Force Hard Drive to Mount?

I have a Mac that will not boot. I have tested the Mac and the hard drive with TechTool Pro. The volume is corrupt, and neither TechTool Pro nor DiskWarrior have been able to repair the volume.
I have been able to recover data with data recovery software, however, I would like to be able to browse the volume in Finder so that I can get the files recovered with the structure intact, rather than needing to rearrange all of the files.
I can connect the Mac with the damaged volume structure to my MacBook Pro and it shows up in the System Profiler in Target Disk mode- the proper hard drive size and name of the volume show up, however, I cannot get the disk to mount. Is there a Terminal command line that would force the volume to mount on my desktop?

I once had disk corruption that DiskWarrior was not able to repair. TechTool Pro did not have any better luck. However, on the Report window in Disk Warrior, there is a very useful feature. Although Disk Warrior told me it could not repair the damage, it fixed the volume enough to use the Preview button on the Report window.
Normally, this feature is used to visually compare the new optimized disk directory with the existing one before clicking on Replace. But in this case, it let me mount the damaged volume (in Preview mode) on the Desktop like any other volume. Using Finder, I could open the volume just like any other volume.
What I did was run Disk Utility (with DiskWarrior still running) and make a disk image of the still mounted damaged volume, and saved the image file to another drive. After making sure I could mount and access the disk image, I erased (reformatted) the drive with the original (damaged) volume. Then I used Disk Utility's Restore tab to restore from the disk image (source) to the now empty internal drive (destination), and it worked.
I tried to restart from the restored volume in the internal drive, but unfortunately, the system would no longer boot because of the files missing from the previous damage. However, all I had to do was run an +Archive and Install+ option installation (using my Mac OS X installation disc) on the drive. This gave me a fresh system while preserving my user data, and I was able to restart with my user account and most of my user data intact.
So this is an example of how DiskWarrior saved the day, even when it failed.
Note: I was able to run Disk Utility and DiskWarrior at the same time because I have an external emergency/maintenance boot drive with a basic Mac OS X installation and a few utilities such as DiskWarrior and TechTool Pro. You may NOT be able to do the same thing if you are starting up from the DiskWarrior bootable optical disc.
What you CAN do is install DiskWarrior on your MacBook Pro, if you have not already. Be sure it is the latest version that fully supports running on Leopard. Start the Mac with the damaged volume in FireWire Target Disk Mode again, and connect it to the MacBook Pro as an external FireWire drive. Run DiskWarrior on the MacBook Pro. It should (hopefully) see the damaged volume and be able to act on it to attempt the repair. It may not be able to repair the damage, but hopefully it can repair it enough to mount it in Preview mode. Then, you can do what I did, or simply use Finder to copy off the files with the directory structure in place to another drive.

Similar Messages

Tiger randomly stopped allowing my External Hard drive to mount and...

Hello, I have been using an External Hard Drive (1 terabyte Seagate, new) for a couple months if not a year by now for saving movies, and all of my iTunes on it. Its been working wonderfully. However it recently stopped being able to mount citing invalid hard drive and gives me the options of either eject, ignore, or initialize. Im not sure what to do. And also my computer has been acting funny every since the day it started. I will walk you through it step by step.
July 6th I was surfing the web and unfortunetly clicked on a link that aparently contained a trojan. Or atleast thats what my Antivirus notified me of. I had downloaded the trojan some how without a pop up or anything telling me I was downloading anything. (using safari) So i ran a virus scan and saw one virus was in my system and that it couldnt be deleted or repaired by my antivirus program, Im working on getting rid of that but at the time I had my Seagate 1 terabyte external hard drive attached via fire wire to my Macbook. It was working then.
Later that day I unplugged my hard drive and took my laptop around a little bit, nothing unusual. Then when i came back later that night I tried plugging in my hard drive and a pop up stated that the hard drive was unable to mount and I could either eject, ignore, or initilize. I tried may different routes, restarting, letting it all rest, etc. And in Disk Utility i try to verify the disc and it says its unable to and needs repairs. So I try repairing the disc and it says unable to due to an error.
Then yesterday I went to my applications and noticed none of my applications are there anymore. These applications were saved on the internal hard drive so it was very odd to me. However i can still use spotlight to find and open my apps.
My question is, What can I do to allow my external hard drive to mount? I dont figure it is the trojan on my system but could it be? If so how would I fix it? Im mostly worried about getting the data off the external hard drive then I can reformat it. Or if theres a way to just get it back to normal without reformatting Id love to hear it. As for the applications missing and the trojan on my internal hard drive I can fix that, at the very least Ill just reboot my system with my original OS Disc and just start fresh, its about time anyways.
But please. If anyone has ever had their external hard drive just stop mounting and figured out what to do I would be ever so grateful to hear how you did so. The hard drive itself isnt damaged, its not making any unusual sounds. Whenever i plug it into the computer it acts like normal (turning on and what not) until the computer tells me it cannot mount then nothing happens. Ive looked online and it seems to be a software issue.
If its any help I was downloading a torrent (.avi, no viruses) at the time. I know sometimes if one file on the hard drive becomes corrupt the whole thing becomes unusable. Regardless I would appreciate it if anyone knows a way to at the very least retreive the files on the drive, but preferably know how to just get it back to normal. If i could get it to force mount (via terminal or something) I know which file would possibly be the corrupt one or something so I could work with it.

