External Harddrives Randomly Not Being Recognized

I have the APPLE brand firewire800 -> Thunderbolt Adapter.
I've used all these harddrives for the full month I've had this iMac fine.
I ejected one today to swap them -- now none of them are recognizing.
The harddrives are two Lacies 500 GB externals
and one Seagate 500GB
all firewire 800
The adapter is less than a month old and has never left the computer thunderbolt plug since using it.
I've tried rebooting.
Everything is up to date
I've tried the other port.
Nothing.
Any other troubleshooting I can do?

You may have accidentally tripped the port overload protection.
See if > Resetting the System Management Controller will get it working again.
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer's power cord.
3. Wait fifteen seconds.
4. Attach the computer's power cord.
5. Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.

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Acomdata 500gb External FW Drive NOT BEING RECOGNIZED!!!

I have been running an Acomdata 500gb FW External Hard Drive for my data intensive applications such as FCP and it has been working flawlessly for about the last year...
Yesterday I powered up the Mac and turned on the drive along with my external USB drive and the Acomdata drive turns on, lights up, and makes noise like it's working, but it is not being recognized at all by the Mac. I tried unplugging it, switching out the FW cord, changing the FW slot it was being plugged into, and everything else of that nature that I could think of. Of course the USB drive that has non-important work related stuff works just fine :/
So I'm wondering, does anyone think the drive has officially crapped out? It turns on and works so I can't tell. I'm PRAYING this is not the case, but I didn't know if there were any possible FW configuration settings that could have been changed or something like that. Any ideas?

Did you recently update to 10.4.10? Is there another computer that you can plug the external into to see if it's recognized? Have you tried plugging another FW peripheral into your main computer to see if it recognizes it?
Some people have had good results from the following:
1. Downloading and installing the combo updater of the system software update they've just applied via "Software Update...". In your case the update you need is at:
10.4.10 combo updater
2. Another trick is to restart each by zapping the parameter RAM:
Zapping the P-RAM:
After the startup tone, hold down <commandd><option><r> until 3 additional startup tones are heard, then release the 4 keys.
3. A 3rd tip would be to do Open Firmware resets on each:
After the startup tone, hold down <command><option><o><f> until the text screen is visible. When text can be entered, type the following commands, followed by the <return> key (there are no space characters in each command):
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all (the Mac will boot up after this command is entered).
Also, see if anything in this Apple KB article helps:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88338
Please post back with results,
Miriam

Toshiba PX1265E External HDD its not being recognized

Hi All,
I have just recently had to replace my laptop with a new Windows 7 device as the old Vista one blew up.
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Hi
This external HDD is an plug&play device this means that no drivers are required
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Before I upgraded to 10.5.6 i repaired permissions and backedup to the LaCie. Now when I turn on the drive, OSX does not see the drive.
I now see an icon in Super Duper in both the Source and Target areas called disk image. I have never seen this before. I do not see anything on my imac HD called disk image.
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Just to let everybody know that P-RAM reset resolved this problem.

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I have 3 external hard drives. Had them for a long time now. I recently made only one change: I decided to start using the 'sleep' mode.
I noticed the sleep mode and external hard drives didn't get along real well, so I simply took the externals (used only for backing up data) and turned them off.
Its now been about 2 weeks, time to fire them back up and backup my data. Only one of the 3 is being recognized. The other two seem to come on, make the usual whiny noise and such, but aren't seen in the finder.
I've tried restarting my computer, turning off/on the hard drives, unplugging/replugging them from power, unplugging/replugging them into USB. I've verified connections, that kind of thing. Nada.
Any ideas on what to do to help my computer 'see' that they are there? this is a bit baffling to me and disconcerting, to say the least. I've never had problems with my computer recognizing the externals before.
Ideas are appreciated.
PowerMac G4 1.42 duel Mac OS X (10.4.6)

'sleep mode' ?
Do you mean the drives are triggered to not spin up for a period after powering on ? This is a feature designed for enormous banks of drives, so that when they are powered on, only a fraction spin up immediately, then another set, usually 12 seconds later, then another set, etc, until all are up to speed. This is reduce the power surge from spinning up 700 hard drives simultaneously in a commercial solution.

