Flash drive not visible except in disk utility

I have a new MacBook Pro running Mavericks 10.9.2. The invisible flash drive is my main drive, not a USB drive. Not in list of Devices in Finder, no icon on desktop, no way to see it except by using Disk Utility. I see that many people are having problems with invisible flash drives but they all seem to be USB drives. Does anyone know if this is a Mavericks problem, or is it a MacBook Pro system problem? If Mavericks, maybe it will get fixed with next version.

I'm not certain what you mean by "invisible flash drive"?
If you want your drives to show up on yoru Desktop, set the Finder Preferences to do so:
Clinton

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Western Digital drive not showing up in disk utility--Help please.

Hello all. This is my first post. I am having trouble with my WD 500GB external hard drive. It is not showing up in disk utility when connected either via the firewire or USB ports. I purchased the drive about 8months ago, brought it home and set it up as my Time Machine backup drive. It worked great for several months, until it got full. Then it stopped showing up on the desktop for no apparent reason. I discovered through reading support documents on the Apple web site that when I set the drive up initially I should have changed the partitioning protocol from master boot record to GUID, but I did not. I followed the apple web site instructions for making the change expos facto, but was instructed to press buttons that were "grayed out". As such, I couldn't do it. Perhaps foolishly, I thought that I would just start all over by reinitializing it, formatting it correctly (with my new found knowledge) and then do the time machine backup fresh. However, the drive no longer shows up in disk utility no matter how or in what order I connect it. When the drive is connected by firewire there is evidence of some recognition of the drive in system profiler, but it is listed as "External HDD Buttons and Lights". There is also evidence of the My Book showing up at a minimal level (eg. the firmware revision and a few other details are listed). On the front of the drive is a ring of blue lights that progress in a clockwise direction as soon as a connection is made via either firewire or USB. Before that it is solid blue. I have read through all the info that I can find on this site, and all the suggestions require the drive being recognized in disk utility. Without that, I am stuck. I know this must be a solvable problem, because the drive just a bucket of parts before it was manufactured. I just don't know enough to solve the problem or even know what qeustion to ask. I would really appreciate some help. Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post.

If you can't boot from an OSX DVD, it sounds bad. Yet I think you said you were running Disk Utility from the DVD?
I got an external Firewire drive enclosure for 2.5 inch IDE drives from Other World Computing (OWC)
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MOTGFW400/ but similar items are available from many vendors like Newegg. About $60 for the basic model. More money can buy additional interfaces on the enclosure like FW800 and USB2; an AC adapter instead of letting the firewire bus power the drive (usually OK).

Windows based WD external hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility to reformat to Mac... how can I erase the drive

We have a WD external harddrive previously used with a PC that we want to completely erase and reformat for use with our iMac desktop for use with Time Machine. The drive shows up on the desktop of the Mac, but it does not show up in Disk Utlity, assuming because it's Windows format. Outside of the standard "erase" feature in Disk Utility, is there any way to reformat this drive for Mac OS X? Or how can I get this drive to show up in Disk Utility? Note: The drive functions properly, has power, and we are able to view its current contents through the desktop icon, so it is a working drive. And we are ok with losing all the current data on the drive.

Hmm strange, I had just moved my external Lacie drive from my windows machine to my iMac and it was showing up in disk utility still formatted fat32 or whatever. I would disconnect the drive and restart the machine then replug the drive and try again.
Also not that it will make a difference ( I dont think it will but hey why not ) try accessing disk utility from the install disk?

Hard drive not showing up in disk utility

We had a couple power outages a few days ago.
But everything worked fine last night when I shut down.
Started up--no chime--and got question mark in folder flashing icon.
Started up with G5 OSX install disk 1. Ran Disk Utility and hard drive DOES NOT show up. Checked again and again. Same thing. Zapped PRAM and did the "X" key thing (according to Apple documents). Now it starts up with chime. Still no hard drive.
I read other older posts with similar problems. Sentiment was that the hard drive was fried.
I have most clients work backed up. But if I can retrieve their data, I'd give up the whole computer. I really need that data. What are my chances that the hard drive is gone? I don't want to spend alot of money with an apple tech out here if its probably dead. I'll just buy a new hard drive and start all over.
Took the Tech Tool disk that came with Apple Care (on another computer; I don't have Apple care on this G5) and ran diagnostics. It just hangs up at "Scanning Volumes" with nothing labeled in the Volume drop-down menu.
Please advise!

