I can not mount an external drive

Disk first aid sees the drive but the "mount " button is dim. I am connected by a usb cable. I am using Lion 10.7.3.
I had been using the drive connected to an airport extreme. That configuration failed its connection to my imac. The drive is now connected now directly to the computer. Any ideas here as what I can try next? Many thanks.

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Can't mount my external drive

I have a MacBook Pro 15", 2.8 GH, Snow Leopard 10.3; I bought it on september, 2009. I also have an external Western Digital hard drive: 2TB, MacBook Studio II. I use it for back up only, through Time Machine; the disk itself was bought in december 2009.
A week or so I connected my MBP through the firewire port and it the disk didn't mount automatically as it usually does. Time Machine simply says that it can't back up because the hard drive isn't available. I restarted the computer with the drive connected, but nothing happened.
The first time this happened I just droped it. A few hours later I connected the disk again and, voila, it was there, as usual.
This week I have the same problem again. Only this time, after a few hours, I can't still see the disk. I've checked on the Western Digital website and they have no drivers at all.
What can I do? What can possibly be wrong?

Can you see the drive in Disk Utility? If so, can you get it to mount with the mount button? Can you use Disk Utility to repair it?
Also, do you have any other FW devices you can try to check out the port itself?
I don't really know what the problem is. I had something similar happen to me with my iBook, where the external FW drive didn't mount at all and couldn't be seen by Disk Utility either. I then tried a USB cable and the drive mounted. After doing the backup, Super Duper wouldn't force quit and the iBook froze--even the beach ball froze. I had to shut down using the power button.
Next I tried the drive on my MBP FW port, and it mounted. I decided to repair the backup and it had errors that would not repair. I then erased and reformatted it. I then tried the iBook FW port and the drive mounted. I then did another Super Duper backup, and ever since, the drive has mounted and worked without issue.
Don't know if any of this sheds any light, but I eventually surmised that the FW port on the iBook must have not been working properly, but that the shutdown and restart seems to have reset it.
I'm thinking it might not hurt to go through the procedure to shut down your computer to reset the ports:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US
It also wouldn't hurt to boot from your install disc and navigate to Disk Utility and repair your boot drive. Also use Disk Utility to repair your external drives. I took all of these steps, and have had no issues since.
Good luck!

Can not boot to external drive

Hey there
I have a MacBook2,1 running 10.7.4
I am trying to create an external boot drive but I can not boot to an external drive.
If I mount an install disk to any drive I have it will not boot to it. If I select it in startup drive or option boot it will not work.
Please help. need this fixed ASAP

Drive Preparation for Lion
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
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. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
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 Security 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 can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
After formatting is complete quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button. When the installer begins it will default to installing on the Macintosh HD volume. Click on the link below to Show All Disks. Locate your external drive and select it as the target.

Can not Access Backup external drive

Have a Lacie Mini HUB HD which I have been using for 3 years with little problem, suddenly the drive is not accesible, does not appear anywhere to be found and Time Machine can not be reset.
Symptoms: Blue power ON light is flashing, Power supply is hot. Is my External drive fried?
Help!

imacmanzano wrote:
Have a Lacie Mini HUB HD which I have been using for 3 years with little problem, suddenly the drive is not accesible, does not appear anywhere to be found and Time Machine can not be reset.
Symptoms: Blue power ON light is flashing, Power supply is hot. Is my External drive fried?
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Sounds like it may be.
Disconnect and power it off and for several minutes, then Restart your Mac, reconnect and power it up.
See if you can repair it per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If it doesn't show up in the Disk Utility sidebar, it's likely failed. LaCie might be able to tell you whether it's the drive itself or the power supply, but after 3 years, you're likely to need a new one.

Can not eject an external drive?

I connected a small usb external drive to my Mac Pro running 10.7.3 to transfer files, now I can not eject it because the Mac thinks it is still being used. I closed all open folders, applications and did a force quit to see if any other programs are still open and they are not. I tried shutting down the Mac, though it won't let me since it thinks something is still being done. What do I do to eject this drive?
Thanks.

If you need to you can emergency shut-down the mac by holding shift, option, and command and hitting the power button. Or, if you know for a fact nothing is being actively written or read from the flash drive, you can either force eject it or just unplug it anyway.

Can not use my external driver to setup Time Machine

I just bought a new mobile external driver and I planned to use this for Time Machine back of my Macbook Pro. However I got the following error message when I set up the Time Machine:
There was an error erasing the Time Machine backup disk
Is there anybody can help me about this problem?
Thanks

Thanks very much for everybody's help in this matter. I have done all the process again exactly the same as the steps above. However after the wait for some time, I got the following errors:
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Preparing to partition disk: “Initio MK4006GAL Media”
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: 1 partition will be created
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800:
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Partition 1
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Name : “Untitled 1”
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Size : 40.01 GB
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800:
2010-07-04 21:32:43 +0800: Unmounting disk
2010-07-04 21:32:43 +0800: Creating partition map
2010-07-04 21:32:43 +0800: Waiting for disks to reappear
2010-07-04 21:32:43 +0800: Formatting disk1s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Untitled 1
2010-07-04 21:36:30 +0800: Partition failed for disk (null) File system formatter failed
2010-07-04 21:36:30 +0800: Partition complete.