Bejan:
Thanks for posting back with the pics of the messages from your computer. Disk Utility reports "Underlying task reported failure" when repairing a volume is a directory error which cannot be repaired by Disk Utility. Unfortunately, Disk Warrior may not be able to replace the rebuilt directory, either. Tech Tool Pro has a better chance of repairing it, although this particular directory issue can be stubborn, and is often rooted in a hardware issue. Your surest bet is to backup/clone the information on the HDD using a utility like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner, completely reformat and erase the HDD (directions below), then restore data from backup.
Formatting, Partitioning Erasing an External HDD
• Connect external HDD to computer
• Turn on external HDD
• Start up computer and log in
• Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility and launch DU.
• Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
• Select Partition tab in main panel.
• Click on Options button
• Select Apple Partition Map (PPC Macs) or GUID Partition Table (Intel Macs)
• Click OK
• Select number of partitions in pull-down menu above Volume diagram.
For more partitions than one, after you have selected the number of partitions adjust the size of the partition by selecting the top partition and typing in the size; then move down if more adjustments need to be made.
(See Dr. Smoke’s FAQ Backup and Recovery for tips on partitioning external HDD)
• Type in name in Name field (usually Macintosh HD)
• Select Volume Format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• Click Partition button at bottom of panel.
• Select Erase tab
• Select the sub-volume (indented) under Manufacturer ID
• Check to be sure your Volume Name and Volume Format are correct.
• Click Erase button
• Repeat above procedure to erase each partition
• Quit Disk Utility.
cornelius

Hard Drive Not Mounting After Being Magically Changed to Read Only

I was using a firewire connected, verbatim 1tb drive as a time machine. Everything had been working fine, but I walked away from my laptop for the morning and came back this afternoon to find my hard drive changed to read only. Time machine wouldn't back up to the hard drive; so, I rebooted.
Since then, I haven't been able to get the hard drive to mount. It won't show up in Drive Utility or on the desktop. I have rebooted the hard drive, unplugged it, turned it on and off.
What should I do? How do I fix this? It has my backups and my music. I'm no amused.

I've had exactly the same trouble this morning.
I'm using a MacBook Pro with my Time Machine on a portable Hard Drive. When doing my regular back up the computer froze. I force restarted the computer and the TM drive came up as 'Read Only'.
So, I rebooted again and the drive is not mounting at all. I can see it connected through System Profiler, however the drive isn't showing up in Disk Utility.
Does anyone have any ideas? Coz I don't seem to be the only one with this issue.

External Hard Drives not Mounting after Yosemite Upgrade

I've just upgraded to Yosemite, and none of my external (USB) hard drives are mounting (they don't even appear in Disk Utility).
Any ideas?

