Hard drive not recognized at start up

My external hard drive Western Digital studio edition 11 stopped showing up on start up. If the driver is corrupted what do I do to fix it.
Many thanks, John

Contact WD tech support. You may need to update some software that's on the drive.

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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]

Now, USB External Hard Drive Not Recognized after 10.6.8 Update

My external Hard Drive is not recognized on start up. I have to unplug it and plug it back in for it to be recognized.
All this since 10.6.8 updated today.
I'm a fool for updating the same day.
This has happened before and I always forget the bugs in the software when it first comes out.

Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and close this thread. I found out the solution to my issue. Turns out it was a problem with a system file I changed right before installing. The error only occurred on a restart... the required 10.6.1 reboot was the first reboot since the change, so thus it looked like the culprit.
If you want a more thorough explanation of my problem (highly HIGHLY doubt it's gonna help you guys out), check this thread --> http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1480362&postcount=8
Sorry for the trouble!

Advanced Format Hard Drive not recognized by HP DV6000 Controller

Hello,
I have an HP DV 6000 laptop (6276 I think, I'm at work can't check) that came preinstalled with a Western Digital 160gb 1.5gb/s 5400 RPM drive (Vista) that failed a couple of weeks ago. So i bought a Western Digital 750 GB WD Black SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB drive to replace it. I read about people having some problems with Advanced Drive Format hard drives not being recognized by their controller, but also read that depending on the controller and specific Dv6000 model laptop they had-one wouldn't run into problems.
Well sure enough, when attempting to install Windows 7 I received the error that the hard drive was not detected. After researching online I came across an article on WD's site that noted
"Our SATA II hard drives use autospeed negotiation. This enables our SATA II drives to automatically detect the motherboard data transfer rate, making it backward compatible with SATA I data transfer rates. However, some older SATA I controllers are unable to support autospeed negotiation and cannot recognize the drive. This “drive not detected” condition occurs when a chipset is incapable of correctly negotiating the data transfer speed with a SATA II hard drive."
my drive is a SATA ||| but I'm pretty sure it's the same problem. The site goes on to say a fix would be to "purchase and install a third party PCI or PCI-Express Second Generation Serial ATA controller card for your Serial ATA hard drive(s)."
My question(s) are.
1)Is the problem that I am trying to install a Sata ||| hard drive on a laptop with a controller that will only recognize SATA | hard drive?
2) Or is the problem that the hard drive is an Advanced Drive Formatted hard drive and I need to buy a hard drive with out that specification?
3) Or Should I buy a SATA controller card as WD suggests on their website and if so will this definitely allow my laptop's controller to recognize the new hard drive and proceed with the installation?
4)Or Should I just return the hard drive and buy a SATA | non Advanced Drive Format hard drive? (question 2 basically)
Thanks for your help!

Hi @jasmine00
Welcome to the HP Support Forums.
I certainly understand your issue with the drive upgrade. Unfortunately it is a bit of the nature of notebooks, the sacrifice of a large amount of upgradeability, in exchange for compactness and portability. Whenever a new technology comes out, older notebooks are never really going to be easy to upgrade, it at all. Normally the unit as a whole is tested with a set list of hardware, and only those items are supported.
That being said there is this document that could be helpful with your problem.
Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PC...
And for your reference:
HP Pavilion dv6000 Notebook PC Maintenance and Service Guide
Malygris1
I work on behalf of HP
Please click Accept as Solution if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click Kudos Thumbs Up on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Lacie 250GB External Hard Drive NOT RECOGNIZED

HELP! My Lacie External HD that I've had for several years and holds a lot of my files is no longer being recognized on my MacBOok Pro. It used to recognize it instantly when I plugged the USB cable to the USB Port - now, nothing. The Lacie light is on, but my laptop isn't reading it at all. What's going on??? I did a disk utility - it's not showing up there at all either. Is it due to a software update? Don't get me started on losing out on using my entire Dreamweaver/Flash Studio MX 2004...
ALSO, I notice my iPhone is not being recognized in iPhoto anymore either. It is recognized in iTunes. And yes i've heard many folks say email photos should be removed, which i have done so and still nothing!
HELP PLEASE!!!

