External HD image not mounted

I recently disconnected my ext HD (unknowingly) improperly. Now the HD image does not mount and the ext HD lights are blinking. System profile: Firewire reads it as "unknown device". It is a SmartDisk CrossFire product-company just sold and I cannot find manufacturer support.
Am I SOL or is there a way to recover data?
Tried suggestions of unplugging and restarting - not successful.
Thanks for any help.
iMac 500 MHz (summer of 2000) 512 MB Mac OS X (10.4.1)

"Can you further explain your second idea."
As already suggested, if you have access to another Mac with a FireWire port, you could determine if the problem is with your iMac's FireWire bus, or the drive itself. When you purchased the drive, was it and is it still formatted as a FAT-32 or NTFS volume for PCs, or did you reformat it as a Mac OS Extended volume? If it's still formatted for use with PCs, that provides more options for you, in terms of being able to test it on a PC or Mac.
If the drive has a badly corrupted directory, transferring it to another enclosure won't solve the problem or recover your files. For data recovery, I'd recommend Prosoft Engineering's "Data Rescue." If the problem is strictly with the enclosure's bridge board, the only definitive way to confirm that would be to install another hard drive in it, and see if it's recognized by Disk Utility or mounts on the desktop. If a different hard drive is recognized, then the enclosure and its bridge board are good, and the hard drive itself is probably at fault. If a different hard drive produces the same results as the original drive that shipped in the enclosure, then the enclosure's bridge board may be damaged.
You could open the external case and transfer the hard drive to a new case. You need to know whether your existing FireWire drive has a 3.5" drive or a 2.5" laptop drive, as the data connection is different. Once you confirm what you have, you should check out Other World Computing and other online sources for a compatible FireWire enclosure. For a standard 3.5" ATA hard drive, OWC carries several external FireWire enclosures, such as this one by Macally, and their own line - the Neptune and the Mercury Elite. I'd be willing to spend a little more and go with the Mercury Elite, because I think it has a better design.

Similar Messages

External drives will not mount if wi-fi is on

I was really unsure where to post this. If you think it should be in a different thread then let me know.
My problem is this. I have a Macbook that I use at home no problem. I teach at a college where there is a wi-fi connection that my Macbook automatically connects to. Recently, I have discovered that any external drives will not mount until I switch the wi-fi off. Additionally, almost everything I try and do causes the spinning beachball for 10 minutes or more at a time.
I have searched the net and cannot seem to find any reference to this problem anywhere else. Any ideas at all why this might be happening will be much appreciated.

It was not until Mac OS X 10.6.4, not possible to run on a 10.2 machine, that ExFat was supported.
Many older Macs also will not recognize GUID formatted partitions made to boot Intel Macs either.
10.2.3 is the first system to support Apple Partition Map HFS Extended (Jornalled).
There may be NTFS support based on my tip here:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3003

External drives will not mount if the wi-fi is on!

I have had no replies where I had previously posted so I thought I would try here as I think that it is mainly an Airport problem.
My problem is this. I have a Macbook that I use at home no problem. I teach at a college where there is are two wi-fi connections that my Macbook automatically connects to depending on where I am in the department. Recently almost everything I try and do causes the spinning beachball for 10 minutes or much more at a time. Additionally, I have discovered that any external drives will not mount on my laptop, unless I switch the wi-fi off! No-one else is having any problems at all.
One of the wi-fi connections is an Airport Extreme. Each morning my laptop gets the message that there is a problem and I need to update the firmware to 7.5.2. (I originally set the Airport up through my laptop) I am very wary of doing this as everything is working fine for the other 20+ laptops in the department and I have read lots of reports of problems with this update.
I suppose my questions are these - 1 Does anyone have any idea what is going on with my laptop? 2 What should I try doing to solve this issue?
I have searched the net and cannot seem to find any reference to this problem anywhere else. Any ideas at all why this might be happening will be much appreciated.