MacBook Pro 2009. 250 SD, HD 8Gb Ram.
I have had this issue for about a year...with no resolve!
Apple and the User community have not been able to solve issue.
I have had to work around it since the Oct 2013 Mavericks upgrade which “killed” (rendered unmountable) both my USB and Optical drives.
Hundreds of replies and remedies have not corrected my issue. Hundreds of replies stating that if there was a global issue it would of been fixed by Apple, not true. And dismissive replies stating that there must be a hardware issue are very discouraging.
So now, hoping to help the voiceless masses, I'm forced to share my experience.
As I stated, I have been having the issue since one of the Mavericks upgrades. The upgrade rendered externally attached drives unmountable...They are all seen in Disk Utility. They are just not mountable. Regardless of the flavor of the disk format, either Mac or PC, they are found, seen and refuse to mount. I can see them using Terminal commands, I can see them in System Report. I can reset all the memory I want...turn it off, reset, sleep, turn on, restart...NOPE...And the optical drive takes in disks but ejects them after an attempted mounting. Keep in mind, there are no physical issues with either USB or optical drives.
So now...I have had enough and need to correct the issue or buy a new equipment - starting to get into software development and need working equipment!!!
For the past month, I have been visiting the Apple store to assist in my issues...Back Story: I'm an IT Field Tech for the largest department store in the country and I have the good fortune of dropping in the Apple store anytime I want...The Geniuses booted the MB with a bootable image of Mavericks, and the USB and Optical drives WORKED fine...So, after I had stumped the Geniuses with my problems, we agreed that we would attempt to format and re-image the MacBook...Fine, do it, it's backed-up, how you ask? - Via my wireless My Book Live 3T drive, which only took 24 hours to backup, AKA Time Machine!
Great news! The re-image of Mavericks proved to work! I WAS able to mount external drives attached! How is that possible? Don't know, don't care! It just worked! So happy!
But wait! I then took the laptop home. Connected to my WiFi, to update Mavericks to the latest version...Good so far! Then it came time for a Time Machine restore, AKA Migration Assistance restore...So, I proceeded to migrate data back to my MB via wireless drive, good so far, booted in Migration Assistant, and I chose to restore everything except the network files, thinking that may be an issue...22 Hours later, the MB migrated without issue...all apps and personal files had migrated! YAY!
BUT NOW THE USB AND OPTICAL DRIVES FAILED TO MOUNT!!!
Great now what? I know, I will just re-image and start again...WAIT, I don't have a Mavericks Install Disk, no problem, I will just create a bootable USB drive with the Mavericks Install Image I downloaded onto my MB this month...NO YOU CANNOT, because you have no use of the USB drives!...And, Apple stopped making OS CDs back in 2009...Oh, and that wouldn't of done me any good, because the optical dive was unusable, anyway!
SO, back to the Apple store with my head hanging! At this point, Yosemite came out the previous Thursday, so no more Mavericks images, great! Perhaps the new OS will alleviate my nightmare!!!!...So, they re-imaged my Mac with Mavericks, drives worked again! SO, I took my MB home and attempted to download the new OS, Yosemite...which only took 2 days due to the amount of traffic on Apple's servers!...Anyway, Yosemite finally installed without out issue! Drives still worked! And so, I shutdown and restarted the system...No issues, USB and optical drives worked beautifully! Yay, Yosemite!...Fixed all my troubles!!!...Not so fast...
And so, I, again, attempted to do a Time Machine restore, via WiFi, this time it took 24 hours to restore...AND it worked! All apps and personal files transferred without issue, So happy! Put the laptop in Sleep and left it home and went to work! Came back from work, tested the system without issues. Rebooted...USB and Optical drive are NOT MOUNTABLE!
So now, what is the file that the restore keeps pushing to my MB that kills the USB and optical drives?
I would just stop restoring from a Time Machine backup, but the only way to get into the TM image is to use Migration Assistant. I cannot view the date in time of the image in TM's Star Wars time line. So, I'm forced to back up everything from the image in Migration Assistance. Not sure that it being an encrypted image has anything to do with it...
...Regardless, what is being “restored” to the MB that continues to configure the OS in such a way that makes all external drives unmountable...keep in mind, my external keyboard, hub and mouse are usable via USB.

2 different brand USB external hard drives not mounting- Firewire ok

Hi, first timer here so apologies in advance.
i have to different brand external hard disks and they both show up fine with a firewire connection. the trouble is that i need to use the usb connection and neither show up. (shows up in system profiler though but not disk utility.) why USB if i can use Firewire? I will be using the disk to connect to a Wii console via usb port and the Wii is not recognizing either disk either?
Any ideas on how to get one of these disks to mount by USB?
cables are fine as work with USB only hard disks.
Thanks in advance

Hello Bob,
Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately it does not show up at all in "disk utility". But appears in System Profiler under USB. This is true of 2 different external hard drives that mount fine with the firewire cables. One is a 3.5 inch and the other is a 2.5 inch portable. The USB cable is not faulty as tested it with another USB peripheral. Now a big believer in coincidences. Am i doing something wrong?
any other thoughts?
thanks again

