Hard Disk Won't Appear on Desktop

Since upgrading to OS Lion, when I plug in my external hard drive (WD) it won't appear on the desktop at all. It does show up in Disk Utility and now says it is not mounted. I'm not sure what's going on here. I don't really want to have to reformat my drive as it has all my Time Machine backups on it.
Does anyone have any ideas?

Click on the top left corner of you screen where it says finder and click on that and then scroll down to preference and click on it. Then in that screen you will be able to see where you can choose what icons you would like to see on your desktop.

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Drive Enclosure hard drive won't appear on desktop

I just recently bought the Tekserve Aluminum FireWirk 400 Drive Enclosure.
I had an internal hard drive on my G3 that I tock out and installed into the
enclosure. The hard drive seems to start up and the blue enclosure light is on but the drive dose not appear on my desk top of my Mac mini.
Machine Name:Mac mini
Machine Model:PowerMac10,2
CPU Type:PowerPC G4 (1.5)
I tried disk utility and got the following.
Disk Utility
74.5 GB macpower
Disk Description :Macpower
Total Capacity :74.5 GB (80,026,361,856 Bytes)
Connection Bus :FireWire
Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type :External
S.M.A.R.T. Status :Not Supported
Connection ID :512384776805421
I TRIED RUNNING A DISK REPAIR.
BELOW IS THE LOG REPORT
Mac OS X Version 10.4.6 (Build 8I127)
2006-07-17 14:02:47 -0400
2006-07-17 14:02:48.378 SystemUIServer[76] lang is:en
Jul 17 14:04:53 michael-coynes-mac-mini diskarbitrationd[35]: unable to repair /dev/disk1s6 (status code 0x00000008).
Disk Utility started.
Verify and Repair disk “X”
Invalid Volume Header
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid node structure
Rebuilding Catalog B-tree.
The volume X could not be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
Disk Utility stopped repairing “X” because the following error was encountered:
The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Repair attempted on 1 volume
1 volume could not be repaired
Verify permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Determining correct file permissions.
parent directory ./Users/Shared/SC Info does not exist
Permissions differ on ./private/var/log/secure.log, should be -rw------- , they are -rw-r-----
Permissions verification complete
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume
Mount of “X” succeeded
Mount of “X” succeeded
Verify and Repair disk “X”
Invalid Volume Header
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid node structure
Rebuilding Catalog B-tree.
The volume X could not be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
Any suggestions?
Thanks
-Mike

Hey Mike,
If you need the data off the drive then you'll have to purchase another disk utility program like Disk Warrior.
If you don't need the data then I suggest you just partition it and start fresh. I have "fixed" a few drives by just partitioning them. Please note: you will loose everything on the drive!
Greg

External hard drive won't appear on desktop

I just bought a Western Digital passport 250gb external hard drive and when I plug it into my iBook G4 (version OS 10.4.10) it will not appear (via usb 2.0). I tried plugging it into a macbook and it appeared. Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
I am not sure just which model drive this is. Does it get its power from the computer? If so, it might be trying to use a bit more power than the iBook can deliver through the USB port. Some USB ports are very marginal and can deliver only the barest minimum of power, which sometimes is not enough for an external device. A powered hub might help.
Good luck!

External hard drive won't appear on my desktop

I'm trying to run a backup, but my hard drive won't appear on my desktop. I see it in Disk Utility, so I know it's there...
...any suggestions?
Thanks,
kevin

Kevin - There might be a few reasons as to why your external drive won't appear have you tried any of these suggestions:-
STEP ONE - Confirm that the drive is being seen by the system
Click the Apple icon and select About This Mac.
Click More Info.
Select the Drives and Volumes tab.
If the Iomega Hard Disk drive is not listed under the USB/FireWire arrow, proceed to STEP THREE.
If the Hard Disk drive is listed, continue with the next step.
STEP TWO - Format the Hard Disk drive to Mac HFS format
The Iomega Hard Disk drive is factory formatted to FAT32 for maximum compatibility. If you have not reformatted the disk or the disk is formatted to FAT32:
The disk may mount very slowly in OS X if the disk is FAT32 formatted.
Mac OS X will not mount any DOS (FAT32) partition larger than 128GB. For more information, please check the Apple® Web site at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107483
Warning: Erasing your Hard Disk drive will erase all of the information stored on the disk. If possible, back up your data before erasing the hard drive. Mac formatted disks are not cross compatible with other operating systems, such as Windows®, without the purchase of additional third-party software.
Double-click the Mac hard drive icon.
Double-click the Applications folder.
Double-click the Utilities folder.
Double-click the Disk Utilities icon.
Highlight the drive in the left window.
Click the Erase tab.
Select Mac OS Extended.
Click the Erase button and then click Erase from the confirmation window.
If the Hard Disk drive now mounts, you are ready to use the drive.
If the Hard Disk drive does not mount, continue with the next step.
STEP THREE - Are the Mac OS X drivers detecting the drive properly?
The Iomega Hard Drive may not mount if you are using Mac OS X versions under 10.1.3. If you are not using Mac OS X 10.1.3 or higher, please visit the Apple® Web site at http://www.apple.com/macosx/ for information on getting the latest version.