Yeah, dadof3, you were right. I dropped it off at a authorized repair shop in Evanston, IL (lapin systems) and they told me the bad news. So they're putting in a 250 GB startup drive w/a new Tiger system AND putting aside a new Lacie 250 GB external firewire drive for me.
Instead of archiving jobs once a month and never doing back-ups, I'll be backing up my production folders DAILY with that external drive. I'll unplug it from the power supply upon completion of the backup.
Thanks for the last-ditch suggestion. I'll do the freezer thing and then connect to bay 2. Meanwhile, I'll be calling clients and dreading revision or re-order requests from jobs started between September and now (gulp). At least I have backups on another computer for my latest jobs.
This was a terrible lesson. Bitter, yet humbling. To all those who use their computers to put food on the table, don't be a fool like me! NEVER go without daily backups for jobs in progress or jobs not archived.

External hard drive not recognised after using disk utility to format

i formatted two external hard drives using disk utility on my mac mini, now they do not show in finder. they can be seen in disk utility but the repair options etc are greyed out?

Try http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Allan

Macintosh HD not visible / deleted in Disk Utility, cannot re-install Lion

Hi
Any help for the following? Excuse the unclear terminology
MBA 2011, trying to do a clean install of either Lion or Yosemite. I erased the 'Macintosh HD' in disk utility in preparation for this, but something went awry during the process and it seems to have actually deleted the 'parent' drive (i.e. the SSD which sometimes has the manufacturers name). So if I go into disk utility via ctrl+r the hard drive does not appear at all - totally gone. I try to do an internet reinstall of Lion, there is nowhere to install it; and if I try to reinstall Yosemite from a bootable USB I have the same problem. I checked the condition of the hard drive prior to this, it was fine, and I have checked the hardware using the ctrl+d on boot and this also indicates that there are no problems with the drive - so I reasonably sure the hard drive isn't actually fried.
So...where has it gone? And how to I get it back so that disk utility can see it and I can actually reformat it etc etc??

Boot the MBA OPTION + COMMAND + R. The resulting display should be a revolving globe.
By following the directions, you will be connected to the Apple servers and should be able to install the original OSX that the MBA came with (Lion).
A solid Internet connection will be required.
Ciao.

External hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility

I'm attempting to transfer something from my Mac to my Windows with a Toshiba 1 TB USB external drive. When I plug it in, however, it doesn't show up in Disk Utility, Finder, or the Desktop

No I don't, I was using it less than a half an hour before then I plugged it in, and it wasn't popping up again.

External Hard Drive not working thanks to disk utility format MS Dos?

hello everyone, i have a problem and i have no idea what to do, heres the deal.
a friend of mine bought a toshiba external 320gb hard drive, i have 100gb of video footage he needed, i opened the hard drive, used it without a problem, he took it home and he couldnt use it on his PC so i did some research and found out that to use it on a PC and MAC i had to format it using disk utility to MS dos, so i did that, after that both my macs dont recognize the HD and if i try a PC, it appears but you cant do anything with it, if i try to format it it says to insert a disk in that drive....
is there anyway i can fix this? or do i owe my friend a 320gb external HD?
thanks

Mac format is different than windows format. Fat32 is recognized by both systems, but has its limitations. You just need to reformat the drive to NTFS on a PC. I believe HFS+ was probably what your original drive was. If it was Fat32, it would have been recognized on the PC.
For future reference, just install the NTFS driver on your mac. You can find it here http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g. Reformat the drive on a PC, install the driver and you can read and write to Windows NTFS drives and never have to worry about it again. Just right click on it in Windows and format it to NTFS.
Hope that helps.

VirtualBox: Flash drive not visible in Windows Guest

Maybe this was better asked in a Windows forum but I'll ask here first
I have an installation of Win 7 in VirtualBox and I can check to use my USB flash drive but although in Windows there's a sound notification that a removable drive was connected I can't see it in the Explorer.
Any idea how I can access it under Windows?

Hmm. There is a thread started by yours truly for the same problem (only in x64 Arch hosts), but that was fixed by wonder back in version 4.0.8-2.
Are you also using x64 Arch as host? That thread has "other" solutions. See if those work for you. To be honest, I haven't fired up my win7 vdi in a couple of weeks so I wouldn't know if it works. But I can check tonight.
Here's the thread I was talking about: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=121377
EDIT :: Try what wonder says below first, if you haven't already. Then if that doesn't work, try the thread that I linked.

External Hard Drive not mounting. In Disk Utility, the partition in the drive is greyed out.

So my Seagate 500GB drive, didn't mount the other day, and I investigated a bit and tried repairing the disk and this happened... please someone give me hope! Ihad so many important and irreplaceable videos and documents on this drive!!!

