External USB HD won't mount anymore

I have a 1 TB HD that has all my media on it and today it's not connecting. In the past there have been connection issues such as:
when I brought my computer and external to a friend's house it wouldn't mount at first, and after restarting a few times and trying different USB ports it finally did mount. This problem persisted everytime I restarted my mac (iMac G5), and I realized that the problem was independent of which USB drive I used. Anyway, the HD would usually mount after a few minutes. It was mounted last night before I went to sleep. I woke up this morning and entered the password to come back from my screen saver and it wasn't on my desktop. I can't get it to mount and it isn't being recognized in the disk utility or system profiler. I've tried restarting mac numerous times, disconnecting/reconnecting the USB chord, restarting the external, but it still won't connect. Has anyone else had a similar problem or know how to help me!?

Have you tried using a different cable? Are you sure the power brick is working? Try disconnecting all other peripherals and then connecting the external.

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External hard drive won't mount anymore

Dear all,
I have an external HD that would always mount without any problem on my black Macbook.
Last month, I upgraded my system RAM from 2GB to 4Gb. It made the Macbook much faster, but also seriously reduced battery life. In a drive to fix this battery problem I reset the SMC.
Now, I do not know if these issues are related, but the strange thing is that mre or less since then my external drive won't mount anymore. The external drive itself seems fine. And when i plug it into a (powered) USB port of my external display, it will mount. But connecting it directly to the Macbook it won't anymore.
Somehow it seems like the Macbook's USB port is not giving off enough power anymore. Maybe it's because of the SMC reset?
Any ideas????
Thanks

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

External USB drive won't mount after 10.9.5 upgrade

Is anyone else reporting the following issue? Immediately after installing OS X update 10.9.5 (13F34) on 09/18, my external USB drive (IOMega 1GB OS X Extended FS) used for Time Machine would no longer mount and isn't recognized. When I look at the drives in finder, it is missing. However, it does show up under the USB Hi-Speed Bus device tree:
USB Mass Storage:
Product ID:    0x0376
Vendor ID:    0x059b (Iomega Corporation)
Version:     0.00
Serial Number:    ABCDEF012314E2ED
Speed:    Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer:    Iomega
Location ID:    0x1a120000 / 3
Current Available (mA):    500
Current Required (mA):    0
Console message when device plugged in:
10/6/14 3:22:31.000 AM kernel[0]: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): ABCDEF012314E2ED 0x59b 0x376 0x0, 2
mount command results:
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
/dev/disk1s2 on /Volumes/Mac-Mini 2 (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)
System is Mac-Mini (late 2012), 2.5 Ghz i5, 8GB ram, 500GB local storage, 1TB on second Firewire disk for media, 1TB USB disk for Firewire (PROBLEM)
I have reinstalled the combined 10.9.5 OS upgrade, and verified that the drive works when connected to my other MB Pro (mid-2012 running Yosemite beta 3). There is no third party software that I'm aware of in use for this drive, as it's only for Time Machine backups.
Thanks

Is the drive's icon on the desktop (perhaps behind another icon, which is possible if Finder > View > Cleanup is enabled)?
If not, is the box Finder > Preferences > General > External Disks checked?
Is the drive listed in every Finder window's sidebar?
If not, is the box Finder > Preferences > Sidebar > External Disks checked?
Are Time Machine backups to the drive happening on schedule?
If not, does the drive appear in System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Disk?
Can you open /Volumes/Mac-Mini 2/Backups.backupdb using Finder > Go > Go to Folder...?
Does the drive appear in Disk Utility? Is it (or can it be) mounted there?
Have you tried to plug it in to a USB port on the Mini (not a hub) or into a different USB port on the Mini?
Have you tried this: shut down; unplug the drive; boot the Mac; after you have logged in and the Finder is done populating the desktop and menu bar, plug the drive in?

External USB drive won't mount without running Repair Disk

I have a Seagate external USB hard drive. It's a 1TB FreeAgent drive that's USB powered. I use this to share data across several computers. Every time I connect the drive to my MacBook Pro, it does not mount. If I try to mount it, I'm told to "try running first aid".
So, I run repair disk, and then it will mount. I just did this, and Repair Disk reported "The volume /dev/disk1s1 appears to be OK".
Any help on this matter would be appreciated. It is formated NTFS, and I have an NTFS driver installed, if that makes any difference.
Thank you!

Is the drive's icon on the desktop (perhaps behind another icon, which is possible if Finder > View > Cleanup is enabled)?
If not, is the box Finder > Preferences > General > External Disks checked?
Is the drive listed in every Finder window's sidebar?
If not, is the box Finder > Preferences > Sidebar > External Disks checked?
Are Time Machine backups to the drive happening on schedule?
If not, does the drive appear in System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Disk?
Can you open /Volumes/Mac-Mini 2/Backups.backupdb using Finder > Go > Go to Folder...?
Does the drive appear in Disk Utility? Is it (or can it be) mounted there?
Have you tried to plug it in to a USB port on the Mini (not a hub) or into a different USB port on the Mini?
Have you tried this: shut down; unplug the drive; boot the Mac; after you have logged in and the Finder is done populating the desktop and menu bar, plug the drive in?