Are other USB devices working normally, Eric?
If so, the most likely cause is that either the bridge or the drive itself in your external enclosure has failed (assuming you have tried a different cable)
No, it is most unlikely to be due to a software update. With an old external drive like yours the most likely explanation is that it has simply failed. If it is the bridge, rather than the hard drive itself, that has died you may be able to remove the HD from the LaCie enclosure, put it in a different enclosure, and recover your stuff. In some cases, too, a drive light will illuminate when the drive is connected to the computer, even if the power supply to the drive itself is faulty. You might want to contact LaCie to see if they have any advice to offer about such situations.
Have you tried the drive on another Mac or another drive on this Mac? THis would immediately narrow down the location of the problem, of course.
Cheers
Rod
Message was edited by: Rod Hagen

Macbook Leopard Update- Hard drive not recognized?!?!

Question- What do you think caused this problem, and how can I best fix it?
(See below for information)
Well, I finally decided to update to Leopard. I put the disk in my Macbook, and everything went smoothly as it verified the installation DVD- until the end of the verification, that is. A message screen would pop up telling me the disk was dirty. "Okay," I thought,"No problem." I was a bit puzzled, though, because the installation with the same Family Pack disk went fine on my father's Mac. I cleaned the disk, and tried again. And again. Each time, I was greeted with the same message at the end of the verification. Frustrated, I took the disk and my laptop to Best Buy, hoping someone could help me there. We ran the installation again... to no surprise, the same problem occurs. This time, though, when we quit the installer and try to reboot, after the gray screen with the apple at the beginning, we are greeted with a black screen with one command line. NOT GOOD! We rebooted the computer again, this time starting up with a disk to check the permissions and hard drive. The diagnosis: The permissions on my Mac are screwed up, so it's not recognizing the hard drive. The Best Buy guy claims the permissions have been messed up since I bought the Mac, and everything will be just fine and dandy after I transfer the data to another computer, install the Tiger disk that my Macbook came with, update to Leopard, then transfer the data back to my Mac. I'm taking my Mac to the closest Apple store (about 2 hours away) for advice from the pros on Saturday. Until then, I'm hesitant to even turn the thing on, out of fear it will spontaneously erase the data or something to that extent.
Question: (in case you forgot)What do you think caused this problem, and how can I best fix it?

Unplugging worked!!!
I have no idea what PRAM is but someone said that unplugging your computer resets it so, I thought I'd give unplugging a shot. So, I shut down my computer and unplugged it. I also unplugged the power on the HD. (because I wasn't sure which one they were talking about.)
Anyway, I went away for about five minutes.
I came back plugged in the HD power first. Then, I plugged in the power cord for the computer and turned it on.
As soon as I logged in I was asked if I wanted to use my external HD for Time Machine backups.
I saw the icon for the HD on the Desktop where is belongs. I can open the drive and access the files with no problem.
Try this if you haven't yet.

Hard crash now hard drive not recognized in disk utility.

During a virus scan the Macbook froze up now the computer does not seem to be accessing the hard drive. Tried to reinstall Leopard but the internal hard drive is not recognized (same is true when we tried to use Disk Utility). It will not start in safe mode either. Does this sound like a fried hard drive or maybe a corrupted drive that might be repairable with DiskWarrior? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

If the A/V you were using was Norton/Symantec, the drive may be OK. Norton is a virus.
Burn a Ununtu CD and see if you can boot into it and look at the drive before giving up on it.

Hard drive not recognized after a brand new replacement put in 2 weeks ago!