WD Passport External Hard Drive Not Being Recognized on PowerBook G4

I bought a WD Passport 320GB USB 2.0 powered external hard drive that isnt recognized by my PowerBook G4. The funny thing is that the external HDD works perfectly on my friends MacBook! What's the deal with that?
I called AppleCare but they just told me to take it into my nearest Apple Store... LAME!
Can anyone else help?
Message was edited by: WRDinc

I had the same problem. See below for the answer from WD (...sigh...):
Cause:
Many 15" and 17" Macintosh PowerBook and Mac Book Pro Laptops do not provide enough power through a single USB port for the WD Passport™ external USB hard drive to work correctly. The WD Passport™ external USB hard drive requires a minimum of 1000Ma (Milliamps) of power for proper usage.
Resolution:
You can purchase a WD Passport™ Power Supply or a USB 2.0 Power Booster Cable from links below to the Western Digital Online Store.

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When I hooked up my two external hard drives to my computer this week, Lr4 is not recognizing them. Each folder has a question mark by it.
Appreciate any help..thanks!

Hi Jim,
I spent some time doing maintenance on Lil's computer. We were on public networks for 10 days and so I ran some cleanup software to help ensure that we don't have some virus or other malware messing things up.
Then I did some comparing and it appears that Lightroom has the G and H drives reversed.
I have enclosed 4 screen shots. Two show the strong(but not perfect) correlation between LR drive G and Explorer drive H........and vice versa. Another shows the K drive and the fourth shows the G drive one level up as you requested. I believe that when we disconnected this computer to take on vacation that we just pulled all the plugs and did NOT take any steps to "logically" disconnect them. If LR is sensitive to drives just being removed by pulling the cable, then perhaps that contributed to this situation...although I believe that we used the same procedure in the past.
Thanks,
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External Hard Drive not being recognized

I made a topic some time ago but it never got answered.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1906969&tstart=0&messageID=906 6822#9066822
This hard drive has never worked on this computer and I am still not sure why. It does not show up in Disk Utility or in the System Profiler. It is formatted in FAT32. It is plugged into the wall and comes right up in Windows. As a test I used bootcamp and went into Windows XP. Plugged it into the same USB slot on the side and it came up. But upon rebooting into OS X it was no longer recognized. I actually got it to come up one time by opening USB Probe. After unplugging it and plugging back in, it no longer worked. I don't know what I did that one time but it will not come back. The time I had it running I moved files around to make sure it was working and it seemed fine. Does anyone know what I could do to get it working?
Model: Acomodata Model HD250UHE5-72
Thank you very much.

eddiefb3 wrote:
It has an external power source that plugs into the wall. As for the model,
Acomodata Model HD250UHE5-72
OK. They're supposed to be Mac compatible.
I guess you could see if it at least is recognized by the operating system even if it doesn't mount. You can open System Profiler in Utilities (or About this Mac > More Info...). The USB device tree should be under Hardware > USB.

External Hard Drive Not Being Recognized By MacBook

My Toshiba external hard drive (1TB, brand new) does not show up anywhere on my MacBook Pro (Also brand new). The light on the external hard drive comes on so it's not a connection issue, like the cord being broken. But nothing happens when I plug it into my MacBook, aside from the light coming on. It doesn't pop up on the desktop or in disk utilities or finder. I don't have my old PC laptop any more, all my files from that computer are on this hard drive and all I want to do is transfer them to my MacBook. And even though I don't want to lose any of my files, I can't even erase anything on the external hard drive to reformat it because it's like...not talking to the MacBook...

Your Mac should be able to recognize many different types of drives (including Windows-formatted drives) immediately for Reading, provided they are in good working condition and not damaged. There should be no need to transfer to a different type of drive.
If there is no recognition of this drive, see if it can be seen in Disk Utility.
If your aim is to transfer the data on it DO NOT use ERASE or PARTITION as these will completely erase all the information on the Drive.
If the drive is present while the Mac sleeps, it is likely to drop out and not be seen any longer, especially if it is a USB-powered drive.