160 GB external USB HDD won't mount in 10.4.9; does in 10.4.0

I'm using a Beige G3 (though I don't think the model is the issue).
I know there's nothing wrong with the drive whatsoever, because it mounts on PCs, and it mounts when booted from both other hard drives on the system, on Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS 10.4.0.
I know it used to mount on 10.4.9, too. I thought maybe when I installed a 4-port USB 2 card things would resolve, but they haven't.... so I expect it's a driver (extension) issue.
I deleted a bunch of extensions a while back that I was sure I didn't need... I suppose it's possible I deleted one vital for USB HDD support on the HDD using 10.4.9, only I don't know which it would be... things were self-explanatory in the days of OS 9, not so much with OS X, it would seem.
I didn't notice it until fairly recently since I'd been networking to the external HDD via another computer as the built-in 10BT was sadly faster than the USB 1.1 card I had installed prior.
Anyway.... since I assume this is an extensions problem (it says when I turn on the drive that a certain extension is missing, but I can't remember which), can anyone tell me what particular extension it is that enables USB Hard Drives?
By the way, USB flash drives mount and run at USB 2 speeds just fine. Thanks.

It's an adaptec card, but that's actually not the issue; it stopped working on the old USB card where it'd worked just fine before, whilst still working when I booted into 10.4.0.
Once upon a time it was working fine on both 10.4.9 and 10.4.0.
It now says "AppleXsanFilter.kext" was installed improperly and cannot be used" when I start up the drive. It knows it's there, it just can't access it. It then says "device was improperly removed" when I shut off the HDD.

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

External HD's won't mount (& more) after update to 10.3.9

I updated from OS 10.3.2 to 10.3.9 using the Apple updater utility. After the update, external hard drives won't mount unless they are on when I boot up the computer.
Also music cd's won't mount, but data cd's do. The only way I can eject the music cd's is to shut the computer down or use Toast in copy mode. For some reason Toast can "see" the cd.
Also I was running Firefox 1.5.0.7 and Mozilla 1.7.13 when I updated. Now Firefox and Mozilla won't open. I had them in the dock and now clicking on them gets a question mark. I tried downloading Firefox 2. and when I double click the .dmg file I get a warning box saying that the disk image failed to mount because of "error 536870208". I get the same error message when I try and open the .dmg files for the older versions.
Do I need to wipe the hard drive and reinstall everthing? I hope not.
Thanks for any help,
John R

No. DVD's mount and work fine. Music cd's are the only ones that won't mount, and they don't get kicked out.They just sit in the machine. They are not damaged when I do get them out.

Harddrive won't mount anymore

Hello all,
One of my internal hard disks (Seagate Baracude 7200.11, 1 TB) of my Mac Pro won't mount anymore. The disk is spinning as normal, I don't hear a weird sound or anything. It just won't mount. Not in Finder, not in Disk Utility and not in Systemprofile.
I did try diskwarrior and some other utility apps, but nothing seems to work.
Is the disk just 'dead'? Or is there something wrong with the SATA connection?
Thanks for helping me!
Greetz,
Maarten

Thank you for the answers. I went to the Seagate website and did a firmware upgrade for the same hard drive that is (still) working...
The other one is 'dead' but, according to Seagate, the files are still on the disk. I contacted them to help me out. There are people that claim that Seagate will recover for free because it's a firmware problem.
Thankx!
Maarten

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.

My USB external hard disk won't work anymore after I updated to 10.4.10

As I said in title since it's quite urgent to me. ALL of my files is in my external hard drive. It's format as FAT or FAT32 I can't remember since I use it between mac and PC. More than that IT IS WORKING FINE UNDER PC. Before updating to Mac 10.4.10 I used my hard disk fine till I updated to this version. I plug in my usb port and after a hours it still won't be detected. I can find my hard disk in finder or desktop. I have tried plug my hard disk to other MacBook or Mac Pro but still won't work anymore. However it's working fine under PC or when I started my MacBKPRO as WindowsXP under bootcamp, my hard disk is working fine, too.
I have search this forum and seems someone have got the same problem as I face. I don't know what to do...and I feel so disappointed to Mac.

As Mac OS X has no known viruses in the wild, that leaves you with one of three possibilities.
1. When connected to the Windows machine, a virus has written over a critical boot block area which allows the drive to become crossplatform. Get the latest Windows virus detection software and make sure the drive is clean of Windows viruses.
2. The firmware that allows it to communicate driverless has become corrupted on the drive case. Replacing the drive case itself will eliminate that problem, as suggested earlier.
3. The directory damage is just enough that the boot block itself is damaged. Backup any critical data from the drive onto the Windows machine first, and run Alsoft Disk Warrior 4.0 to repair the directory and see if that works.
The fact that Mac OS X 10.3.9 won't read it basically eliminates this as a 10.4.10 problem. Only a boot block or firmware issue like this could make a drive not readable on one platform, but readable on another.
P.S. please note the nomenclature of Mac, versus MAC on this user tip, as it appears you haven't learned it:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=503342&tstart=10

USB 2 external hard drive won't mount on my G4 dual 450

I had a problem with my Intel iMac and had to take it for service. I tried to hook up the lacie usb 2 external drive that was my backup for the imac to my G4 but it won't mount (using the built in usb 1.1). I also have a usb 2 and firewire card in this machine and that won't work either.
It will mount on my G4 powerbook though, at usb1.1.
I don't see why the older G4 wount mount it too. Any ideas?