Basically, my MBP was having the symptoms of needed a new hard drive. It was taking abnormal amounts to think and load thinks when it started up (only part of the time). I cleared all the software off of it and reloaded Mac OS just to be sure it wasnt a software issue. Apple took my computer and replaced the hard drive about 2 weeks ago (90gb, 7200 rpm). By the way the MBP is a C2D with 2 gb ram.
Immediately after getting my computer back it seemed to work fine. It has been about a week and a half since I got it back and last night trouble started. First, it wouldnt boot up all the time (id get the flashing question mark on the folder). I checked startup disk and booted it that way, no results. When it did start up, it would lock up shortly after when using applications such as safari. I then booted it to the system disk and performed the first aid functions on the disk... no results. And now, the next morning, when i boot to the disk, the hard drive itself is not even recognized under disk utility??? So basically, I cant reload OS again because I cant see the installation disk. Is this a a hardware issue even though I just replaced the hard drive?
what do i do??

Hi MBPrunner;
It appears you have the misfortune of infant mortality whereby a bring new part fails in a short period of time. This does happen. I have seen it numerous time in my years of server support at IBM. My suggestion is take it back it back to Apple with all of your paperwork. They should make good on it.
Allan

New internal hard drive not recognized at all!

Hello everybody!
I really need your help. I tried to upgrade my internal 120gb drive to a Western Digital wd2500bevs. But when I start my Macbook with the Leopard DVD neither the System Profiler nor the Disk Utilities Program recognize the drive for a possible installation. When I reinstall the old drive everything is back to normal and works perfectly.
This is what I already tried to fix the problem:
I took the drive into an external casing => it was recognized immediately
I then formatted it => no change after installing it into the Macbook again.
I cloned my system with CCC on the WD and then installed it => no system found.
I have another disk of this kind but the same problem and another 160gb Toshiba disk which is not recognized as well.
Please help me! I couldn't find help in German discussions yet so I hope anyone of you guys can help me.

You say the drive is "recognized" but your original post stated it was not present in Disk Utility. I'm puzzled. Have you attempted to partition and format the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disk. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.

Replacement hard drive not recognized in mac mini

Hi folks,
I have an issue similar to several threads that were active during 2007 and 2008, but the information and answers given then do not solve my problem.
The original 80 GB Hitachi drive in a 1.5 Mhz PPC failed. I replaced it with a Western Digital PATA 320 GB ide drive and reassembled the Mac Mini.
The original Apple OS X was put in the optical drive and the computer was started with the "c" button pressed when powered on, but repeatedly the disk was ejected after a short time. Since the mac mini does not boot from the proper install cd, I cannot use disk utilities to partition and format the WD drive per the other thread messages.
The WD drive is not formatted for Apple yet. I connected the headless mac mini to an older ibook with a firewire cord and I attempted to boot the mac mini in target disk mode. The ibook never mounted the mac mini as an external drive, an icon did not appear on the desktop, and running disk utilities on the ibook did not recognize the mac mini connected by firewire as a mounted drive. I mounted an Acom hard drive connected by fire wire as a test of the ports and wires and that device was recognized in disk utilities and an icon for it was seen on the desktop.
Back to the issue at hand. What else can I do to partition and format a new hard drive installed in an older mac mini where 1) the install disk is kicked out of the optical drive and 2) the unformatted drive cannot be accessed via target disk mode from an ibook?
Is 320 GB incompatible with a PPC mac Mini?
Thanks in advance for offers of help and correct answers.
Mich

Hi Mich,
the older PPC computers are usualy limited to 128Gb max. HD size.
You need something like this:
"MacOS X 10.4.x and Earlier Hi-Cap Installer.app"
Its available for $25 here:
http://www.intechusa.com/

External hard drive not recognized... help please.

