Hard drive does not appear on desktop

I am an Apple user for many years and normally can work out fix problems, but this has me stumped. My wifes brand new airbook has stopped showing either the internal or an external drive. Although the external is obviously connecting as if I pull the lead you get the usual error not-put-away-properly  message.
Any advice welcomed!

Do your have Finder's Preferences set to display external drives? Try checking that.

Similar Messages

  • 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

  • External firewire hard drive does not appear on desktop

    I have an iMac intel running OS 10.8.1.  All of a suddden my firewire external hard drive no longer appears.  System profiler does not
    recognize it as well. My macbook recognizes it. Rebuilt directory with discwarrior but still no resolution.  Any thoughts?

    Does it have its own power supply? Try a
    SMC RESET
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
    Shut down the computer.
    Unplug the computer's power cord and ALL peripherals.
    Wait 15 seconds.
    Attach the computers power cable.
    Wait another 5 seconds and press the power button to turn on the computer.
    The 5 second timing is important to a successful reset.

  • Hard drive does not appear on the Desktop

    Hard drive does not appear on desktop. Can only be found in the applications folder.

    Go to Finder -> Preferences, click the General icon, make sure the appropriate box is checked.

  • HT201250 i have plugged in a hard drive into my macbook, opened time machine, but my hard drive does not appear. why?

    i have plugged in a hard drive into my macbook, opened time machine, but my hard drive does not appear. why?

    Look in the Utility folder which is located inside the Applications folder.
    You don't want to do anything with the disk on a PC if you want it to work on the Mac. They both use different formats.
    Allan

  • External Hard Drive does not appear in finder

    We purchased a 1 TB G Drive Q from the Apple Store. It is connected to my wife's iMac running the most current update of Leopard by 800 firewire and appears on her desktop and works flawlessly with time machine. I am connected to the same drive intermittently with my MacBookPro also running the most current update of Leopard. i connect with 400 firewire. Initially the drive would not appear in the finder. for the initial backup, i turned the hard drive off and on and then it would appear and i did the backup but now when i connect to the 400 firewire port, it still doesn't appear in the finder. i would much prefer not to need to turn my back up drive off and on each time i want to use time machine. i should also mention that when i connect any of my garmin training devices or my power meter by USB it is recognized very quickly as a device in finder. any ideas? i understand this may be one of the problems fixed with SnowLeopard. thanks.

    I am not sure what you are attempting to do. I assume that you are not trying to connect two computers to the same external drive at the same time. That will definitely be problematic. In order to effectively use Time Machine with two Macs, you should partition the drive into two partitions. Also make sure that the drive is using a GUID partition scheme.
    bd

  • Canvio External Hard Drive does not appear in MY COMPUTER

    Sorry if the subject is in wrong section of the forum.
    I bought an External Hard Drive to use with my Windows 7 laptop. When connecting, sounds like a new device is connected, also appears listed in DEVICES & PRINTERS, but does not appear in MY COMPUTER, becoming impossible to access it anyhow.
    Procedures about how to format or change device letter (in DISK MANAGEMENT), although the device has been also shown there, haven't work.
    "Drivers" are listed as updated.
    Any suggestions?
    Thanks!

    Jerry, thanks for trying to help.
    I download the KillDisk as your adviced.
    The Hardware appears there like:
    Hard Disk 2 (82h) TOSHIBA External USB 3.0 - [DEVICE IS NOT READY]
          Local Disk (2 - [DRIVE IS NOT READY]
    Available actions for each are: Mark / Unmark / Refresh.
    Any possibility of it is broken, or something?

  • My external hard drive does not appear.

    So I have a 500 GB USB 3.0 HDD. It does not show up in the Finder. It also doesn't show up in Disk Utility, Time Machine, or the terminal command diskutil. I used both USB ports and it still doesn't work. I even tried a normal USB 2.0 cable and it still doesn't show up. The disk's packaging says it is compatible with USB 2.0, and it can be recognized and read on other computers, but not mine.
    Also, if my computer is booted with the hard drive plugged in, it gets stuck at the gray screen. Holding C during bootup also causes it to get stuck.
    The hard disk is encrypted (filevault 2) and I make all mounted drives appear on the desktop.

    Hey guys,
    I am having the same issue with my HD.   It was working one day and then the next my mac does not recoginize that it is even pluged in....yet I can move my external hd to my macbook pro and it sees the drive.   I have tried shutting down the system, using the Y connector, using an alternative power source, Reformating the HD, and still nothing works, yet it works on all my other MAC's and I have 5 totall macs!   I don't get it, why all the other mac sees it but this one want.   I have tried to plug in other external HD to the mac that is not reading the HD and it will work with them.  Any ideas as to why it want see this one HD?