I cannot get my hard drive to mount on desktop

Today I had to erase my internal (start-up) hard drive and reinstall Mountain Line (ML) and although the reinstall seems to have occurred correctly - the iMac will now start up and run properly - the icon for the internal hard drive does not appear on the desktop along with the other disk icons. When I hold the option key down during start-up the Hard Drive icon shows up among the other drives attached to my Mac - but the icon or image of the internal hard drive does not appear on the desktop. I tried to use Disk Utility to mount the disk, but even though the disk is listed and shown in the left most column of the Disk Utility window - the drive will not mount on the desktop
I seem to remember that the same thing happened when I originally installed Mountain Line on this machine - and after poking around in countless menus I found an option that when selected caused the internal hard drive to mount on the desktop just fine. But I've not been able to find that option thus far with the newest version of ML. And a search of the "Help" system was useless.
Can anyone shed some light on the resolution of this problem?
Thanks

Finder - Preferences - General - click the boxes you want for "Show these items on the Desktop"

How do I get a crashed Powermac G4 hard drive to mount?

I have a Western Digital 20GB Ata hard drive that has crashed badly. Despite reading other forum posts here and trying out the useful suggestions, I have been unsuccessful in remounting my hard drive. This has denied me access to a precious archive of work e-mails in my macmail mail-box, and other home office work data including Safari bookmarks tracked via the now non-existent user preferences folder.
This is all information that I would really like to recover without sending to a data recovery company. The loss of data access has been stressful for me over the last several days.
Fortunately, I always stored my text edit, word, and other raw documents on a subsidiary drive. However, and this is unfortunate, backups of my "home folder" fell of the radar due to some significant health issues over the past couple of years. Now, I'm paying the price for that loss of focus.
I'm running a Powermac G4 AGP machine with 1.5ghz fastmac processor, 1.75gb ram, OSX 10.4.11. This has been a good computer for my home office work including e-mails, web browsing etc. The main drive in a two drive setup has been a 20gb Apple branded hard drive Western digital drive that was reported full before the crash. This was after the console log file in the system folder reported large gigabyte file logs.
No major data has ever been stored on this hard drive, only the OS, yet it would fill up. This has happened in the past and I have been able to delete these files, then restart the computer thus clearing hard drive space. I've done this for the last two years.
Two weeks ago when the computer reported low hard disk space, I had a several safari windows open. The computer then froze and the entire computer became totally unresponsive. I had to force power off the computer to get it to restart.
Since then, despite using disk utilities like Techtool, Disk Warrior, Prosoft Drive Genius, Prosoft Data recovery and other software demos like Remo recover, Total Recall, Stellar Phoenix, and Virtual Lab the drive has never been "seen" by the OS to let the data recovery software access it.
I've also used techniques like Safe boot, Singe user mode, Target disk mode, plus mounting the drive in a Wiebetech Firewire 400 external enclosure, and still I've never managed to get the drive to be recognized by the system, let alone remount. All I got was the circle with a slash through it or the mac smiley icon that alternates with a question mark.
The 20Gb WD was the primary ide drive in a two drive setup that also has a Maxtor diamond Max Plus 9 60Gb ATA133 Hard drive which was my subsidiary drive for data storage. I have since mounted this drive when it was made the only drive on the ide cable (the Maxtor has 10.4.6 on it that I can boot from successfully). (If the Western Digital is either the primary or secondary drive on the joint ide cable, the Maxtor then fails to mount).
The crashed hard drive symptoms are:
On startup the Western Digital disk makes several whining noises like it wants to startup, and also sounds like it is trying to access the drive data platters, then it goes quiet. After making the drive the only drive on the ide cable, and rejumpering the drive accordingly, it is only making two whining or "coughing noises" like it wants to start, then goes quiet. In neither case, does the OS ever register its presence.
In the firewire enclosure the drive either starts with the first type of sound and then reverts to periodically making the second type of coughing sound or it just makes the "coughing sound".
Crashed Drive Description is:
WESTERN DIGITAL 20GB TRIDE 655T0022 WC93300Y5H7YA EIDE HARD DRIVE. Made August 18, 1999.
MDL (Model) is WD205BA-40AK.
Firmware is CRNBLKMO.
PRIMARY CONTROLLER BOARD (PCB) NUMBER ON WHITE LABEL JUST ABOVE DATA CONNECTOR IS 845000A 30M01G2V2E2 0056, Apple part # 655T0022
Has Apple logo and came with Sawtooth Machine 450Mhz that was upgraded to 1.5ghz via Fastmac processor and 1.75Gb CL2 Crucial Ram.
Any ideas or suggestions would be most welcome to get the drive to mount and then copy of my home folder data.
Thank you.

