Hard drive not on desktop

My Grandson just got a new 13" Macbook. I was assisting him in doing a Bootable backup. His Hard drive is not mounted in the default area of the desk top. As a matter of fact, it is not mounted anywhere on the desk top. It does show in the finder "as cover flow".
He claims that is the way it came, which I find hard to believe. I've never had a Mac that the HD wasn't on the desktop.
Outside of re-installing OSX, I have no idea how to correct this. Has this happened to anyone else out there?

thanks, all the time I've used a Mac I missed this one item. Never too old to learn . Thanks again.

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External hard drives not on desktop

None of my external hard drives are showing up on the desktop. I can see them in finder and disk utilities so the card is working correctly. Any suggestions?
mac pro quad 10.6.7, 5 external drives.
Thanks

Nope, tried already that (default). I got a couple of external HDDs (WD 1 TB, WD 500 GB) loaded with tons of personal data, used to run flawlessly but after Lion seems it won't read them. They do show grayed (not mounted) on the Disk Utility but nothing on the Finder windows. I can read/write and use my data on any other computer, PC, Laptop, Mac Book, etc but not mine. Only diff: I installed Lion.
Help needed please!

External Hard drive not on desktop anymore...

I have a Maxtor 300gb external hard drive connected via USB to my G5 - it contains all my JPEG and Raw files and is a vital item right now as I'm in the middle of a uni arts degree....
It powers up normally but has disappeared from my desktop. I've also tried it on a G4 and a Power book with the same unhappy result. I plugged it in to a Windows PC running XP and it is recognised (Make and model of drive recognised) but I cannot access any data on it as it shows up as unformatted in windows. It was a normal Mac HFS formatted drive.
Any ideas please? I have bought Disk Warrior but unsure as to whether this will help at all.
I'm loathe to send it away for expensive data recovery if I can do something myself...

You could check whether the drivers are up-to-date.
You could try shutting the G5 down and disconnecting everything, including the mains, for 30mins. to reset, and then plugging the drive into one of the rear ports on the G5 with nothing else connected except wired keyboard and mouse and display - as the G5 USB has been known to be picky sometimes.
You could try DiskWarrior - but if it can't find the drive, it may not help much.

External hard drive not on desktop

niel and limnos began helping me with this problem last week but it solved itself when i left my laptop shut down overnight. now the problem is back.
until today the external drive turned up in disk utility and was verified. now it does not show up anywhere. i have a maxtor and western, once they both showed up - which is what i need because i want to transfer all files on the western to the maxtor - most of the time, only one showed up. i disconnected one thinking that 2 connected external hard drives might demanded too much from the computer. but now, with only one connected for 2 days, no hard drive shows up anywhere. i tried shut down, restart, no hard drive. please help.

Do you repair permissions & reboot after every opdate?
At this point I think you should get Applejack...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15667/applejack
After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, (+s), then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...
applejack AUTO
Then let it do all 5 of it's things.
At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.
The 6 things it does are...
Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.
Trash old Log files.
First reboot will be slower, sometimes 2 or 3 restarts will be required for full benefit... my guess is files relying upon other files relying upon other files!
Disconnect the USB cable from any Uninterruptible Power Supply so the system doesn't shut down in the middle of the process.

Internal Hard Drive Not on Desktop

A second internal HD that was installed new in my machine by my campus reseller--now in use for over a year--has disappeared from the desktop. It does appear in both system profiler and disk utility. It is a Maxtor Basics 500Gb drive. As it has all my project files on it, I would certainly like to retrieve them (I do have some backups but not complete). Best steps to take?
Thanks,
Karen

Buy a FireWire/USB drive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
Invest in SuperDuper and Disk Warrior.
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
What happens when you open Disk Utility, click on the drive or volume name in the left side panel, and then First Aid, Verify/Repair Drive?

Projects from external hard drive not opening on desktop. Please help.

I use my external hard drive to create, edit and save all my imovie projects. In this external drive I have all my raw clips, events, projects etc.
My home computer is my primary place of work, and I am now trying to open a half edited project from my external hard drive on my daughter's mac. Note this project was saved in imovie 8 and she has imovie 9, although I cannot see this being an issue.
Can anyone else suggest why imovie only opens my events, but doesn't open the project in the project library. I have tried copying the .rcproject from the external hard drive to the desktop along with the events, but to no avail. Any further suggestions, I have a pending deadline.
Thanks.