Folders that I copy from my Macbook to my External Hard Disk does NOT appear on any other drive that I connect the Hard disk to (TV, PC, ... etc.)

I'm facing a bit of a problem.
Any folder I copy from my Macbook Pro to my External Hard Disk does NOT appear on any other device that I connect the Hard Disk to (TV, PC, etc).
The Hard disk format is "MS-DOS (FAT)".
The folders that are copied from Macbook appear when I connect the Hard Disk to my Macbook only, yet, the folders that I copy from a PC to the Hard Disk appear on Macbook, PC, and TV and are also available from editing from both Mac and PC.
I was advised to install "Paragon" software and I did but I'm not sure how to use it to convert the folders on the hard drive to any format that can be read on other drives or devices (NTFS or otherwise).
I'd appreciate some help. Thank you.

Hi Simon. How is it formatted, FAT or NTFS?
I only ask as OSX will only read NTFS partitions unless you install an App such as Paragon NTFS or Tuxera NTFS.

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

10.2.8 installation and external hard disk does not show on desktop

I just reinstalled OS X 10.2 (by erasing the hard disk during installation) and upgraded with the Combo pack to 10.2.8 . This is an iMac G4 1GHz with a 17-inch display. I tried connecting a Western Digital MyBook with 500Gb through both the USB port and through FireWire. In both cases the hard drive does not appear on the desktop BUT does appear in the Disk Utility program and in the System Information window. Finder, therefore, doesn't display the drive. The MyBook drive is formatted to Windows FAT 32. Before I reinstalled OS X 10.2.8, this machine was running 10.3.9 and the drive did appear (I'm still searching for the 10.3 disk).
Is this an issue with OS X 10.2.8? Given the drive is detected by the System Information section and by the Disk Utility, is there a way of forcing Finder to display it (and allow access)?

Sometimes I have found that I have to turn of the ext. hd and then reconnect the firewire cables. there is a cylinder that is an inch away from one of the firewire plugs, which should be connected toward the tower and the other firewire plug toward the ext. hd. have patience, sometimes it will show up. also a restart maybe...

External Hard Drive won't appear on PC (want cross platform)

I have an external USB Hard Drive. I formatted it using the Disk Utility, OS Format and Journaling. Did a small partition in case I needed a system boot drive. Now my sis needed to backup her laptop (Dell laptop), but the drive won't appear in My Computer, it recognizes there is a USB device on the lower task bar, but no drive anywhere.
Do I have to reformat? what steps do I need to make this USB drive cross-platform friendly?
Paul

Hi, Paul.
You may not want to reformat the drive as FAT-32 since there is a limit on the size of the partition, the maximum file size, and other issues, especially if her Dell's drive is formatted as NTFS (FAT-32 does not support NTFS extended attributes). FAT-32 is unsuitable for backing-up Mac OS X volumes as it cannot preserve the extended attributes (permissions, etc.) employed by Mac OS X.
It's really best if you each have your own external hard drive for backup, as part of implementing a comprehensive Backup and Recovery solution, such as I use and detail in my "Backup and Recovery" FAQ. You also don't want one person inadvertently writing over another person's backups, which could happen if one is not careful. Furthermore, it is often easiest for recovery.
How one handles backup in cross-platform environments is tricky and depends on the native formats employed by the different computers involved, and whether backup will be performed over a network or by directly connecting backup drives to the computers one is backing up.
To enable her Dell to use the Mac-formatted drive, install Mediafour's MacDrive for Windows on the PC. MacDrive for Windows is probably the state-of-the-art application for enabling you to use Mac-formatted disks and hard drives on Windows-based PCs.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Installing 80 gb hard disk from G4 into beige desktop G3

I have a 266 ghz beize desktop G3 with a 4 gb hard drive and 384 mb of memory, running OS 9.2.2. I use the G3 as a spare for my Mirror Door 1.25 ghz G4. I run OS 10.3.9 on the G4. I would prefer to run OS 10.3.9 on the G3.
I thought I would buy a new hard drive for the G4, copy the existing hard drive on to the new hard drive, and install the G4's 80 gb hard drive into the G3. I tried installing the G4 hard drive into the G3 and booting. The screen began showing "No HFS bootable partition" and kept printing this across the screen until about a quarter filled. The screen then reverted to the disk symbol with flashing question mark (can't find the start-up disk).
No problem with the G4 hard disk back in the G4. Not so the G3 with its original 4 gb hard disk reinstalled. I kept getting the same "No HFS bootable partition" printing across the screen and then reverting to the disk symbol with flashing question mark (can't find the start-up disk). I have another working beige G3 and the result was identical.
I tried starting from Nortons and then from the original OS 8.5 CD. After many, many restarts, the G3 began starting from the 4 gb hard disk again (not every time, but appears stable now). Does anyone have idea where I am going wrong. Does it have something to do with the Mac OS extended fromat on the G4 hard disk? Any ideas why the G3 could not find the reinstalled OS9 4 gb drive after my attempt?