Pat,
When connected, does it show up in Disk Utility? If so, it's failure to mount is probably due to restrictive permissions and differing ownership. In other words, you probably have permissions for the volume set such that only the "owner" can access it, and said ownership differs on your G4 tower.
In fact, the drive is probably mounting, but the mounted volume is inaccessible to you (on the tower).
If you find that the drive is, in fact, showing up in Disk Utility, and you wish to access it from the tower, let us know. There are steps you can take to correct the problem.
Scott

External Lacie drive won't mount

I have a older Lacie 160GB LaCie P3 extrenal drive that I can't mount. There never has been an issue with mounting it before in the method described below.
Here is what happened:
I turned the drive on but the firewire was not connected so I turned the Lacie drive off.
I connected the firewire and turned the Lacie on and the (partitioned) drive mounted on the desktop.
I was looking through the files when I got the error message that the drive was disconnected without being properly ejected which I didn't do.
I tried turning the Lacie drive off and on but it won't mount. I get the same flashing light on the Lacie drive that I had before connecting the firewire.
I tried Disk Utility but it can't see the drive.
I tried connecting to my laptop but it doesn't mount there either or show up in disk utility.
Questions:
Any idea how I can get it to mount?
Is there any risk of damage to the data by turning it on and off in an effort to get it to mount. I can hear it running.
Thank you

LIkely (very) your SATA card is fried inside the box for same.
External HD are very easy to diagnose. Bad USB cable (on commercial sold USB drives) almost doesn’t exist anymore.
External USB HD have 4 'parts' (not counting the HD internals)
1. USB cable (never an issue anymore, approaching 100%)
2. HD enclosure.....a plastic or metal box which cannot ever be an issue.
3. the HD itself
4. ....and last but not least is the epicenter of 'weak links' ,.....a SATA card/bridge that is connected to the HD inside the HD box, the size of a stick of gum, with SATA female on one side, and female USB on the other side, containing circuitry for data transfer between the SATA on the HD and to USB on the other.
While these bridge cards are better than they used to be, theyre still insanely unreliable.
There are literally probably MORE than 100,000 perfect external hard drives out there thrown away every year because people assume the "hard drive is bad" when really they could crack open the HD enclosure, remove the HD and put the good HD into a new enclosure.
See this video of the SATA CARD, its at 8:55min. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pS_EDsP2KI
All conventional HD external are nearly 100% like the video above.
See pic below,..a (much larger) SATA card as found inside a typical HD enclosure ($20 ebay)
This is the nasty piece pictured below causing all the "crazy" activity seen on external HD, very odd behaviour, some have called it "haunted hard drive syndrome". Random ejects, random strange vanishing of the HD , especially in mid transfer of data.
the card attached to the TOP of the HD plugs in, that the SATA bridge

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!

Upgraded to Mavericks. Now External HDD Enclosure Won't Mount. Is there a fix?

Upgraded to Mavericks. Now I can't get my external HDD enclosure to mount. A little about this enclosure, as it's not the usual settup . I have four 3TB HDDs in a RAID5 settup. The most unique part is that they are formatted as a Windows NT Filesystem (Tuxera NTFS). Basically, when I set this up, I had to get a lot of info from a Windows-formatted HDD, but also be able to read/write afterwards. It's worked fine for ~ 1 year, but now that I've upgraded to Mavericks, nothing will mount. I ran Disk Utility, where I see the HDDs (I've partitioned them into four drives of varying sizes), but they are greyed out. I tried to mount them, but it says it won't and that I should run First Aid. So I did...tried to "Repair Disk," but it just gets stuck on "Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required." For over an hour it's been on that message.
So, does anybody out there have a fix? I've read several similar posts about people having a hard time mounting and, overall, dealing with external HDDs after upgrading to Mavericks. But nothing seemed to fit my exact circumstances. Lastly, I should mention that I've used both Firewire and USB connections. Both resulted in the same.
Thanks.

I can't help with specifics for your issue, but some general thoughts:
The upgrade and the disk problem may be a coincidence. It would help you if you could verify that the drive still works fine on a windows machine. If you run a windows virtual machine or have a windows pc, or a friend does, verify full functioning that way. If it still won't mount on the mac, try to copy/backup it's data onto the windows machine (maybe another external drive connected to it. You could then scrub the disk in windows, leave it unpartitioned, unformatted. Connect it back to the mac and format it as HFS+ (Mac extended journalled) and transfer the data back to it by sharing the windows machine external drive and connecting the two machines with a network cable.

External USB HD won't mount anymore

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