okay, well here is the story:
my iBook G4 had its stock 30gb hard drive in it and it was running extremely low on space. so i figured i didn't want to carry around an external hard drive, therefore i would buy an internal hard drive an install it. so i purchased a new 2.5" 80gb hard drive and called up the local apple store. they told me that although it was under warranty, that it did not cover hard drive installation. so i looked it up online and found step by step instructions to install the hard drive. so after lots of hard work and many screws, i installed the new hard drive successfully... but i still had this perfect 30gb hard drive. i thought maybe to save a few bucks i could turn it into a usb external hard drive. i found an enclosure for the hard drive and a usb 2.0 cable and plugged it into my ibook. it was recognized and everything. i put some files on the external hard drive and transferred it to another mac. this is where the trouble started. i plugged the hard drive into a PowerMac G4, and it was not recognized... so i tried it on a different mac. this time on a PowerBook G4, but no luck. this issue has been troubling me for a few weeks. but then i tried it on a similar iBook G4... and it was recognized. but i don't know why it was only recognized only on the iBook G4 (not the same iBook G4 it was pulled out of) and no other macs.
does anybody have any ideas what we can do to get this hard drive to be recognized by other macs?
any of even the smallest ideas would be greatly appreciated.
thanks,
tyler
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I can walk you through formatting the hard drive:
1. Hook it up to an iBook that recognizes it.
2. Go into your Applications folder, then scroll down to Utilities. Open Utilities and scroll down a bit and you should see Disk Utility. Double-click.
3. On the left side you should see your internal hard drive and your external one. Each hard drive will have a sub-catagory with the partition indented.
4. Your external hard drive will probably be the second catagory. Click it.
5. In the center-top you should see the tabs First Aid, Erase, Partition, RAID, and Restore. Click the Erase tab.
6. You should see Volume Format: and then a drop down menu, and Name: and a text box. Type in the name you want the external hard drive to be named.
7. In the drop down menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
8. Then, simply click Erase, watch the progress and it should be good to go!!
Hope I helped you out. Oh, and it might be the enclosure...and also what OS's? Since it's USB it is probably using a USB Mass Storage driver. Mac-wise, if formatting doesn't help, I would get a FireWire enclosure because FireWire is much faster than just USB 2.0. Oh, thats nother thing...Is the enclosure Hi-Speed USB? If it isn't, I would definitely get a FireWire one...If it is, the PowerMac G4 doesn't have Hi-Speed so you're not taking full advantage..Just some insight
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 512 MB Ram, CD-RW Combo Drive, 40 Gig HD, bought in October of 2005...
Message was edited by: Hilary_Rose

Help needed - External mobile hard drive not recognized by my iMac

Hi, i received a Freecom Mobile Drive XXS 250 GB USB 2.0 today, after plugging it into my iMac, i am finding that nothing is showing up, and it isn't being recognized at all.
I've tried connecting it via all the USB ports, i have tried connecting it and disconnecting other cables (like speaker + printer cables) and it's not working. I'm not all that computer literate, but after scouring the internet for hours i understand the problem could be that my USB ports are 1.1 and a bus powered hard drive might not get the sufficient power from them?
I have looked at the system requirements for the hard drive and my iMac apparently has all the requirements this needs to work. I have checked Disc Utility and the external hard drive isn't even showing up there. I thought i might have had to re-format the drive, but i checked and it is already FAT-32 so should be ok?
Very puzzled, and am out of ideas on how to get this to work (need to transfer files quite urgently - want to upload some new software and don't want to risk losing the files on my internal hard drive, as my computer is getting about slow and unreliable also have the problem of my cd burner now being defunct for some reason, but thats unrelated to this hopefully)
Has anyone got any ideas on how i could get this to show up on my computer? Any info will be much appreciated!
Regards, coby x

Hey coby,
Well thanks for the star. Not sure I deserve it.
i then tried connecting the drive to each USB port again, and voila! i have found one it works in. I guess my computer's ports must be a little worn.
Hmm well try looking inside and see if there's some smutz in there, if the contacts are dirty or bent or worn.
i was starting to think i would have to go out and get a USB hub to give it some more power.
Is it powered off the USB? If so that actually might be a good idea since that puts a lot of strain on the connectors. Even if it's self powered it might be a good idea since it would take the strain off an obviously flakey USB.
richard

Toshiba External Hard Drive not recognized by computer. Please help!

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I have an external hard drive and it will not show up in "My computer" when I plug it in. I have tried other USB drives and other computers. I am starting to think it is a hardware issue but I don't want to lose hope. The blue light is coming on when you plug it in but it doesn't blink and there is no noise whatsoever. Is there anything I can do to fix this issue so that I can recover the information on it? Thanks in advance for any help. It is greatly appreciated.
Additional information: I'm not sure how old this thing is but the model number is HDDR160E03X.