Jaguar (OS 10.2.X) will install on the Beige without XPostFacto. There are some hoops (like the under 8GB boot partition) through which we all must pass to install it, but the Beige G3 "officially" supports Jaguar.
Any OS that's 10.3 or higher must have XPostFacto to install on a Beige. XPostFacto writes ROM code that the Beige cannot do alone, permitting the newer OS to install and run.
If you have a retail install copy of Panther, it came on CDs and avoids the DVD problem. Some people have posted here that Panther seems more stable on the Beige than Tiger. From what I can tell, Panther and Tiger, for most uses within the Beige's capability, differ only in Dashboard and Spotlight. Both are cool, but I can live without them.
Partitioning: I make the "under 8GB" partition as large as possible by manually entering "7.99" in the window that shows the desired partition size. The resulting partition comes out around 7.8 G after formatting. If you install Panther or Tiger, you need to have a valid OS9 operating system in the other partition with the XPostFacto application. XPF requires you boot from OS9 and launch XPF, which then loads the required data to get a boot from the OSX installer CD.
A

Thumb drive won't appear on desktop.

On my iBookG4 running 10.4.11, my thumb drive won't appear on the desktop when I insert it in the USB port. How do I make it appear? This just happened, as yesterday, it appeared. Help!

Those drives commonly come formatted for use with a PC. DU can't repair that format. Do you know what format yours has? You can try to erase/reformat it. If it Mac formatted right now and can't repair it then that may indicate the drive is truly history.

Finder & Dock do not work - Mac Hard Drive does not appear on Desktop

Until yesterday, my powerbook was working properly.
This morning, I wanted to use it and I had the following problems after login.
1/ My Mac Hard drive does not appear on my dekstop
2/ My dock appears but no icon works when I click on them. So, I can't open finder. I have no response.
3/ Furthermore, my top bar (with clock, login name, Airport icon...) appears but it is frozed.
I try several solutions as :
- rebooting in safe mode,
- rebooting, with in the same time, hold different keys (option, apple, p & R)...
As of today, no solution works.
Thanks for your help.

A.CHAMP wrote:
Nota: if i used my daugther login (she is not admin), I have the same issues.
Ok, that's good enough. You may be able to repair this with the 10.5.8 Combo Update This is a fuller install, as opposed to an incremental "delta" update so it should overwrite any files that are damaged or missing. It does not matter if you have applied it before.
Remember to Verify Disk before update and repair permissions after update from /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.
EDIT:
I have around 5 Go space left on my Mac
Also, your getting very low on disk space. Try to copy some of the data off to other media. *Do it before you try applying the combo, you'll need the space.*
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack
Message was edited by: macjack

New Hard disk is not appearing in the System Profiler

I am doing a fresh install using my ligitimate Snow Leopard DVD on my USB disk.
My SSD is not appearing in the System Profiler under Hardware>ATA
or under Hardware>Serial-ATA
It is a PATA device as was the original disk I've replaced.
So I have NO disk to install onto.
Any ideas what the problem could be?
===
History
My hard disk died, and I am replacing it with an SSD.
I bought a Mach Xtreme Technology Pata 1.8" SSD (Part no MXSSD1MNANOZ-120G)
(I can send this back if I have to)
The SSD is unusual in that it has to be a 1.8" size with a ZIF PATA connector.
The SSD is preformatted (but not necessarily to Apple formatting).
With the SSD the same way around to the original 80GB HDD, Pin 1 of the new SSD is towards the back of the computer.
I cannot find any information as to which Pin on the original HDD is Pin 1.
I used this tutorial to dismantle and reassemble: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnV7mHS7Qi8
I've double checked the connections inside.