You should be able to get this to work.
I would suggest the following:
1) Move the RCPROJECT file from the desktop to the Movies/iMovie Projects folder.
2) Use the Events on the external drive. Your project will be pointing to the external drive. It will not know how to find anything on the internal drive.
Then restart iMovie.
This should work, as iMovie is forward compatible. However, once you open the project in iMovie 09, you will no longer be able to open it in iMovie 08. (Of course, you could make a copy of it in its current state.)
I am less sure about your events. Your events will be converted to iMovie 09 format. I don't think you will be able to still open them in iMovie 08. You might if you delete all the cache and thumbnail folders and let iMovie 08 regenerate these, but I am not sure. Your best bet is to upgrade to iMovie 09 or better yet, iMovie 11 on your home computer.

Can't move files from my external hard drive to the desktop?

Hi folks, for some reason I am unable to copy files (irrespective of type) from my usb 2 external hard drive to my desktop. This is only a recent thing. Up until a few days ago I was able to transfer files back and forth without problem. Now it is only possible to move unto the harddrive and not the other way around. The harddrive is formatted in Mac OS Extended (journaled). I have tried running disk utility to repair the disc on both external and internal drives, and it advises me that no repairs were necessary. I have also checked the info and read and write is permitted and none of the files are locked. When I attempt drag a file off the harddrive to the desktop the cursor turns into a stop sign (circle with line through it). If I attempt to copy and paste, the file copies and then will not paste as "paste" does not appear in the contextual menu. I have had some limited success by dragging files off the external hard drive to the trash and then dragging then back out of trash unto the desktop. But this only seems to work sometimes?
It would be great if someone could suggest a reason and solution for this. Thank you in advance.
Jono

Sure sounds like permissions are goofed up somewhere. You weren't really clear about exactly what you had checked. Since you can copy TO the drive let's assume things are OK there. How about your Desktop folder? Did you check it with GetInfo to make sure you are the owner and have read and write permissions to the Desktop folder? I have seen these get messed up before.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

My external hard drive not showing up

Hello,
My external hard drive is not showing up on my desktop. I went to finder & preferences>general and made sure I checked "show these items" and checked hard drives. I even unchecked it because I have 2 other external hard drives. When I checked the hard drive box the other 2 hard drives appeared but the third hard drive did not. The hard drive not showing up on my desk top does show up when I double click my system hard drive & can be opened from there, but I want to see it on my desk top. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.
Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
ls -@Oaen /V* | pbcopy
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.
The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.
If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.

LaCie d2 500GB Quadra Hard Drive Not Being Seen By Time Machine

Hello all,
I have a LaCie d2 500GB Quadra Hard Drive Not being seen by Time Machine hooked up to my iMac via firewire 800. My iMac is running latest updates etc. Have raised a support ticket and was given the following instructions by LaCie:
Posted: 08 November 2007 @ 00:00
Thank you for contacting LaCie Technical Support. Make sure the drive is mounting and you can assess files on it on your 10.5 system. If you can then you will need to reformat the drive to make it compatible with time machine.
Warning! All data on the external drive will be destroyed in this process.
Step 1: Run Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
Step 2: Click on the LaCie hard drive's 'physical' entry, usually the third entry in the list
Step 3: Click on the Partition tab
Step 4: Change 'Current Scheme' to '1 Partition'
Step 5: Change the name of the drive back to what you would like it to be
Step 6: The format needs to be Mac OS Extended, with or without journaling
Step 7: Click on the Options... button
Use "Apple Partition Map" partition scheme on a PowerPC-based Mac.
Use "GUID" partition scheme on an Intel-based Mac.
Step 8: Click on OK
Step 9: Click on Apply
Step 10: click on Erase at the bottom of the screen, then confirm the erase.
The drive should start to be reformatted which should take only a few seconds and show up on the desktop with a new icon. Once it has you can then use it with time machine.
I have done all of the above and it is still not being seen. Anyone had a similar issue or got the above to actually work?
Thanks in advance!!!!

Ryan,
Check drive volume name and also the Computer name. Apple released a tech note recommending that both be limited to only the characters A-Za-z0-9 (no dashes, hyphens, or other special characters.
If you can, send the Apple System Profiler report to me at the addres in my profile. Imay be able to see something there. I have helped another user with similar problems, but with a LaCie USB drive. He got things working by repeating the recommended steps, and double checking everything.
As others have rported, this should work, so there may be something else preventing proper operation.
If the drive is usable from Finder, but Time Machine cannot use it, there is something related in how Time Machine is viewing the drive.
Mike

I want to see my hard drive ON the desktop, please!