[SOLVED] can't mount USB external drive since udev upgrade to systemd

At somepoint in time around the June 1 change from udev to systemd or the change from udisks to udisks2 something has changed the way my external USB drives auto-mount.
I have always just plugged them in and they show up in PacmanFM just fine. Now, they do show up but the NTFS drive is showing as read-only and another empty drive that I have reformatted using GParted to xfs, then ext2, and finally again using ext4 gives "Permission Denied" errors when I try to put a file on the drive. Happens no matter how I format it.
Did something change that I need to manually configure? Up to this point I relied on udev just kind of doing its thing - I never had to configure anything to get these drives to work properly.
Last edited by AyeCapn (2012-06-26 15:15:59)

Perhaps the cause of my issue might be relevant:
While the now deleted udev automount script from the Arch Wiki had worked for months without issue, approximately since the udev/systemd merger it became broken for NTFS partitions on USB devices.
It still worked with the classic initscripts, but with systemd it only resulted in "Transport endpoint is not connected" for the supposed mount point and ls reported lots of "?" for it.

Can not sleep machine, external drive carryover problem from 10.5

just calling everyone's renewed attention to this silly problem with the OS.
After installing 10.6 last night i set my machine to sleep after an hour. This morning, i find the machine frozen solid. Manually pulling the firewire plug from my media-dedicated Mybook drive springs the whole machine back to life. Finder, Itunes, and Quicksilver were frozen, suddenly working fine again.
This was an issue with leopard from day one. It still exists on 10.6. Discussions on this issue focused on the failure of a drive to be woken-up after being put to sleep. I can't keep up with the kernal level discussions being had, but the conversation is well-documented in many threads under 10.5.
Despite the under the hood improvements, this issue has yet to-and must be- resolved. The alternative for this media center is not never let the computer sleep. Shutting it down as an alternative to sleep is a de-evolution compared even to windows (under vista, awindows 7, and tiger i do not have this issue with my drives.) Please take another look at it. Thanks! otherwise enjoying 10.6's speed.

William, you reminded me that it had been a while since i looked for drivers (well, i'm on a mac afterall). Western Digital offers "MacTurboDrivers" dec 2008. I'm going to give this a shot.
"This installer - WDMacTurboDrivers.dmg, contained within the WDMacTurboDrivers.zip file installs custom Western Digital performance based Turbo drivers and drive icons for WD USB and FireWire enabled external hard drives under Macintosh computers."
I popped in to report that, my situation has degraded somewhat since the Leopard issue.. i'm having the drive freeze the computer even while the machine and hard drives are not set to sleep! Heres hoping these drivers are more than candy..
has anyone else with a Mybook solved this problem? I have three mybooks - a 750MB usb, a 2TB firewire (time machine) and a 1TB firewire for itunes. The itunes drive is the only drive which fails to wake up. Before i had the 2TB, the 750MB was my itunes drive, and the 1TB was TM, during that time it the 750MB failed to wake up from sleep. Is iTunes the culprit? If so it is still a media-center disadvantage.

Automated mounting of external drive?

I have a MBP and would like to have it mount an external drive when I'm in my home office. If I add the drive to my login list, that works fine as long as I restart when I get home. However, most of the time I put the computer to sleep when I go somewhere, so when I get home the drive is no longer mounted.
Is there an approach or a utility program that would automatically mount the drive when it is available without my having to manually mount it or restart?

My terminology is perhaps incorrect. What I want to do is to connect to a server, not mount an external drive.

Just bought a mac air with OS X v.10.7 Lion, for work I need to read and write NTFS drives, I install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, but it can not mount (recognize?) External HDD, in my MBP with Snow Lepard it work just perfectly... help please.

Just bought a mac air with OS X v.10.7 Lion, for work I need to read and write NTFS drives, I install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, but it can not mount (recognize?) External HDD, in my MBP with Snow lepard it work just perfectly... help please.

Reinstall MacFuse with the one from http://www.tuxera.com/mac/macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9.dmg. If that doesn't work, you can use Paragon NTFS for Mac 9.0 which has been designed to work with Lion.

Just bought a mac air with OS X v.10.7 Lion, for work I need to read and write NTFS drives, I install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, but it can not mount (recognize?) External HDD, in my MBP with Lion it work just perfectly... help please.

Just bought a mac air with OS X v.10.7 Lion, for work I need to read and write NTFS drives, I install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, but it can not mount (recognize?) External HDD, in my MBP with Lion it work just perfectly... help please.