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I picked up the LG-5163D dvd drive and for some reason my ibook isn't recognizing it. My ibook is brand new and so am i to the world of mac.
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Is the external drive use a power supply or is USB powered? Some computers may not be able to supply enough power over usb to power a hard drive. OR the computer may need to use 2 USB ports to power the drive, Or a USB self powered hub.
Probable the easy thing to do would be boot the computer into disk mode. and then plug the computer and the external drive into the other computer. And use that computer to copy the data from the external drive to the new built in drive.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661 explains how to boot a computer into disk mode.
good luck~

External Drives are not being recognized

Why is my Brand New Macbook Pro not recognizing any external drives? Neither Flash nor external?

CClinton, thank you very much. I did as you suggested, with one day to spare! Took it to the Genius Bar, although the computer passed spec tests, the computer did present external drive issues, some sort of lag-time and he said the computer was not storing things properly. Apple replaced the computer with no problem. The replacement computer is running much better, it is almost inexplicable....but ther is a noticeable difference somehow. The computer is faster and more responsive, and the battery does not poop out as quickly.
Thanks again....
reslyn

HT203242 New Apple External Disc Burner not being recognized

Have an old Apple 2006 Intel Imac. Burner no longer works and purchased an Apple External Burner. The system is not recognizing the burner it still wants to recognize the internal burner that doesn't work.

I suspect it is the adapter throwing a wrench in the works. Why not get an IDE drive instead?
See here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007589%20600003705&IsNodeId=1&name=ID...
What model HP is this anyways?
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My external drive is not being recognized by ITunes library

How do I change either the software, or the hardware drive letter, so that they work together as one?
My WiFi was installed as a K:/ drive and it cancelled out my external drive which was also drive K:/. Now my Itunes software will not recognize my external drive. Any suggestions folks?
Thanks for anthing you may suggest.
Rich

Plug in the flash drive in question. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder. In the lefthand sidebar do you see your flash drive listed? It will appear sort of like this:
Select the topmost listing then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Select one partition from the Partition Layout dropdown menu. Click on the Options button and set the partition scheme to MBR and click on the OK button. Set the Format Type to exFAT from the dropdown menu. Click on the Apply button.
You should be able to use the flash drive on both Macs and PCs.

Why is my Toshiba external hard drive not being recognized by my new Mac?

So: When I moved from Colombia I packed my stuff in an external hard drive, that was at the end of last year, Today I got my new MacBook Pro and I can't transfer my stuff because it doesn't even pop up anywhere. I read some other people's post and no: It doesn't appear in any of the two places people say it should appear (or I am not seeing it) whenever it doesn't automatically appears in desktop.
Funny story: It appears that my Mac's hard drive is a toshiba, the same brand as my 1tb external hard drive.
Suggestions?

I'm having the exact same problem... I have my Toshiba 1TB Hard Drive which I formatted to FAT32 so I was able to watch films on my PS3 off of it and recently got a MacBook Pro 13" i7 8GB RAM 750GB HDD, which is unable to read it (and I'm experiencing the same White Light when used with a PC and PS3 - which is when it works, and Blue Light when it is plugged into my MacBook and unable to open).
I've tried to follow as many instructions as possible that I've found on the internet but nothing seems to work - it won't even appear in Disk Utility, I don't know what to do. All I need to know is whether this a problem that can be fixed or not - otherwise I'll just get a new Hard Drive.

Seagate portable drive not being recognized after OSX10.9.2

After I installed the 9.2 update, my Seagate portable external drive is not being recognized - doesnt show up in Finder, or Disk Utility, but I know the drive is live, as I can feel it vibrating
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I had the same issue - the Seagate drive is in a format that will recognize both Windows and Mac formats and there seems to be a flaw with Seagate. After working on this for five hours and finally calling Apple, I found out why. If you reformat to Mac OS extended journaled then they usually start working properly.
When I contacted Seagate they said it was best if you are just using a mac to just use the Mac formatting.
Hope this helps and good luck. Hope there wasn't any valuable data on the drive.

External Harddrives Randomly Not Being Recognized

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