Hard drive won't read Disk, Firewire or Disk Utility

Everything with my computer seems to work fine on start up. However when I insert a disk, attach a firewire drive or try to download an update it fails. When I go to disk utility or try Onxy to repair permissions the programs runs forever and never sees the hard drive. Any suggestions?

Hi! This sounds like logic board or hard drive problems. Try running the hardware test disc that came with your computer or that may be on the install disc. Tom

Similar Messages

  • External Hard Drive won't read/mount sometimes..

    hello,
    i have an external 320GB Seagate HD i mainly use for music. i installed macfuse and ntfs-3g on my mac so i am able to use it on a pc as well. when i turn on my hard drive, it either works properly, i get nothing-like no mount/read on my desktop-, or i get this message from turning it off:
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    ntfsattr_preadi: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output
    error
    Failed to read NTFS $Bitmap: Input/output error
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    fault, or it's a
    SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
    then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of
    the /f parameter is very
    important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID
    then first activate
    it and mount a different device under the /dev/
    mapper/ directory, (e.g.
    /dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see
    the 'dmraid' documentation
    for more details.
    with the options of 'cancel' or 'ok'
    And when it does work properly, as i am playing my music it will stop and 'think' and then a window would pop up and say:
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    and will have the options of:
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    Force Eject
    Keep Trying
    in the end i would have to force eject because 'Keep Trying' wouldn't work.
    Any ideas?
    Message was edited by: chadwicked

    If the hard drive needs to be +read and write+ on both a Mac and Windows PC, it needs to be formatted as FAT32, aka +MS-DOS (FAT)+ in Disk Utility.
    If the drive was formatted for Mac, you may have caused data corruption in some way when you connected it to the Windows PC. You said
    apparently I did something I shouldn't have?
    so it depends on what that "something" you did was.
    When you connect it to the Mac now, the drive's volume does not show up in Finder, correct? But if you run Disk Utility, does the drive appear in the Disk Utility sidebar? If so, is there a volume indented under the drive (in the sidebar)? If so, can you select the volume (which may be grayed out) and click the Mount button to mount it? If so, the volume may become accessible through Finder.
    If the drive appears, but there is no volume that you can mount, select the drive and go to the +First Aid+ tab. Click on the +Repair Disk+ button. Note if any errors are reported, and if there are errors, if Disk Utility was able to repair them.

  • External Hard drive won't read on iMac

    I recently got a new pc and I was using an external hard drive to transfer the files that I wanted from my mac to my pc. I put all the files on that I needed and when I went to copy them to my pc, apparently I did something I shouldn't have? I need to format the drive to use it on my PC, but now when I reattach the Hard Drive to my mac, it is now unable to be read. I would just format it and erase everything but all of my brother's files are stored in it. Is there any way I can view these files on my mac again?

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    If the drive appears, but there is no volume that you can mount, select the drive and go to the +First Aid+ tab. Click on the +Repair Disk+ button. Note if any errors are reported, and if there are errors, if Disk Utility was able to repair them.

  • USB Hard Drive won't read

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    Fyrehawk wrote:
    It's something that is recently started and I cannot figure out why.  One minute the hard drive is working and if I move the wire, it reads it, or doesn't.  However, moving the wire doesn't always make it stop reading the hard drive or start it seems to do it at random times.  The computer is also asking for a driver for the hard drive, but when I go to search for one, it says that one is already installed.  This is a 250 gig hard drive and works fine.  I considered that my USB port was perhaps kicking the bucket, but when I plug other things into it, it's fine.  So what is causing this?  Any ideas?
    And on the same note, my USBs also areclaiming that 1, there isn't enough power to run something, or two, whatever is hooked to them could be faster.  I am not understanding what is going on. So is it a USB issue?  If so, how do I fix it?  I cannot get another motherboard for this, because the motherboards are no longer made for this model.  It's a Satellite A 105 series.
    I am running Vista Premium with 1.5g memory.
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  • My new blank hard drive won't install OSX from the disk?

    For some reason my Mac book pro won't install OS through the install cd or through the flash drives. It will load the disk but then freeze when I click install. It won't load through the USB either. I have done multiple diagnostics at the mac store and they tell me that my hd is bad. Twice the hd was fresh out of the box and installed that day. I spoke to a supervisor via phone when I called apple care and he told me that unless I have all apple parts in the computer they can't accurately diagnose the issue. It feels like they're trying to con me into paying double for a "apple hd". What can I do to get my computer working?

    I would purchase an external USB enclosure for the HDD. With the HDD in the enclosure, install OSX and then mount in your MacBook. If you continue to have problems, it could be a faulty internal SATA cable.

  • My WD hard drive won't "mount" it shows in disk utility but can't be repaired. I'm thinking this is a software issue since the disk is being recognized.

    I
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    The WD Passport has no independent power supply, relying instead on getting power from a USB port on the computer. AS the drive ages it can need more power to spin the platter and many USB ports on notebook cannot provid that much.
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    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/USB2AYMBPB/
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  • External hard drive won't mount, even after disk repair.

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    Hello maccynicwhoalwayshasmacs,
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  • External hard drive won't unmount for disk utility.

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    Drive Preparation
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  • Firewire hard drive won't mount - Filesystem verify or repair failed.