It was not until Mac OS X 10.6.4, not possible to run on a 10.2 machine, that ExFat was supported.
Many older Macs also will not recognize GUID formatted partitions made to boot Intel Macs either.
10.2.3 is the first system to support Apple Partition Map HFS Extended (Jornalled).
There may be NTFS support based on my tip here:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3003

My external HD does not mount despite it appears on Disk Utility

I have been using an external HD to keep my video library. Just this week I updated my library and everything was OK, but when I tried to see the videos on my mediaplayer the disk didn't appear. I connected it again to my iMac but now the external HD does not mount. I tried Disk Utility, the disk appear gray on the sidebar but it doesn't mount. I run Repair but I get the b-tree node size error and the disk still does not mount.
Please help!!!!

If DiskWarrior can't fix it, you might try Data Rescue II...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
(Has a Free Demo to see if it could or not, but you'll need another drive to recover to).
Or FileSalvage...
http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?%20mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
to recover what you can.

Disk image not mounted

I have had a host of problems since i installed a Time Capsule. The latest is that after reinstalling my system software -- another story -- I have not been able to make back-ups. The message I get is back up failed, disk image not mounted. What is this? On my time capsule there is a disk image of my hard drive on a dog eared page called a sparse bundle. I'm sure this is easy, but I'm stumped.

huk730,
Welcome to the Apple discussion!
Consider the following causes of that error message. Also bear in mind that when you reinstall the system software, Time Machine cannot continue using the same backups as before and will start a fresh set of backups. [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338]
*_"The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted" (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”)_*
First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
Consider each topic below separately. When one option does not resolve your issue, then move on the next one.
*Unmount the Backup Disk Image* (TC)
If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
Eject the backup disk image (white drive icon) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
*“Disconnect All Users…”:*
If your Time Machine backup drive (“Backup of Users Computer”) is mounted on your desktop or in the Sidebar of the Finder window. then Time Machine may think the drive is already in use. Alternatively, if the Time Capsule hard disk has been recently accessed by a Windows machine, it may not have fully relinquished control. Do the following:
Open Airport Utility and select the Time Capsule on the left.
Click “Manual Setup”.
Select “Disks” at top of window.
Click “Disconnect All Users…” at bottom of window.
Close the Airport Utility.
Now try Backing up again.
“I got it resolved. Apparently it had to do with one of the files being open on the disk from the drive. I had browsed the disk with one of my windows boxes here and it must have left one of the folders "open". Anyway, I rebooted the TC and we are good to go now.”
*Proper Computer Name* #
Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
According to this article, [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
(0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
Let us know if any of the above was helpful.
Cheers!
Message was edited by: Glenn Carter

Hard Drive and Disk Image not mounting

Hey everyone,
I'm running a G5 Dual 2Ghz. with OSX 10.5.8 I'm having problems with a back up hard drive. It is an external Western Digital My Book 1.5TB SATA drive. After using it for a few months, it suddenly did not mount anymore.
*1) It also would not appear in Disk Utility.*
a) Disk Warrior couldn't find the drive (I think because it's formatted with FAT32)
*2) I then took the drive out of the enclosure and put it in the spare bay in the G5.*
a) It didn't mount
b) It did show up in Disk Utility
c) In Disk Utility it wouldn't give me the option to Repair Disk Permissions or Repair Disk
d) In Disk Utility is says under Partition Scheme: Unformatted
e) In Disk Utility I don't have the option to mount/eject only gives me the "info" option
f) Tech Tool did find the drive and it passed all tests
g) Disk Warrior still did not find the drive
h) TestDisk finds the drive, but does not find any partitions
*3) I then created a disk image of the drive in Disk Utility onto an external hard drive. The image comes back at 320GB, which seems to be about right I think.*
a) The disk image would not mount with Disk Image Mounter. It would say there is an Unrecognized File System
b) In Disk Utility - I don't have the option to Repair Disk Permissions
c) In Disk Utility - When trying to Repair Disk - I get the error: Repairing Disk failed with error Unrecognized FileSystem
d) In Disk Utility - If I click Open - The Log file says:
+Attach Image+
Initializing...
Verifying...
Finishing...
+Image of "disk0.dmg" attached successfully+
+Mount of "disk0.dmg" succeeded+
-But it is no where to be found
e) Disk Warrior can not find the Disk Image
f) I took the new external drive with the Disk Image to 3 other mac computers but the image would not mount
*4. Other things I've tried when opening the Disk Image for the new external drive.*
a) in Terminal - hdiutil attach -nomount "volumes/untitled/disk0.dmg"
b) in Terminal - sudo hdiutil attach -nomount "volumes/untitled/disk0.dmg"
c) Deleting files System/Library/Extensions.kextcache
System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kernalcaches
ALL UNSUCCESSFUL
I'm running very low on ideas. I know I could just erase the drive and reformat it, but the files on it are very important and must be recovered.
Any help or suggestions would be very helpful. I will not have time until after the weekend to try more things. Thanks in advance if you do not hear back from me until after this weekend.