Same problem: I can't see my Toshiba PH3100U-EXB (Gen 2) external hard drive when I plug it in. After awhile I get this error message (see attachment): USB Device Not Recognized. One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. FOr assistance in solving this problem, click this message."
When I click it, I get a list of USB ports and devices, with Unknown Device in bold face. No real information there.
Yes, I ran Disk Management and the Toshiba did not show up when I plugged it in and hit Refresh.
Does it make a difference that the last time I used the external hard drive, we were in Windows XP and now we're in Windows 7?
Please help! It's not just the backing up I'm worried about...it's being able to retrieve files later!
Thanks!
Attachments:
USB-NotRecognized.jpg ‏28 KB

Memory modules and hard drive not recognized

I removed and reinserted the factory installed Satellite L505D-LS5007 laptop hard drive and memory modules just as practice for installing a hard drive upgrade and an 8GB memory upgrade. The problem is obviously with the memory and not with the hard drive.
After the first practice try, one memory module was recognized. Also for a few seconds after the first practice try, I ran the PC with the battery installed, but no memory installed. I did not look in the User's Guide first to see that I should have removed the battery before removing the memory.
Now the System Indicator Lights for the HDD Activity and Memory Card Reader do not light up. The PC turns on and the display is solid black with no messages.
Before buying new memory modules, what possible ways might there be to get the PC to recognize the factory installed memory modules and hard drive again?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

When troubleshooting, I always change one variable at a time. I would hate to miss a solution by being in a hurry. In this case, you may have damaged either the RAM or the RAM slot. I would stick with the Toshiba specifications for the RAM, making sure it is the correct size, speed and type recommended. I also recommend that when you replace the RAM that both modules be from the same manufacturer, size, and specification. Try one RAM module in one slot and then the other. And then try both RAM modules in both slots. After the testing you should be able to figure if this is a RAM problem or a RAM slot problem.
In the case of hard drives, the real test is whether or not the Bios sees the hard drive. If the Bios doesn't see the hard drive, it's not going to work. The Bios should see the hard drive whether or not the hard drive is partitioned, formatted or has data on it. My experience has been that many Toshiba laptops will work fine with larger capacity hard drives provided they are the same speed in RPMs, have the same interfacing connection and physically the same size.
Again, prior to doing any work on your computer, make sure that both the AC power has been disconnected and the battery has been removed. Be careful out there. A blown repair job by a non-Toshiba tech is NOT covered under warranty.

Iomega External Hard Drive not recognized on windows 8.1

I wanted to share this with others that may have or do run into the same problem. I used the iomega external drive 1TB on an XP computer for a couple years, then when that computer went bad, hooked it up to a windows 8. This worked perfectly fine, but last week I did the upgrade to windows 8.1 and the drive was no longer able to be read. It showed in disk management as unallocated.
I found a suggestion on using File Scavenger software to recover the data. I did have to pay for that software, but it not only found and recovered all my files, but also found missing daily backups that I thought were failing. Those must have been unreadable because my xp hard drive was starting to go bad.
After recovering and saving all my files to the computer (which did take a long time - 13 hours) I was then able to reformat the external drive, copy my files back to it, and continue to use it as always.
Hope this helps someone else who may be devasted on losing important or precious files.

The hard drive will not show up on the sidebar or desktop unless Finder preferences are set to do that:
In Finder's General preference section, make sure "External disks" is checked in the list of things to show on the desktop if you want to see them there.
Likewise, in Finder's Sidebar preference section, make sure "External disks" is checked in the "DEVICES" section to see them automatically appear on the sidebar.
But you don't need to do either for the MBP to recognize the drive, or to get files from its Time Machine backup set. To do that, you should use the Time Machine "Star Wars" interface. Pondini's FAQ's (already mentioned) tell you how to do that. Tip 17 is particularly relevant.

Hard drive not recognized at start up

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