External Lacie drive suddenly became "unreadable by this computer"!!

Probably not the wisest thing to do, but I've just used a 160G Lacie drive to store ALL of the dv files and STP audio mix files for a 2hr project (and unfortunately one of the 3hr source clips), and the above message came up in red when I turned it back on.
If I look at 'about this mac' it is seeing the drive, but I get no options but to reformat!
I've tried it on 2 other iMacs, with the same result. The directory has obviously become corrupted somehow ..
Anyone know how I try and recover the files (which took me the best part of 2 weeks to create!!)?
Thanks,
Pete

Hi Christina,
It's quite possible the AC PSU has given out, if It's only Bus powered as it appears, that's the worst idea ever & asking for eventual problems.
What Format is it?
Did you install any WD SW?
Your best bet is DiskWarrio...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
But others that may work…
Drive Genius…
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php
TechTool Pro…
http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

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External hard drive suddenly became "unreadable" and the disk utility offers not repair options. The drive is visible in disk utility but may not be mounted... any suggestions?

I have a WD My Passport 070A Media 2.0 TB external hard drive that has suddenly become unreadable on my laptop (MacBook Pro circa 2006 with 10.4.11) and I have tried on a MacBook Pro 2011 running 10.6.8 with the same results. I had tried opening disk utility to repair the drive, but on both machines the drive is visible in the left column, with no indentation below the drive. When I select the drive in the first aid portion the only options highlighted are info and eject... I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions to repair the drive. I am currently in Belize and am not home for 3 weeks yet. I'm hoping for a fix while I am down here, otherwise I may have to wait... I appreciate any assistance!
-Christina

Hi Christina,
It's quite possible the AC PSU has given out, if It's only Bus powered as it appears, that's the worst idea ever & asking for eventual problems.
What Format is it?
Did you install any WD SW?
Your best bet is DiskWarrio...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
But others that may work…
Drive Genius…
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php
TechTool Pro…
http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

FAT formatted external hard drive is not 'readable by this computer'

Hello support community
The problem: when I insert my 'FAT' formatted external hard drive (Samsung M3) into my mac book pro it comes up with the error message that says "the inserted disk is not readable by this computer" and I therefore cannot access the files.
The story (potential further details):
1. I had a problem with my mac where it took hours to load each time I turned it on, would only work when power was plugged in etc. so I had to reformat my mac hard drive (when I tried to veriify it said repair, that wouldn't work). So i'm starting with a recently reformatted, clean mac.
2. Before doing this I reformatted my external hard drive (whilst on windows machine) to FAT32 (so I can use on both windows and mac) so that I could back up my files.
3. I then transferred files from mac onto external hard drive and then also put them on a windows machine.
4. After reformatting mac hard drive when I then tried to transfer files back onto the mac I get the 'not readable' error.
The technical details:
Thank you very much indeed anyone who can help or can try and help
Cheers
Andy

Erase the drive and reformat using your Mac (Disk Utility)

I am unable to get two external LaCie drives to mount. I switched computer desks and everything was disconnected for a few days. My 2T g drive mounted with no trouble. What can I do to mount the two LaCie drives? One is a 4T, the other is 1T.

After disconnected all the computer peripherals and trading computer desks, today I can't get the two LaCie external drives to mount. They were working yesterday, but not without problems. The 1T is hooked up for Time Machine, and it ran continually yesterday. Today it isn't mounting. The 4T showed on my mac desktop, but an error message stated it wouldn't mount. I'm not super computer savvy and really need some help. Also, the 2T g-drive is working without any problems. My iMac is an older 2008 24" aluminum model. It has been working well, but gets very hot in back. What should I try now?

How have you been connecting these drives to your iMac? USB?
Have you connected them back to your iMac the same way they were connected before? Including making sure they have the power they need?
If all the connections are just as before, and all the drives have the power they need, have you tried shutting down your iMac and starting it up from a cold start?
If you still have trouble I would ask whether you shut everything down correctly before disconnecting/unplugging/powering-down the drives. Unfortunately, it is possible that some of the drives were not disconnected or whatever in the proper manner, and, so, have become corrupted. (I'm hoping not, for your sake. However, even if so, such can be recovered, but it will take more expertise than you seem to claim for yourself.)

My external LaCie drive gets an error message "the disc you inserted was not readable by this computer." The only options offered are "ignore" or "eject" Disk Utility sees the disc but does not give a repair option. What can I do?

When I plug in my external LaCie drive I get an error message "the disc you inserted was not readable by this computer."
The only options offered are "ignore" or "eject"
Disk Utility sees the disc but does not give a repair option.
What can I do?