Yes, it will. But if DU says the disk is unformatted then it is also not accessible. If you have files you don't wish to lose then you will need to try recovery software:
Basics of File Recovery
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

Disk images not mounting

Here's the question: how come .dmg files downloaded from apple.com (amongst other places) won't mount?
Here's the detail: This has to be a FAQ going by Google searches. I've downloaded the Mac Firefox DMG 3 times, and the Safari DMG from apple.com once, and when I try to mount the images I get a range of different cryptic errors, including "codec overrun", "not recognized", "error -some number or other", and so on. Sometimes, I get two different errors for the Safari image.
Existing disk images on my hard drive mount fine. Today my hard disk has been playing up, with files being corrupted, keychain being broken, prefs disappearing, and so on. I boot from the Tiger DVD, run Disk Utility and Repair Disk, tells me no repairs carried out as all hunky dory. Use Disk Utility on the HD to check permissions, those are fine. Run Onyx maintenance, all is fine. I've not changed the router prefs at all, so it's not that corrupting the downloads.
All was fine until mid-afternoon today, when a number of apps (Firefox, Safari, Dreamweaver) started behaving strangely and the machine kept on hanging. On restart a number of taskbar icons became question marks, so something's being corrupted. Some downloaded PDFs became corrupted.
What I might try to do is download DMGs from my work PC, put them on a stick, and try to mount them. If the problem recurs then that would eliminate download errors.
My conclusion is that either the OS has become damaged, or the HD is physically fubar'd, or at least has some physical errors on it somewhere which DU isn't picking up. If the latter I'm screwed as I'm out of warranty and I might as well chuck the machine in the bin, so let's hope it's the OS. I could reinstall the OS (again) but a) that would be highly time-consuming as I'd also have to reinstall a shedload of apps, prefs, configs, etc, and b) if there's a physical HD error it'll do zero.
I've already spent some fruitless and frustrating hours today on diagnosis, and having done tech supp in my career I know what to look for, so this is my last throw of the dice to try to get some kind person to suggest a) a diagnosis, and b) suggestions for a cure.
Without a cure I might as well take a clawhammer to the thing and get a Linux laptop. Ok, PCs are far inferior to Macs with crappy hardware, but at least you don't lose over a thousand quid when your PC laptop fails.
Cheers
Fred Riley
Web Developer, Nottingham, UK

I was able to get a partial fix of this problem by following instructions that I found on the All Experts web site:
Regarding disk images and mounting media:
delete the following files and folders:
* /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache (file)
* /System/Library/Extensions.mkext (file)
* /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kernelcaches (folder)
(Note that after deleting these files you need to reboot your Mac for the fix to take effect.)
All of these files and folders were date 18 Aug 2009, which is in around the timeframe when I installed the last security update for OS10.4 ppc.
I say the solution is a partial fix, because it did allow me to open some, but not all .dmg files (the problematic ones are showing a checksum error). Now I find that iTunes will not operate (yeah I know that should be another thread), but I have not used it in several weeks, prior to the last OS update.