Sorry in my MBP Snow lepard it work.. don't have Lion In MBP

Can I mount my external hard drive which will be compatible with both Mac and Windows?

Hello,
Can I mount my external hard drive which will be compatible with both Mac and Windows? If yes, then please let me know, because I intend to use my hard drive for both Windows and Mac, without losing any file.

Yes. By default, Mac OS X and Windows can read and write drives which are formatted as FAT32 or exFAT; NTFS drives aren't writable from Mac OS X without additional software.
(124553)

Time machine does not recognize my external drive

I have a perfectly good IOgear externaldrive with four partitions which I have used for years to backup files from variuos macs.
Upon connecting the drive to backup my current imac (os 10.6.8), it informed me that time machine would erase one of the 4 partitions in order to do the backup. Fine .After this happened, the partition simply disappeared from the Time machine menu, so I attempted to re-mount the external drive. The computer then gave me a message- 'the diskyou have mounted is not recognized by this computer.' Not very informative.
I attempted to use disk utility to repair the disk, no luck. Although botht the System disk and my external drive are recognized as in the same format, the external drive is 'not mounted' Tried disk repair, but says it cannot repair the disk.
Very disheartening, since I have used this external drive for years and have collected a massive number of files on it. Moreso since the system one depends upn for security ends up destroying your files My fear is that the information is not retrievable, that the drive will have to be reformatted, if that's possible. Any suggestions would be appreciated..>????

Yep, certainly looks that way. For 5 or 6 years I've been happily culling, backing up, and restoring files from/to my external drive, neatly arranged in 4 partitions.Ten minutes with Time Machine, and all that seems to be lost. I'm sorry I ever set eyes on that ugly little icon on my desktop.I can certainly understand an error occuring while erasing a partition, but rendering the entire drive useless and unretrievable? This should never happen, not in this day and age.
Sorry for the rant, but I'll never use Time Machine again...

"mount: only root can mount" or "Unprivileged user can not mount NTFS"

I'm trying to set up an NTFS partition to use as a common data partition between Arch and Windows. I have it added to fstab so that any user in the ntfsuser group can have access to it, but if it gets unmounted accidentally from the "eject" symbol in the nautilus gui, you have to sudo to mount it back up. Is there a way for it to be remounted automatically when you click on the partition again in Nautilus? I've searched all through the forums and looked through several articles on the wiki but haven't been able to come up with anything. The error I get says
mount: only root can mount /dev/sda4 on /home/adam/UserData
I've tried adding the users option to fstab, but that only manages to change the error to
Unprivileged user can not mount NTFS block devices using the external FUSE
library. Either mount the volume as root, or rebuild NTFS-3G with integrated
FUSE support and make it setuid root. Please see more information at
http://ntfs-3g.org/support.html#unprivileged
I've tried the suggestions at the link in the error, as well as tried the solutions given in [solved] Gnome : mounting NTFS partition as user and a few other posts, but still nothing. If possible, I'd prefer to stay away from the users option in fstab, since it adds a redundant link to the sidebar in nautilus with a different name.

@Mr.Elendig: It is mounted through fstab normally, but in nautilus there's an eject icon on the sidebar next to the name of the drive which I've accidentally clicked on a couple times if I'm just trying to open the drive real quick. Once its been unmounted like that it won't let me remount unless I use sudo. I'm just looking for something to make it a little more convenient than having to pop open a cli and type in a password.
I'll try the suid root when I get home tonight, otherwise I'll look into autofs.

Is there a way to "force-mount" an external drive that doesn't show up on it's own when plugged in with firewire?

Hi, is there a way to "force-mount" an external drive that doesn't show up on the desktop? I have a new Hitachi SATA III 2 TB Ultrastar that won't show up like all the other drives when plugged in. So I can't partition, repair, format etc with Disk Utility, Disk Drill, Tech Tools etc. How do I make it visible?
I use the FW 400 to 800 adapter and a FW hub.
Thanks,
W.

ok, I did find the log in Diskutil of what happened, I just can't figure out why it happened and how to start over:
2014-04-20 13:42:08 -0400: Disk Utility started.
2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400: Preparing to erase : “Terra 8”
2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:           Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:           1 volume will be created
2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:                     Name                    : “Terra 8”
2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:                     Size                    : 2 TB
2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400:                     File system          : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2014-04-20 13:44:30 -0400: Unmounting disk
2014-04-20 13:45:00 -0400: Creating the partition map
2014-04-20 13:45:01 -0400: Waiting for the disks to reappear
2014-04-20 13:45:01 -0400: Formatting disk2s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Terra 8
2014-04-20 13:45:26 -0400: Initialized /dev/rdisk2s2 as a 2 TB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 155648k journal
2014-04-20 13:45:26 -0400: Mounting disk
2014-04-20 13:45:29 -0400: Erase complete.
2014-04-20 13:45:29 -0400:
- That was it, gone.....

I can not mount an external drive

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