The good thing about mac-centric resellers such as OWC, is they have people on staff that can answer questions without you buying things first. They also have how-to information, and instructions are included in many of their products. I saw a link to watch a DIY video in one of their pages; an example of a RAID (with its own power supply) is shown on their drives page. Also a few in there, with no power supplies, for less money.
If I were looking to backup and perhaps also have a partition for a system clone, I'd consider something like one of these: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Some ideas on the RAID backup methods appear in google search, some of the pages are ideas and concepts; and the better ones also warn about using RAID for the only backup plan.
Oh, OWC has live chat. Haven't tried it, nor have I bought anything from them. I have what appears to be two products from them, but have not used either. One is in a box as-new, but has only USB2.0 ports & my Macs needed FW400/800. It has been said their RAM is a good way to upgrade, too. But I can't confirm!
A 'RAID-ready' unit for backup may be more versatile for just that, but I have not checked into these details. I use single HDDs in powered enclosures, and usually manually make backup clones to FW drives, of bootable OS X systems. Some of the OWC raid-ready use eSATA ports so that may not be viable for a computer without them.
The unused in-box external drive I have is like the base model in the link above. However mine is USB2.0 (maybe) and won't boot my older Macs due to hardware variance; and my preference would be for FireWire options, these models do offer that. But the one I have does not. Dual 500GB HDDs, and they could be used in tandem as a RAID. That would be a choice set up in software. I'm not sure and not interested enough to read up just now.
My backup method is not automatic, or a moving backup plan, if I don't get a move-on and make full system clones. I do make copies of photos and documents the manual way, to USB external drives; and occasionally backup to DVD or CD media. And USB flash, that helps to move files between computers without need to use file sharing via wi-fi. {Like Why fly? Walking is better exercise unless one is a bird. Squawk!}
https://www.google.com/#q=raid+backup+mac
Depending on the ports in your Mac, you may be able to use other cables to attach between a backup or externally enclosed hard disk drive with multiple partition and bootable clone in one of them. Not sure about the Thunderbolt, and where that is the main port, adapters are required to access other devices, as allowed.
Anyway, I am going on and on, yet not really saying anything.
My ideas would not be all that interesting to follow as a backup
plan when matching available newer hardware to task, but you
can get some into better ideas if you are not in a rush. Get a
good setup and then look into more an betterer stuff.
Good luck & happy computing!

Using time capsule to backup FCP files on External Lacie drives

Has anyone done this with any measure of success? I have my FCP projects on 3 to 4 external Lacie drives and I want to back them up onto my 1 TB TC. It seems TC only backs up the internal HD and not external HD's. Is my only option to drag the data onto TC without any hope of a regular back up?
Any suggestions would be helpful
Thanks

Unfortunately I won't be able to tell you too much about time machine. I don't use it. I use another utility to clone my internal HD once a day. I use Carbon Copy Cloner which is scheduled to do an "incremental backup" (only what's changed since the last sync) every day at 4 pm. You could do this same sort of thing via Time Machine. It's just a slightly different paradigm as far as back up strategies go. So it's sort of an either/or: Time Machine vs. CCC.
Then, you'd use ChronoSync to handle the external to Time Capsule. Actually you could use ChronoSync to do the internal to Time Capsule as long as you're, basically telling it to, "make this folder look just like 'this other' folder". ChronoSync can do it all as long as you're NOT talking about making and preserving bootable clones. If you're only trying to do a bunch of "mirroring" then ChronoSync could be "one-stop-shopping".
Hope that makes sense.
Not sure about "drobo"? Google search leads me to believe it's an external Hard Drive? If so, no. I haven't used it. But there's no reason why ChronoSync wouldn't talk to it and function just fine.

External hard drives suddenly changed to read only

Three of my external hard drives suddenly changed to read only. These hard drives have been working on my macbook pro for months. When I click on get info 'read only' shows up and there is no lock icon nor is there a window that shows name | permissions, also in disk utility the 'verify disk premissions', 'verify disk', 'repair disk', and 'repair disk premissions' buttons are ghosted and I can not select them. I have not made any changes to my computer and I have read many other posts and have not been able to find a solution.

About a hundred times with no luck. Some of my research is leading to Western Digital, there may be a problem with the drives' 'smartware' software. I've been using this drive for months and I never used the 'smartware', but I tried it anyway with no luck. I just remembered that four days ago I had this drive plugged this drive into an Iomega wireless storage device and it seemed to work fine. Now the wireless storage device can't find the drive at all. I just need to know if there is a way I can change the permissions back to read/write, otherwise I will have to buy another drive and transfer all the data to the new drive and re-formatt the wd drive.

USB quits after 10.4.11 update and can't read external Lacie drive contents

Performed update through Software Updater. (After reading this forum, I now know better for future updates) Now, my USB ports don't work and external Lacie drive looks blank. Plugged USB devices into PC and they work fine. From PC on same network, I can see all the files on the Lacie. Repaired disk permissions, shut down and unplugged everything, even power cord, and let it "think" for several hours. Still same problems. USB lights up for a few seconds then shuts down. Tried all USB ports, same problem. I can connect to external HD but it appears that all the files are gone.

