show this external hard drive, You can try the following steps to clear the write-protected flag to see what's going on:
Open a command with administrator privilege:
type--> diskpart
type--> list volume
type--> select volume #
type--> attributes disk clear readonly
Kate Li
TechNet Community Support

External Harddrive no longer showing up

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for