Hi Glen,
thank you for your response and suggestions. Truth be told, the old wives tale you mention is gospel for some depending on where one looks on the internet. There's actually a website dedicated to the discussion of crashed hard drives that was started by a guy who persisted in trying to look at alternatives because the professional data recovery option was too expensive for him to pursue.
He eventually had success with an exact make and model "donor" drive logic board swap and got all his data back. On the forum there and elsewhere many people swear by the freezer method as the only way they got their data back.
However, the option also has risks so has to be applied with care. So I'm not committed to pursuing that path and no I wouldn't blame you for putting the idea in my head or suggesting the link if I was to try it.
I'm also not currently trying to mount the hard drive but instead have spent some time researching my options prior to data recovery. I had the thought to find a database of failed or failing hard drive sounds so I could compare it to the sound my Western Digital is making. I eventually found a great place with failed hard drive sounds for all different makes and types (ironically run by a generous Data recovery company who want you to be able to determine whether their services are needed).
I compared the sound of my hard drive to several Western Digitals on their website plus the sound of dying hard drive on another site and was relieved to hear that my hard drive doesn't sound like it is dying. What it sounds closest to is the example of a fried logic board. In that instance a logic board swap remounted the drive. Many other people on the web have had success with this method, provided the drive is an exact or close match in manufacturing date, model type and firmware. (Some specialist companies can also burn the exact crashed drive firmware code into the donor drive's logic board.)
At best, if the firmware doesn't match, the drive simply spins up but doesn't mount. So at the moment I'm trying to locate an exact donor drive to do a board swap. Since the WD is an apple branded "Expert" rather than the more common Caviar drive this isn't easy but I'm hopeful.
Secondly, on another website I saw the suggestion to try mounting the drive into a PC or into bootcamp. The thought here is that when a hard drive is full it runs out of index room and starts overwriting itself. This in turn leads to data corruption. So if the Pc ignores the Western Digital generated data corruption errors that are taking down the ide bus in my mac, and mounts the drive it can help diagnose if data corruption is the problem or not.
Some here might think that mounting a drive in a pc is problematic, but it was suggested by a mac expert. Atleast the bootcamp option is something for me to look into first as it will keep the Western Digital on a mac.
That's where I am so far. Any other thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

ITunes Resets to local Drive Space when External Hard Drive not mounted

I have a large shared network drive where my son, my wintel box and I all have media placed on. All our computers are networked and authorized for each others music.
The problem is iTunes will default the 'iTunes Music folder location' to a local drive space if the external drive / path is not immediate available when iTunes is started (user:Music:iTunes Music vrs Eternal HD:Music:iTunes Music). This will sometimes will happen on boot, I have login mounting the external drive but that authorization / process once in a while times takes longer than starting up iTunes mostly due to an iPod connected to that computer. Since iTunes is not seeing that external drive (it isn't available yet). So the effect is iTunes defaults 'iTunes Music folder location' to the local music location - but - maintains the full library list (ie 10,000 question marks).
I have each computer maintaining it's own libraries on their respective drives which index to the music folders / files on the external (this is an itunes default to maintain the local library one each computer).
So ... How can I force iTunes to maintain the 'iTunes Music folder location' ?
(can the default location be changed ?... plist or some other file, or is this hard coded - or write a script to hold up iTunes to launch until after the external Hd is mounted)