Anyone? Please?

New hard drive not showing up in disk utility

I just purchased a WD 320 GB SATA hard drive to replace a defective drive in the Macbook Pro. Western Digital says I got a defective hard drive. Is there any other possible answer?

Yes, you could have a damaged hard drive cable or a faulty hard drive controller on your MBP's logic board. But if WD is willing to exchange your drive, take them up on the offer and see whether the new one works better, before you do anything else.

External hard drive not visible in disk utility or finder

Hi all,
I have had a good look through previous discussions and I can't seem to find an issue relevant to mine.
My external hard drive has 2 partitions (1 time machine back up, 1 general hard drive). The issue is that the HD is running when it is plugged in however it is not visible in either disk utility or finder.
I am running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) on a 2010 MacBook Pro. I also have parallels desktop running windows 7. When I boot windows and plug in the HD I usually get the option to mount the HD to either OS X or Windows. With this issue the option window appears for a split second (not enough time to select either) and then disappears. It seems that the HD may be ejecting itself as soon as it is registered by the computer. I have tried using a different power cable for the HD and also a different usb cable, this doesn't help.
The external HD is a Samsung D3 Station, which i have had for 6 months now and never had an issue with.
Any help is appreciated
Thanks,
Bruce

An update for anyone who can help me:
I have tried the external hard drive in other computers (mac and windows), each time I get the same problem above.
I have removed the HD from the enclosure and purchased a docking station for it (3.5" SATA). When I plug it in to the laptop it disconnects itself straight away before it is visible. With the windows computers it installs the drivers and says that the device is ready to use, then disconnects before it shows up.
As the HD is not visible there is no option to re-format or anything.
This is very frustrating as I was using the HD with no issues and it randomly disconnected and I have not been able to access since.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Bruce

IMac G5 17" is DOA... drive not visible in Disk Utility

About a week after my computer went out of warranty (OS 10.3.9), I have been experiencing random complete system meltdowns every 5 or 6 months. It begins while using the search feature, the beachball spins for 8-10 minutes then pulls search results. Following that, the system stalls on every task, and restarts with the blinking "?" folder. In the past, a re-install of the OS was a frustrating, but simple solution.
Last Friday, this happened for the fourth and final time. Upon attempting to re-install the OS, the install froze, locking up the computer. When I restarted to try to re-install the OS, the drive was not visible in the Disk Utility. It isn't visible in any Mac utility that I have tried, nor Disk Warrior.
I just replaced the SeaGate 7200 hard drive with a refurbed one, and the problem continutes--the drive is not visible to the install.
Is this 2-year old Mac now a paperweight? With the market resale value of this machine only about $500-600, I can't stomach spending a third of that to have something repaired, for all of this to potentially happen again.
Is it terminal? Has anyone else experienced this?
I'm really bummed out. As a Mac user for the last 15 years, I can't bear the thought of spending another 2 grand on a computer that will let me down again. I'm tired of the Pee Cee world hazing me as it is, and episodes like this don't make it any easier. Someone please tell me there is a solution...
doug

It DID break down a week after I received a call from Apple asking me to purchase an extended warranty. I wouldn't make that up.
It's on 10.3.9 because, in typical Apple fashion, 10.4 came out a WEEK after I bought my computer. I never bought the upgrade software from Apple just out of anger that a new computer was shipped with obsolete OS installed when a new version was hitting the shelves so soon afterwards. I work on 10.4.10 here at the office, and never missed the "features" at home. For $179, it wasn't something that ever screamed to be a necessity for a home computer.
The drive wasn't necessarily refurbed, but it was "recycled" and bought cheap to find out if it could be a simple solution. For $35, it was an easy attempt to figure out what was wrong with the computer. It didn't solve the problem, and was much cheaper than throwing money at it without knowing what was wrong.
At this point, I'm trying to save this box from becoming landfill. I bought a Dell PC laptop this past weekend for a third of what I paid for this iMac, and when it breaks down or obsoletes itself in 2 years, it won't be so difficult to swallow getting rid of it for something new.
I'm going to open this up again this afternoon to check the test LEDs and see if I can spot anything.
Don't get me wrong, I love Macs, and always will, but I can't any longer justify spending $2000 on a home computer. They are disposable appliances, and if they aren't going to come from the factory with warranties long enough to last through their lifetime, then it's difficult to spend that much money on a computer than only needs MORE money spent to maintain functionality.
I'll post back with my findings later today after I crack this open. Thanks for the assistance so far.
doug

USB flash drive not being recognized as a startup disk?