Thanks, this was the answer.
The connector on the SSD I used was indeed arranged reverse to the original Apple Drive. So it looked different to all the tutorials.
I knew where Pin 1 was on the new SSD but could not see it on the old drive.
The original 80GB hard disk had Pin 1 is towards the middle of the computer.
Flipping the SSD over meant it was about 3mm closer to the back, which made the zif ribbon buckle. So I had to cut away some of the rubber shock absorber to the back, and use tape. The SSD should not need the shock absorber as it is not mechanical/vibrating.
It is now working well.
(Although I now have a different problem restoring from the Time Machine. )

Hard Disk Won't Boot - Recovering Data w/ Live CD

Hey guys,
I have a MacBook.
My operating system got corrupted. I can't boot into it. I also have a tiny Linux partition installed, which can boot totally fine (therefore, not a hardware problem).
I booted into a Linux Ubuntu 7.10 Live CD, and was able to see my hard disk partitions as accessible. I could navigate to the Ubuntu partition, and see the data there.
HERE'S THE THING:
I can also access my OS X partition, and see the data. The problem is that some of the folders I can open just fine, while others have a tiny red circle in the top-right of the icon. When I try to open those ones, it says that I don't have permission.
Is there a way around this?
I am trying to rescue my data before wiping the hard drive.
I have already tried repairing permissions with the original install disk, and it won't work. I have tried booting in FireWire target-disk-mode, and it won't work. I have tried using DiskWarrior, and it worked only enough to tell me it won't work.
The Apple support guy said to try this Linux Live CD. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

Hey dude,
Thanks again for the followup help.
I have done a million diagnostics, here is a short list:
Tried booting resetting PRAM - nothing.
Tried booting in Verbose mode, nothing
Single-user mode, nothing
Safe mode, nothing
Nothing will boot.
I have Ubuntu installed on a different partition which boots totally fine, so it's definitely not a hardware failure. Apple said this as well.
I boot into the install DVD, and run the Disk Utility FIrst Aid. It can't repair the disk, and gives me errors.
The hard drive is nearly full, so there's not 15GB free to do a Archive and Reinstall the OS.
Apple said that the OS is corrupt, and I have to recover the data and wipe and reinstall.
I tried booting in target disk mode, and the host computer can't find the target mac (I tested it with 3 different macs and the cable works and everything else works fine). Apple said this is probably due to the "headers and footers" of the partition being hard to read.
I tried DiskWarrior, and at first it DID find the disk and data, and it said IT COULD RECOVER IT. I did a hardware test and it was fine. I did the permission repair, and then it found all my data and allowed me to browse it before recovering it, but it also gave me errors. Then it said that it COULD NOT recover it. When I tried to run the recover, it said first to reboot. After rebooting, it said that it couldn't even find the Mac hard disk at all, let alone repair it.
Then after trying to boot again as normal, instead of simply staying at the permanent "boot up" screen, it goes to a gray screen with a black message that says "Please reboot your computer".
I am able to boot from an Ubuntu Live CD, and I can even see my Mac disk as accesible. I mount it and can browse SOME of the data, but other folders it says I don't have permission to access. Unfortunately, it's the locked ones that I need the data from.
I didn't put any extra locks on these folders in OS X than the other folders that I can access, so it's nothing like that.
Any ideas?

MBP 17" mid 2010 Snow Leopard Native: why not possible to install Snow Leopard in some new Hard disk?It appears "impossibile 'cause you have Mac OS X" 23.1.1."

Guys, I want to install SL in some hard disk. It's the native OS, the one came with the MBP. But after having installed Lion, my MBP doesn't allow me to install from the original dvd of Snow Leopard, telling me "impossible because you have Mac OS X” 23.1.1. istaller".
Someone can help me?

hey thank you for your answers. I've written that I want to install snow leopard in a new hard disk, not over the lion. In other words, I want a hard disk with the faster snow leopard, that was the native OSX of my MBP mid 2010. But using the last procedure you suggested me, the dvd doesn't appear. I repeat, there's something changed in the firmware that blocks snow leopard.
the comunication that appears when I insert the original dvd of SL is something like "impossible to install snow leopard because you have Mac OS X” 23.1.1. istaller".

My device won't appear on desktop of DataViz'z Documents to Go. Help?

Anyone out there solved the "Device won't appear on 'Documents to Go' desktop" I've tried several times and DataViz Support basically sent me their trouble shooting document which I had already gone through and tried but no luck. They have wiped their hands of the issue and said Good luck.
The problem is that I can't synch Documents to Go (ver. 1.1) on my iPod Touch (1st gen) with OS3.0 with the DTG desktop. My device won't appear on the desktop. I my desktop is a MacBook Pro 17" with latest OSX 5.7
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This is weird. I've had pretty good luck syncing any and all iPod Touch apps with the Desktop, but not being able to do this one pretty much renders Documents to Go useless.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Jim

I solved my own problem. The device was there all along. However on my iPod Touch I noticed I have no user name - - it is just a blank. So it appears in DTG desktop as a blank line which looks invisible to me, i.e. no device. But if I click on the blank line, there it is: a successful link and My DocsToGo.
I discovered all this by syncing my wife's iPhone, which does have a visible name.
Now I just have to figure out why my iPod Touch has no user name.
Thanks
Jim

Hard Disk Won't Appear on Desktop

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