I am sure that some will cringe at this
Note (my opinion) : I found when sharing with a Wintel box and Apple boxes it is better to use just smb. Mixing the smb AND afp arises to hang up problems and the afp is the side that seems to hang up the most. (that hurt me to type, I blame Finder - another story)
So - the script I use is fairly straight forward - Open Script Editor:
tell application "Finder"
mount volume "smb://[ip address of hard drive]/[drive directory you wish to mount]" as user name "[username]" with password "[password of said user]"
end tell
I recommend compiling the script (don't forget to save a copy you can also edit too - save as script). To compile a script : Save as Application, Run Only, No Start Up Screen. Since this has hard code Username / Passwords in the code - make sure you are happy with who will be running this script. So with the goal is to auto run when you start up, I tend to feel let it go ahead. If you wish to use afp (ie you are only sharing between macs - change the smb to afp in that code).
Next is to add this to your start up. Sys Pref > Accounts > Login Items
Just add the compiled application script to your user(s) login item.
Now for the - well, ugly part. Remove the iTunesHelper from the list.
Using Finder, Find iTunes - Show Package Contents, find iTunesHelper (it is iTunes:Contents:Resources)
Drag iTunesHelper into the Login Items (it should be listed now at the end of the list). Why this help I really can not tell you - I only have an idea of why - I have noticed that when my iPod may be plugged in when I reboot that iTunesHelper starts later in the sequence.
I did play around with changing the start up info on the unix side, for the brave only I would suggest. But - you can hard code a little better auto mounting a volume / hard disk / folder there on boot up. I did with to stay in the Mac GUI and AppleScript was just plain simple. The script can be modified to test if the volume is mounted etc time out try again etc etc etc... I kept it simple and straight forward.

Hard Drive not mounting on start up, or not mounting at all.

Recently, as some of you may know, I've had hard drive problems. I didn't get it fixed, but the problems came and went and I didn't have time to send it away.
But 2 weeks ago, before I went on holiday, I ran TechTool Deluxe which came with my 3 year Apple Care. It ran, found errors on the drive (something like -38 or -58 errors), so I started repair. It was after 7 hours that I held down the power button, because it just wasn't going anywhere. It had been on the same step and task for 7 hours and kept giving me every now and then the message of "Working...". But that screwed the drive more, as when I turn it on, I get the message stating to restart.
I'e tried getting at the files using this PowerBook and FireWire, using all the correct techniques, but the drive wouldnt even mount on here. Disk Utility could not mount it either.
The files, Im sure, are ok as TechTool gave me a number of the total files on the drive, which is correct. But I just cannot gain access to them.
Please help, thanks,
(it's a first gen iMac G5 btw)

This is the forum for Intel based iMacs. You need to be posting in the iMac G5 forums for your G5 and the Powerbook forums for the Powerbook.

How do I setup an external hard drive to mount at boot (without any login action) in Mavericks?

First the Details:
MacBook Pro, Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013
OS X Mavericks 10.9.5
USB 3.0 External Hard drive
I am currently using an external drive for my user storage. Right now I log in with a separate User account to mount the drive, log off, and then log in with my user. I am trying to remove the extra steps so I can boot my Mac and log right in. I have not found any method that pertains specifically to Mavericks, and all of the methods I have tried for older OS versions do not seem to work properly.
Thank you for your help.

How is the EHD formatted? It is USB powered? If it's formatted OS X Extended (journaled) with ownership set to be ignored and connected to a USB port it should mount as soon as the MBP is booted up and the EHD is spun up. It should be accessible to all accounts on the Mac.
Do you have additional software that came with the drive that you've installed? What make and model drive is it?

Hard Drive Not Mounting NTFS Tried MacFuse and NTFS-3G

Issue:
Mac OS X Tiger
- External HD NTFS Formatted (Win XP)
- Does not mount, but shows in Disk Utility (running on USB2.0)
Ran Disk Utility's Verify Disk:
Invalid B-tree node size
The volume needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
Repair Disk:
same errors above
but under HFS volume check shows 1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
I've tried installing Macfuse and NTFS-3G and FinkCommander. I've tried running terminal commands offered on various sites.
I don't have Bootcamp.
I believe this hard drive was connected to my pc (win xp) when it may have crashed on me. I think its a recovery issue because I run a 4 bay usb hd box that probably wasnt plugged in when this happened, and those hard drives can be seen my this mac. The crashed computer's hard drive and this external hard drive are the only ones not being read. Can somebody help me? Thanks.
PS- I ran a demo of Boomerang and showed all my files on this external hard drive. It was all under the Regular tab, not the Lost tab.
I have techtool pro as well. I just got it yesterday,and I'm not sure if it's supposed to fix this stuff.
Do I need one of the recovery programs out there like Diskwarrior, DataRescue, Boomerang, etc etc?