Hi everyone, I've been searching for similar questions but haven't found one that exactly matches my experience. So, I'm going to try and explain my issue in hopes that others may be able to help.
I'm trying to create a bootable flash drive from which I can install lion, and eventually Mountain Lion when it is released onto my main hard drive. My main reason for doing this is to have a way that I can perform a clean install of the operating system. Yes, I know I am old fashioned, but sometimes I prefer clean operating system installs rather than upgrading. In any case, I have downloaded the lion setup file from the Mac app store (Install Mac OS X Lion.app) and am following the directions given on this page to do this procedure. These directions are consistent with directions found on various other sources online. Having this file saved to my hard drive, I was able to find and extract the disk image file from the package InstallESD.dmg to another folder. Once extracted, I plugged in my flash drive and attempted to use disk utility to restore the disk image to my flash drive. I selected the dmg file as my source and the flash drive as the destination. I then clicked restore and was warned that all data on the flash drive would be erased while the disk image was restored to my flash drive. I was prepared for this, so I allowed the process to continue, and it appeared to proceed with no problem. When disk utility was finished, I did a quick look at my flash drive using finder and confirmed that it did in fact appear to contain a disk image of the .dmg file. Here's where things get interesting however.
When I go to system preferences and choose startup disk, my flash drive is not listed as an optional disk from which to boot, only my hard drive ("macintosh HD"). When I restart and hold down the option key, my flash drive is not listed as a startup disk either. I know that the non-intel based macs are not capable of booting from USB, but this is certainly not my issue as I have an intel macbook pro, mid 2009 model. My flash drive is about 4 or 5 years old; it is a PNY Technologies Attaché 16 gb flash drive. I have no trouble viewing and transferring files to and from the flash drive, the only issue is that my computer seems to refuse to recognize it as a startup disk. Are there certain flash drives which do not support booting? This would normally seem more like a computer issue rather than a flash drive issue, but most people seem to have no problem doing what I'm trying to do. Unfortunately I do not have another flash drive with which to test this, and I didn't really feel like buying another flash drive just to test this out if in fact this is not a flash drive issue. I am planning to upgrade to the macbook pro retina soon which of course does not have an optical drive, which is one of the reasons I would like to get this working. Can anyone think of something else I can try? Is it more likely an issue with the macbook pro or the flash drive?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

The format says Mac OS Extended. All of the settings were set during the disk image restore process. Even if I format the flash drive as extended journaled or some other format, all of these settings are reverted when I do the restore from the disk image. I will just copy all of the information that disk utility has so that you can see it.
Mount Point : /Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD Capacity : 16.11 GB (16,106,110,976 Bytes) Format : Mac OS Extended Available : 12.3 GB (12,303,499,264 Bytes) Owners Enabled : Yes Used : 3.8 GB (3,802,611,712 Bytes) Number of Folders : 128 Number of Files : 876

Hard drives not visible in Disk Utility

I decided to add two additional 1.5 TB drives to my (early 2008) Mac Pro, in addition to the two 1.0 TB drives already there. I have a Mac RAID card, but the drives were not configured into an array because I was having battery and setting problems with the RAID card as described in previous posts.
I perhaps got the the not so bright idea to reconfigure my system from scratch, so I put the two 1.5 TB drives in, created partitions via Disk Utility, and then took all the drives out. I then put one of the new 1.5 TB drives in only, and re-installed OS X. So far, so good. Then, I put all 4 drives in, including the previous 1.0 TB drive with OS X on it.
Interestingly, the system then booted to the old 1.0 TB drive with OS X, and then it 'hung' on something with the spinning icon. I shut it down, and then put the new 1.5 TB with OS X, but it would not start. I yanked out the RAID card, figuring it was not helping. I managed to put the Boot DVD in, and the system does boot to DVD. However, it cannot visualize any drive at all, only the two DVDs in Disk Utility.
I tried several things. One is hardware scan by holding the 'D' key on startup -> no errors.
I then tried resetting the PRAM holding the command-option-P-R keys, same issue - boots to DVD, but no drives.
I then tried resetting what I think is the SMC, which is a button on the motherboard down near where the memory slots, and there a green light comes on next to the STBY area.
I'm out of the Apple care warranty, and I guess I'll have to pay for support going into the Mac Store, but I am hopeful someone has an idea.
I wondered if the cable from the SATA connector to the motherboard was loose, but it appears intact. However, I'm not sure how to get the plastic cage off.

Good idea, but the RAID card is out, and even the original drives are not visible. There is some type of BIOS or some related error.

Flash drive not visible except in disk utility

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