External Hard Drive not mounting on bootup

I have a USB2.0 Hard Drive formatted with ntfs, which holds my music. I have an fstab entry for it using ntfs-3g and I can mount it fine after booting up. But the drive doesn't automatically mount like it should. It looks like the system is mounting the fstab entries before it is finished detecting my external drive. Anything I can do to fix this?

fwojciec wrote:I let my external ntfs drive be mounted by hal - I have no entry for it in /etc/fstab. In order to have it mounted with read/write privileges I had to create a hal policy like this wiki page describes: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HAL … ntfs-3g.29
I'm not sure if this solution is what you're looking for though...
I actually tried using hal to do it and it didn't work right for some reason.

USB 3 external drive volume not mounting on restart

I've bought an external USB 3 full size hard drive enclosure case and put in a 2TB drive. The drive is partitioned into 3 volumes. I've noticed from time to time that the volumes have gotten dismounted some how. If I unplug the USB cable and plug it back in the volumes mount again. After a long time I finally figured it out that what's really happening is that the volumes are not mounting when I do a restart, I just didn't notice it before. Once the volumes are mounted they stay mounted until the next restart. I replaced the enclosure and cable with a different and more expensive brand but that didn't make a difference. No matter what I do the volumes never mount on restart.

I think this might be due to the fact that my iMac as a fusion drive and it boots so fast that the exteranl drive isn't finished starting up when OS X is looking for drives durring it's bootup.

External hard drive not mounting on emac, works fine on windows xp machine

I am running an emac 1ghz powerpc G4 with 768MB sdram and version 10.4.9
I have an external hard drive that up to a few days ago ran smoothly. It contains all my itunes, iphoto, and imovie libraries.
Now it will not mount. It lights up, it runs, etc but I can't use it. I tried restarting machine etc. No avail.
it is a usb drive. Today I took it downstairs and plugged it into my daughter's windows xp machine. It recognized it right away (I was shocked too) and everything is there good as before.
I plugged it into every usb port in the emac and nothing. I am using the same cord on the xp and it works fine.
Any idea what it could be and how to fix it. I read on hear a lot to use disk utility. However when I run it it just freezes. When I turn that external drive off disk utility runs fine.

I am running an emac 1ghz powerpc G4 with 768MB sdram
and version 10.4.9
I have an external hard drive that up to a few days
ago ran smoothly. It contains all my itunes, iphoto,
and imovie libraries.
Now it will not mount. It lights up, it runs, etc
but I can't use it. I tried restarting machine etc.
No avail.
it is a usb drive. Today I took it downstairs and
plugged it into my daughter's windows xp machine. It
recognized it right away (I was shocked too) and
everything is there good as before.
I plugged it into every usb port in the emac and
nothing. I am using the same cord on the xp and it
works fine.
Any idea what it could be and how to fix it. I read
on hear a lot to use disk utility. However when I
run it it just freezes. When I turn that external
drive off disk utility runs fine.
Your external drive is formatted FAT32 or FAT, or the Windows box would have a problem seeing it. (Unless you have MacDrive on that box, that is.)
If it is formatted FAT32 or FAT, you are NOT going to be able to use Disk Utility (or any other Mac utility) on that drive. Disk Utility doesn't do FAT.
I'd copy the contents of the drive elsewhere then start up Disk Utility first and then plug the drive into the Mac and format it FAT32 from Disk Utility. If that doesn't work, format it FAT32 on the Windows machine. Note: if this drive is larger than 32 GB, you're going to need to generate two or more partitions, as while WinXP can read FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB, it can't create them. Macs and Linux boxes can create large FAT32 partitions. Second note: if the drive is smaller than 4 GB, you might want to think about formatting it FAT instead of FAT32. Indeed, Windows may insist. Do not let Windows format it NTFS; Macs can read NTFS volumes, but can't write to them.

WD Elements External Hard Drive not mounting

My external hard drive is not mounting it is connected by via USB connected directly to my Macbook. When I connect it error "The disk you inserted is not redable by this computer". I can see it on Disk Utility however all options are grayed out. I also tried connecting it to my sister's windows machine same thing not mounting. I've tried this suggestion http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2176 but I got an error "Error: -69877: Couldn't open device".
By the way it's a self powered 2.2TB WD Elements
Badly needed help!