Is it possible that your hard drive is full enough that there was not enough space on it to complete the reinstall of OS X 10.4?
You may have partial installs of the OS on the hard drive which have totally filled the drive. This is not a certainty, just a possibility, but it could explain why there is no error report on the drive.
Do you have access to another Mac with FireWire? If so, you can try to use FireWire Target Disk Mode with your iBook as the Target Disk to see if you can retrieve your data to the other Mac's hard drive.
Instructions on recovering from the flashing question mark folder can be found in this Apple Knowledge Base article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042

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.

External hard drive not mounting on restart

Hi
I have 3 x 4TB RAID0 G-Tech EHDs. One of them only works at all when connected via the USB socket on the 'old-style' plug-in keyboard (USB2) but will not mount at all via the USB3 sockets. (This query is in another post)
Today's 'problem' is that another of the drives (not the above problem one) will not remount on restarting the iMac. (It is left on whilst the iMac is off). By turning off the EHD and on again it remounts normally. Why does one drive mount OK when left on and this one not?

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Join in. There is only a few thousands of us here.

Hard Drives Not Mounting - Help!

Hello,
This is my first post, so please forgive me if I leave anything out....
I recently had to replace my hard drive. Got it all going, then I noticed when I went to put a music CD in, that it would not show up. I tried others with no luck....then I put in a cd with data, and it showed up on the desktop....
While trying to mess around, I made my 2 LaCie external hard drives go away! I have tried checking cables, and they come on when the computer does, they don't show up in system profiler....
Please let me know what information you might need to help me diagnose these problems....my computer has been so good to me, I want it back up and running...
Powerbook G4 Ti 667 MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9) 512 Ram

Hi, mcholley, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
I can't suggest any remedy for your optical drive not reading audio CDs but having no trouble with data CDs, except to say it's apparently a software problem, not hardware-based.
After replacing your hard drive, did you reinstall your operating system from scratch on it, or did you restore your OS from a backup you had made?
The disappearance of your external drives (are they USB or FireWire?) may be power-related. Are they externally powered, or are you powering them from the USB or FireWire bus? If they're bus-powered, are you connecting both of them at once? That won't work: together they demand more power from the bus than it can supply, and while they may spin, they won't mount. Connect only one of them at a time. Is either of them detected by Apple System Profiler when just one is connected to the Powerbook? Does it mount on the desktop then?
If you've been able to connect both drives to the Powerbook at the same time in the past, and both have mounted OK, then there's been some hardware change recently, other than your hard drive replacement, that has caused the loss of external drive detection. Is it possible that during your recent operations you've turned off one or both of the external drives, or disconnected it/them from the Powerbook, without dismounting it from the desktop first? Depending on what, if anything, the drive was doing at the time, that can make a FireWire drive unmountable and all the data on it inaccessible. In that case it may be necessary to erase and reformat the drive. I don't know whether the same is true of USB drives.
Do you have another Mac to which you can connect the drives, to see whether they show up on it? If they do, you might have to consider the possibility that the port(s) to which you've been connecting them on your Powerbook is bad.

Hard drives not mounting properly

Lately my MacBook Pro Core Duo 2.4 GHz, OS X 10.5.8 is having trouble mounting hard drives. If I start from my external drive the internal drive may not mount on the desktop or mounting may take a minute or two. Disk Utility will see it but the Mount option is grayed out and I shouldn't have to use that anyway. Similarly, if I start off the iternal drive the external drive may not mount, or mounting may be delayed by a minute or two.
Also, drives appear inconsistently in Startup Disk Prefs or the Finder Window Sidebar. They may not show at all or be delayed in showing up.
First Aid reports no problems with the drives, I have a fresh install of 10.5.8 on my internal drive, permissions have been repaired, directory rebuilt with Disk Warrior 4.1 and the drive optimized with Tech Tool Pro 6.
This and the fact that Boot Camp will not launch are making things difficult for me.
Any suggestions? Thanks.

I have that when using an iMac at work - my external is an old FW400 Formac drive.
Tracked it down to when VMWare Fusion is running - it seems to arbitrarily 'seize' new devices, and then doesn't know what to make of them because they're HFS.
If I connect it either pre-startup, or before VMWare starts there's no problem.
Do you have something running which is grabbing/affecting your Firewire bus - check the logs in Console.

Force Hard Drive to Mount?

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