    Hi all - over the last day my lacie hard drive won't mount - i have tried it on various computers with the same result
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    best
    darren/uk

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    You'll want to select the disk in question, then +Repair Disk+ (not Permissions). This actually repairs the +File System+ that's on the disk.
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    If DU can't fix it, then one of the others might. Disk Warrior is about $100, and many people here say it's the best. There are others for less money, but there's no guarantee that any of them will succeed.
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  • DVD drive won't read disks at boot

    I have a Paviliton DV6-2113sa running Win7 HP  64bit. 
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    Hi Peeps
    I had exactly the same problem with my Macbook, again from the UK. Really weird though as would intermittantly read DVD film's which worked fine previously.
    Well.... Took it to my local Apple store and saw a genius and anyway they replaced the super drive and logic board (surprised about the logic board!).
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    Moral of the story, sounds like a drive or board problem. Will keep you updated when I get mine back
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  • Eject Firewire Hard Drive, Won't Stop Running

    I upgraded my Early 2009 Mac Pro OS to 10.9 today, but I found a problem about my external firewire hard drive.
    If I eject firewire hard drive under 10.8, the hard drive will stop running/rotating. Then I unplug the firewire cable. After I upgrade to 10.9 OS, the firewire hard drive will not stop running/rotating after I eject it. I cannot see any external hard drive icon on desktop, but I can hear the hard drive running sound.
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  • 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:-
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    Click the Apple icon and select About This Mac.
    Click More Info.
    Select the Drives and Volumes tab.
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    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:
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    Double-click the Applications folder.
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  • External hard Drive will not mount via firewire tpo my Powerbook G4

    I have a Powerbook G4 1.5, 2 Gb Ram and an 80 Gb Hard Drive. Well my problem is, I went and purchased a Western Digital External Hard Drive. The box states that this hard drive is compatible for both Windows and Mac. But for some reason I can't get the external hard drive to mount via the firewire. However it will mount by using the USB.
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    Thanks

    hi there,
    in your case, your drive is probably bad because the copy was interrupted. your hard drive may be finished, but more likely, just the file structure is damaged and/or you have bad sectors.
    you have a few options:
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    • if it doesn't appear, try a pc. it won't recognize it, but it may allow you to reformat/initialize it. then, connect back into mac (which will recognize a pc formatted drive) and reformat as mac os x extended (journaled).
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    • try a program like data rescue II, file salvage, or boomerang data recovery first to recover the data
    • see if the drive appears in disk utility and try to repair disk
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    • if you aren't successful, you may want to try a professional data recovery service (or me first, to ensure that you actually need someone as high tech as drive savers)
    • if you are successful and are able to recover the data, then erase the drive (zero out data) and then move the data back, to ensure you're working off a well formatted drive.
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    corewerkz/briancometa.com/

  • External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

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    Details:
    External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
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    ~
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    ~
    The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
    and when click "mount" same two messages keep showing:
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    ~
    message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
    restart:" you have inserted a disk containg no volumes that mac osx
    can read to use unreadable volumes,click initialize to continue with the disk inserted ,click continue"
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    ~~~~~
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    I was put on hold for 40 minutes ..Finally spoke to someone ( they are not mac users or mac experts!)and he said I would need to send it to Seagate's Data Recovery-... for a fee of course!
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    L

    Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
    Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
    Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
    If you boot from the CD and run it from the CD, absolutely yes. If you attempt to INSTALL it from a download or a CD, probably not.
    Have you ever used Disc Warrior and is using it complicated?
    I own and use Disk Warrior. You select the drive to be rebuilt, it builds a proposed new directory from the information and file fragments available.
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    From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
    My other thought was to take the external HD there and have them try to recover the files.
    Make sure you completely understand the costs involved. File recovery using a service like DriveSavers can run into many hundreds of dollars. They are prepared to disassemble your drive in a clean room and replace controller boards and read/write heads to achieve success. Your drive has serious, but not fatal, Directory damage. The Hardware, and most of your files, are likely just fine.

  • Hard drive will not mount shows up in Disk Utility

    I have an external drive with a bootable OS X 10.6.8. I was in a transition between building up a SSD swapped drive. The SSD is installed in the CPU box but I have my old installation running from an external.
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    Today I booted off the external drive. It was running fine. I turned on one Firewire drive (the one that runs on Firewire power). That drive stumbled. I recognized the sound when there is an interruption in power. This cause the external boot drive to stall. I had to force a reboot.
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    I took the problematic hard drive and installed it in my Mac Mini so I could attempt a Safe Boot and then Archive and Install if necessary.
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    I attempted Archive and Install however when it went to show what target drives were available it was a blank box and all buttons were grayed out.
    I rebooted and opened Disk Utility from the DVD. The drive appeared the same with the top main line bright and the partitioned volume faded. Still was unable to mount. I ran Verify and this time a red line of text appeared "Invalid content in Journal" and at the end I ran Repair. When running I could read line by line and at one point it showed "checking volume information" then the following line "Repairing volume" the following line "Rechecking volume" more line of checking then it ended with "The volume was repaired successfully."
    It still would not mount. I ran Verify again and again said "Invalid content in Journal" and this time it stopped midway saying "The volume was found corrupt and needs to be repaired. Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk."
    I clicked Repair and it ended with The vol. was repaired successfully."
    Still unable to mount I began repeating Repair over and over. Each time it found something to repair and ended with a success message. After several more Repairs I tried Verify and it stopped midway saying to Repair the disk.
    Question: Does running Repair multiple times continue to correct bits and pieces little by little or is this a generic message and we should treat it as a problem Disk Utility cannot pinpoint and is just beating its head against the wall?
    The step by step instructions I downloaded mentioned running Repair more than once but it did not say that running it 20 times would erode some problems and eventually lead to a fully repaired disk (if the problem was something DU could take care of in the first place). At this point I have run Repair about 20 times total with a series of 10 back to back skipping Verify. I keep seeing the lines about invalid content in a journal and that it repaired something successfully. Yet I still cannot mount the disk.

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