I had the same info (with a WD essentials encolusre where I just replaced a 750 with a 2TB), but after closing both DiskDrill and Disk utility, the terminal worked. So have a look if there are any other disk monitorings on.
good luck

External hard drive NOT mounting to mac

I have never had problems with my external hard drive (I just bought it a few months ago), but suddenly it is not mounting on the iMacs at my work or my Macbook pro at home. The drive does NOT show up in Disc Utility, but when the drive is connected via USB, the light on the drive comes on and it is clearly operating. It will not mount on any mac product all of a sudden. I have no idea why this is happening someone PLEASE HELP thanks

you have a MacBook Pro, we are Mac Pro users.
It uses bus-power? has its own power brick?
Formatted for Mac (HFS)? Used on PC Windows and Mac?
Do you have it backed up?
Has there been an inadvertent outage or crash?
MacBook Pro

External hard drive not mounting - what's happening?

All of a sudden one of my external firewire drives is not mounting, but that's not all....
it's not showing up in disk utility, not showing up in system profiler, not showing up on desktop, not showing up in finder, not showing up in Disk Warrior, and not showing up in TechTool.
When I turn on the power, it seems to spin up but doesn't mount. No usual noises either.
Could it be a faulty controller board on the enclosure?
Any suggestions?
Really hope to figure this out, cause it has my entire itunes collection (500gb) on it.
Thanks in advance.

gr8fl4295 wrote:
All of a sudden one of my external firewire drives is not mounting, but that's not all....
it's not showing up in disk utility, not showing up in system profiler, not showing up on desktop, not showing up in finder, not showing up in Disk Warrior, and not showing up in TechTool.
When I turn on the power, it seems to spin up but doesn't mount. No usual noises either.
Could it be a faulty controller board on the enclosure?
Any suggestions?
Really hope to figure this out, cause it has my entire itunes collection (500gb) on it.
Thanks in advance.
First, try another FW drive or device in your computer to be sure that FW is working.
If you have more than one FW port, try the drive in it.
Change FW cable.
Try the external HD on another Mac (do not use a PC!!!)
If none of above works, it's most likely the logic card in the enclosure, and not the external HD. I believe your data are OK.

Lacie firewire 800 external hard drive not mounting in mac os 10.4.8

I have a pm g5 Dual 2ghz system ,i have connected an firewire 800 lacie 1tb external hard drive to the system,now the problem is it is not mounting on the desktop shows in the diskutility repaired the disk say's disk volume ok any way to mount the external hd on the desktop

Hi Veena, Welcome to Apple Discussions.
And you've tried choosing the volume and pressing the "Mount " icon on the tool bar of Disk Utility?
Have you shut down your Mac and disconnected your firewire cable from both ends and let it sit about ten minutes then reconnect and try. Also, it is important to disconnect the AC power to your Mac, this helps to reset the FireWire port(s).
Do you have TTP or DW, both of which you could use to try to mount it.
It is also possible that you have a bad cable or a bad port, do other FW devices work?
-mj
[email protected]

My 750GB Maxtor external HD will not mount on my iMac 10.7.5 for Time Machine

This external drive has worked in the past; I had used it to successfully back up the same computer I'm using now. After attempting another long overdue backup, it aborted mid-way. I discovered some chew marks on the power cord and replaced it. The replacement power cord is the proper one, and the light on the Maxtor is on indicating power. I've tried two different USB spots, both of which work on other devices. However, now the Maxtor will not mount. My intention was to completely erase the Maxtor and start clean. Never got a chance. I've verified that the Finder Prefs have external disks checked. Finder doesn't "see" it. Disk Utility doesn't "see" it. Time Machine doesn't "see" it. My desktop doesn't "see" it. Another external I have (WD My Passport Ultra) does mount. Is OS 7.5 the problem? How do I verify that the Maxtor is just plain busted before I throw it out the window? Or have I already proved that? It was never used enough to fail, it seems to me. Anybody?

Rats. Thank you for the quick reply, rkaufmann87. I'm not awash in other USB cables of this type, but will hold out hope until I get my hands on one. Time to shop for another external probably. Thanks again. [sighs]

External HD image not mounted

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