I'm not sure why it seems that Apple wants to "simplify" things to a point that the results can become unfamiliar to the typical Mac user, like myself.
Just got finished looking at a document online about where to find the hard drive, and wasn't real thrilled about it. I like to be able to access the hard drive from the desktop. I am not the Finder Window menu type of guy!
If someone can aid me in placing the hard drive icon on my desktop WITHOUT me having to install Tiger (default installation disc), that would be great.

I do not see it on the dock; oh, and I forgot to mention, I recently reinstalled Snow Leopard.
Also, it seems that there isn't an option to have the hard drive displayed on the desktop, by right-clicking or whatever.

HT2491 how to show macintosh hard drive on the desktop

how to show macintosh hard drive on the desktop in apple macbook pro,n how can i install my canon scaner with printer on mac,i am new user,regards,dr.m.imran

Thank you for these directions. I just created a new user account and couldn't believe the hard drive was not viewable on the desktop. It seems by default the hard drive should always be viewable on the desktop. By having absolutely nothing on the desktop when making a new user I was freaking out thinking my Mac had a bug after the OS updates.
Thank you for the directions on how to show the hard drive on a new user's desktop.

Hard drive not recognized during windows server 2008 setup

hard drive not recognized during windows server 2008 setup

Hi,
Whether the hard disk is recognized in BIOS?
Connect it to another computer to see if it could be recognzied incase the cause is the disk itself. Also please check if it is really a RAID instead of a single hard disk - a single disk should be recognized directly while RAID cannot be recognized until
a suitable driver is installed.
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and un-mark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]

2 external hard drives not recognize by system all of a sudden

I have 2 external hard drives, one was used as a backup with Time Machine, the other was all my music storage, including Logic Pro and Ableton files.
This afernoon I was working on my Macbook pro with no problems, system backed up a few times. I was working on a new project in Logic. I saved the file, disconnected hard drive, went to my 2nd computer, an Imac from late 2009, plug the hard drive in, system does not recognize it. I wait a few minutes then unplug the drive, upon doing that I get a message that I've never seen before:
"Because a USB device was drawing too much power from your computer, one or more of your USB devices has been disabled.
To prevent damaging your computer, the USB device drawing too much power has been disabled. Other devices may have also been disabled. When you disconnect the device drawing too much power, your other USB devices will be enabled again."
It's been a few hours, I've disconnected all the devices, I think I figured that one of the drives is faulty. My question is, why is the other hard drive not being recognized, it's not recognized on any of my 3 computers, 2 Macbook Pro's and one imac.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is extremely frustrating.

Try this:
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
If it doesn't help, make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested.

What are the symptons of macbook pro hard drive not running fast enough

what are the symptons of the hard drive not running fast enough

Physically the drive will be as fast as any other of its class, and if not then it's experiencing a mechanical issue that should prompt a warning or two in the system, especially if you use a drive management tool like Disk Utility that checks the drive's built-in "S.M.A.R.T." diagnostics.
As for "logical speed," if there are bad blocks on the drive where sectors cannot be read or written to because of a breakdown of the storage medium, then this can result in a program or the entire system crashing or hanging (generally the latter is the case), where it usually pauses for a number of seconds at a time. This is usually accompanied by messages that state "I/O Error" or other similar warning in the OS X Console (in the Applications > Utilities folder).
Beyond this, drive formatting errors such as might happen after a crash or power outage can result in similar hang-like behavior, though this is usually not as distinct of a hanging behavior as is seen with bad blocks.
Finally, if the drive is simply full of files or highly fragmented (not as much of a problem in OS X, but it can happen), then this can reduce access time for reading and writing files, and prevent the system from optimizing the use of RAM, which can result in overall slowdowns. Heavy drive use can also cause similar bottlenecks, but this is ususally only an intermittent issue during a time when you are performing a heavy file transfer or copying process, or other task that occupies access to the drive's index and formatting (e.g., if you check it for errors with Disk Utility, then you may see the system pause or slow down during the check).

External hard drive not mounting

external hard drive not mounting

I fixed mine by uninstalling the software that came with the harddrive such as Tuxera and reinstalled it now myharddrive works again and i did not have to delete the harddrive and reformat it.
I tried a lot like reseting the Pram And connecting other harddrives but by unstalling the original software it works all over again. I hope this works for you because i was getting pretty frustrated myself.
Im running a 2012 macbook pro with 10.9.3
boom mind blown

Hard drive not on desktop

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