Still not working.
I ran applejack, then re-installed the combo upgrade for 10.4.11, gave it several restarts, still no USB power or access to external HD. One thing that I notice, when starting up and the grey screen is up, the USB is lit. As soon as the little clock thing starts "running" in a circle, the lights go out. If I unplug then re-plug the USB devices, the lights come on for just a few seconds and then go out. Same results with and without USB hub in both ports. This is our old machine used mostly by kids for iTunes so we must attach the iPod to it or they will be on the new iMac, fresh out of the box!
BTW, we were 'tricked' into this upgrade. iTunes gave an error message saying that we had to upgrade or some features would no longer work. After the upgrade, iTunes said it would not load until we upgraded the OS X. I just jumped from 10.4.3 to 10.4.11 because that was the latest version. I have always trusted Apple and never had a problem, until now

Issue With Backing Up Video Onto External LaCie Drive

I captured some video onto my external LaCie Drive. I am now backing everything up onto a second LaCie drive, but some files will not copy over. I've tried copying to my desktop and then to that drive but that does not work either. I get a pop-up saying,
"Sorry, the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occured (Error Code 0)"
Any idea what's causing this?

Did you reformat both drives to MacOS Extended?
If not, that could be part of your problem. LaCie sells a lot of drives and some of them come as MS-DOS compatible (aka FAT-32 formatted) which causes all sorts of problems with Mac systems.
x

External Lacie drive

Is there a way to make the external Lacie drive power up when i start my mac? It is connected firewire.

LaCie Drives are supposed to sleep when your computer goes to sleep or shuts down. So you just leave the drive on all the time. But, this seems to be broken in 10.5.0, search "lacie sleep". Guess we'll have to wait for an update.

What is the circled number one under my drive icon on the desktop? I recently hooked up an external LaCie drive and hope I didn't partition my main drive somehow by mistake.

I noticed after installing an external LaCie Drive, that a circled number 1 appears under my drive icon on the desktop that was never there before. I have a iMac G5. I go to Disk Utility at times to erase or burn a disk. Could I have somehow partitioned my hard drive or what / why is that number appearing or is it normal? Thanks and I hope I didn't screw up the drive cause I'm a newbie and would hate to have to delete and reinstall. Could I have a tired machine? I have lots of GB's left and machine at times acts strange like will record something and default it to iMovie slide show unless I wasn't careful what file was open at the time. Can you tell me what the number means?

Try renameing it, but you might also check this...
n Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)
Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.
If it does contain data...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2474

External LaCie Drives

I have a MacPro (late 2013) running OS10.10.1 with 2 external LaCie drives (2tb Little Big Drive and 4 tb D2) connected via Thunderbolt. The problem is that these drives regularly eject themselves and I get the message about not ejecting the disc correctly.
I'm not sure if this is a LaCie issue or MacPro Thunderbolt issue - this is my first experience with Thunderbolt. Any ideas?

I have four La Cie TB externals connected without issues over the past 1.5 years. Here's my Energy pane screen shot.

My Western Digital external hard drive suddenly stopped showing up on my Macbook Pro and disappeared from Disk Utility. It works on a PC.

My Western Digital external hard drive suddenly stopped showing up on my macbook pro and it disappeared from disk utility. I have tried making invisible files visible but nothing has worked and my hard drive shows up on a PC but not my Mac anymore.

What is the manufacturer of the external and how old is it? Does it have its own AC power supply or is it USB bus powered?

LR 5 does not recognize my external hard drive. It has recognized this drive in the past. No help at any Adobe site.

LR 5 does not recognize my external hard drive. It has recognized this drive in the past. No help at any Adobe site.

My external HD contains photos I have worked on in the past.
Additionally, I have added photos to LR5 directly onto my Mac HD. (38
photos added when working in the absence of my external HD)
Presently, in the Library mode, the Le Cie external HD is not seen in the
upper left hand corner "Source" location.
The only way to "see" the La Cie HD and its photos is in the "Import" mode.
These photos have previously been imported.
I wish to use the La Cie HD as my source in the Library mode and proceed to
the Develop mode.
In other words, work on my previously imported, previously worked on
photos, now on the La Cie.

My external hard drive is not recognized by my computer.

My external hard drive is not recognized by my computer. I used it earlier and it was fine however my computer froze and I unplugged my hard drive without properly ejecting it. Now when I plug it in nothing pops up. I've tried on three different computers and no luck. I hope this is fixable! Please help.

Care to share which OS you are using?
Repair permissions & restart your computer.
Zap the PRAM

External Lacie drive suddenly became "unreadable by this computer"!!

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