  • Hard drives do not appear on desktop.

    Ok never had this happen have been downloading programs and after rebooting my itunes fails to open and no hard drives appear on the desktop... the only thing appearing is the docking station.
    Anyone know what to do....

    Any help here... have rebooted, did disk repair, verified disk. Still no hard drives appearing even the Lacie external.

  • External Hard drive will not appear on desktop or in disk utility.  HELP!?!

    I moved my hard drive from upstairs to downstairs. there is no damage to the drive. Yet, now when I try to connect the drive, it powers up, but doesn't show an icon on the desktop, or an icon in the disk utility. The drive is still under warranty, but I don't want to send it back for a new one without all my info on it.
    a) How can I get this drive to be recognized?
    b) How can I get my files off of it before returning the drive?
    Already tried:
    • Disconnecting and reconnecting after powering off the computer.
    • Using a different USB cable
    • Using a different USB port
    • Connecting to a different Mac
    • Connecting to a PC laptop.

    Actually, I did solve the problem myself, for free. To see if the adapter was giving enough power, I used a voltage meter. I found out the adapter I had it plugged into was actually giving TOO MUCH power. (Even though it was a 12 volt adapter, it was measuring 18 volts.) I figured out which adapter came with the drive and plugged it in using that one (also a 12 volt adapter, weird) and voilå - it appeared on the desk top as if nothing had changed. You can bet I'll be making DVD back ups tonight however, as the adapter kicking out too much voltage may have damaged the power board at some point, which may cause it to fail prematurely.
    Thanks for your suggestions.

  • Replacement Hard Drive does not appear in Disk Utility.

    I've replaced the defective HDD in my MBP(A1278) with a 500GB Western Digital one after it failed the Hard Drive test in AST. The old drive is detected internally without issue but the new one does not show up in disk utitlity. I have reformatted to use a GUID table and have made sure it's partition is OSX Journaled. It doesn't show up at all. I proceeded to do an install using a USB drive adapter and the OS installed just fine(same drive), when I put it back in the MBP it still doesn't detect. I would suspect the cable but the old drive shows up and runs diagnostic just fine(fails). I've actually gone ahead and tried three other new drives(2 seagates(500GB, 1TB XT) and 1 500GB HGST) and none of them detect, only the original. Am I missing some sort of firmware update or is there a limited physical issue?
    All help would be appreciated, genius bar isn't an option, the closest one is 400km away.

    Until you replace the cable you won't know for sure. Do you have a SATA to USB adapter to connec these other drive to and to connect your original drive to? If you do connect the original drive and do a Verify Disk in Disk Utility. If it comes back OK, no repair needed or even if a repair is need that succeeds, your original drive is OK and it is the cable that is causing all the problems.
    I suggest you stay away from WD drives. They don't have a good track record with Mac computers.

  • My hard drive does not appear in the Finder window

    I installed a second internal hard drive inside my G5, but it never shows up in the finder window, nor anytime I try to access files from within applications (it appears on the desktop though). How can I configure my computer so that it always sees this drive and grants me access?

    The reason for resetting nvram is to force the G5 to rebuild the device tree, which it seems "loath" to do without a kick start.
    Swapping drives oddly enough seems to leave a profile in nvram for the old device.
    Personally, booting into Open Firmware is easier, thorough, and if that was all it was, works (never liked the reboot over and over zap pram which, to reset nvram, must be done from cold boot).

  • Back up hard drive does not appear

    can't see the My Passport hard drive. what do I do? I trying to repair it but it show up an error. says"Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
    Please Please help me, I have all my back up on that.......

    See mount section in 1st linked article.
    Disk Unmount Using Terminal
    Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

  • Why does my seconds hard drive does not appear in the list of volumes in Settings - Performance - work volumes

    Hallo,
    the photoshop installations is really slow after updating to version 2014. So I checkt all performance related facts. I the settings of photoshop I saw, that there is only the defauld drive (systemdrive) in list of volumes. This is not the optimal case. On a different PC (Windows 7 Pro), there are all volumes present that are listet in the windows explorer. I would like to change the Setting to a different drive. Where could be the problems?
    I tried and changed:
    - Changing SATA Mode from RAID to AHCI
    - Updated all drivers (chipset, grapghic ... verything, dell's update-software offered to me)
    here an image to show the problem (placing an image seams to be broken :-(
    Thanks for help
    Martin

    Sorry, I've just deleted my previous post of a few seconds ago asking about your platform, because I realized you are on Windows because you mention "the C drive".  Senior moment.

  • 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...

Maybe you are looking for