Imac cannot find external drive

My Imac cannot find the external drive I have attached. I have used it many times before, but now it does not recognize that it is attached. I have replaced the usb cable with not luck and changed ports. Still no success. I am backing up to the cloud, and would like to also back up to this hard drive. Is this a setting issue with my Mac or do I have a bad hard drive?

In Preferences set the loaction of the library that should do the trick.
I have about 1TB of content on an external drive and it works sweetly ( drive needs to be turned on before launching iTunes ).

Similar Messages

Imac not finding external drive after reinstall

Hi there
I have recently downgraded from Mavericks to Mountain Lion. I have had an external hard drive running time machine since I got my imac.
When I downgraded it found the drive but it did refuse to restore any of the backups. (Which were all done on Mountain Lion as I had not backed up on Maverick) I had to repeat the install process due to another issue and when I tried to remount the drives it could only find two.
Now this drive has worked perfectly for Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion and on Maverick as I upgraded to each.
It runs on the firewire port. Swapping the port is not an option as the drive doesnt have a USB slot and I dont have a free USB port or a hub.
I have 3 in total 2 WD and one LaCie. The original one which my imac wont find is a WD.
Any suggestions would be appreciated as I dont want to reload anything onto my machine incase I have to try erasing and reinstalling again.

i'm using a 1,5 TB WD external hd and 2 others with 320 GB and 160 GB ... formatted on NTFS and it doesn't mount. it shows up at disk utility but i can't mount it ... and i have all of my life in there

Organizer cannot find external drive

The organizer shows a disconnected external drive H/ in grey but the Drive containing images etc is external drive I\. Photoshop elements 6 has no problem with this but Premiere Elements 4 cannot see beyond the Drive H/.

If you have tried all the suggestions given so far without success here's a couple more:
Turn your computer off
Turn on all the external hard drives that you have connected at some time
Turn your computer on and see if that has fixed the drive letter assignment confusion in PrEl.
If there is still no joy then go through this procedure (this is for Vista but if memory serves me it's much the same in XP).
Exit PrEl first then right-click the 'My Computer' icon on your desktop and select 'Manage'.
If you get a Vista 'Windows needs your permission' box, click continue. This brings up the Computer Management window. Open up Storage and Select 'Disk Management'. This will bring you a graphical representation of your drives:
If you scroll down you will see other Disks 3, 4, 5, etc... What you are looking for is the one that has your pictures on it and the one that has 'stolen' the [I:] letter.
You must then change the drive letters so that the:
wrong [I:] is assigned a different letter
right [I:] icorrectly assigned to [I:]
WARNING: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE THE DRIVE CONTAINING WINDOWS (nearly always the [C:] drive).
To perform the letter assignment right-click the drive and select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'
This displays the following dialog from which you select 'Change':
Use the drop down box to select the wanted drive letter.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

Boot from DVD but cannot find hard drive now

just updated to 10.7.3, then cannot boot from hard drive. I boot from DVD and cannot find hard drive now

Did the 10.7.3 update complete the installation process?
Some updates, when being installed and applied can restart (but not fully start up) the machine a couple of times.
I'd restart your machine and give it a few uninterrupted minutes to see if it boots up normally. Depending on the specs of your iMac, the remapping of app shortcuts etc can take a little while to complete (but not an excessive amount of time).
It is unlikely the update caused your hard drive to fail.
If your iMac doesn't boot up, restart and boot into the recovery partition of Lion by holding down both the cmd & R keys while booting. This will run Lion Recovery which will allow you to repair your Hard Drive, reinstall or install a fresh copy of Lion (network access is required).
If this fails, boot from the recovery DVD and launch Disk Utility from the Tools option in the toolbar and see if your hard drive is listed in Disk Utility. If your hard drive is not listed, there is a hard drive problem and you'll need to speak to Apple Tech Support to arrange a repair.
Hope this helps

Cannot find hard drive

I was going to install leopard - failed - now computer cannot find hard drive - I tried to reinstall tiger cannot find hard drive so put disk warrior - finds hard drive says is it an extended adjusts everything - finds hard drive and says it is okay - any brain storms - I do have a back up hard drive hooked up to a very old IMAC to download the info so I can give it away - so I know I can use that to get to the infor on the hard drive in fact I can get to it through disk warrior

Make a clone of your HD then, while things are still good. Do you have a firewire drive or another internal drive you can make a clone to?
If you make a clone, you can then try to install Leopard and if it doesn't work again, reinstall the clone.

Problems setting up my TC. Have just bought new iMac(OS 10.6.8) and TC. I set it up. iMac cannot find it. I have tried direct connection with an ethernet cable to Mac or my wireless router but nothing. Just a flashing orange light. Help for a simpleton p

Problems setting up my TC. Have just bought new iMac(OS 10.6.8) and TC. I tried to set it up. iMac cannot find it. I have tried direct connection with an ethernet cable to Mac or direct to my wireless router but nothing. Just a flashing orange light. Help for a simpleton please. Have tried reseting TC, but to no avail.

Just updated from 10.6.7 ---> 10.6.8 and had the same issue. Despite having done a clean install from 10.6 and got everything back off my TC, now Time Machine can't find it!
Green light is on, ethernet cable conected, network CP says its conected but nothing. Airport Utility can't find it. Hit reset button, Orange flashing light but still no show in Airport Utility.
But I know its there, as rebooting from 10.6 SL disk shows the backups are still ok?
Hmm, ideas anyone?
SBB

How can I copy all the files from my iMac to an external drive so they remain as 'regular accessible files'? I want to clean my dive

How can I copy all the files from my iMac to an external drive so they remain as 'regular accessible files'? I want to clean my dive

You can use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner. It will clone your HD to the external. The format is the same as your internal drive and you can boot from it using Option key at boot time.
http://www.bombich.com/
Regards,
Captfred

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library?

If you have a considerable photograph and/or movie collection you may want to consider off loading those to the EHD too. Here are Apple's article showing how handle iTunes & iPhoto libraries.
iTunes: library on EHD
iPhoto: How to move the Library to EHD
Roger

I recently purchased a new iMac with an external drive. I want to transfer my files from my old iMac to the external drive, but I'm afraid that doing that will compromise the use of the external drive on my new iMac. Comments? Help?

I recently purchased a new iMac with an 1 Terrabyte external drive. I want to transfer my files from my old iMac to the external drive, but I'm afraid that doing that will compromise the use of the external drive on my new iMac. I have not downloaded the external drive's software onto my old Mac because of this concern. May I simply "drag and drop" the contents I want transferred to the external drive, then set up my new Mac with the drive and download there? or is there a better procedure? Comments? Help?

If your intention is to copy a just documents and data (word processing files and music for example) then yes, you can use drag and drop. If you want to transfer data and applications and permissions, it would actually be easiest to connect the drive to your old computer and turn on TimeMachine. Once TM is finished, connect the drive to your new computer and restart it holding the option key to get into Recovery mode. Then you can use the restore from TM option to transfer your data and programs to the new computer.

I book cannot find hard drive

Dowloaded a upgrade to os X them restarted computer now it cannot find hard drive can anyone help?

Have you tried rebooting from the installer disks that came with your iBook and running Disk Utility?
This should give you some fast feedback as to the state of your hard drive... i.e. can you see the hard drive through Disk Utility?
Let us know what steps you have taken to try to repair so we can give you some specific tips.
Generally this is always good place to start:
http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/
This may help with your issue if you've already tried the standard routines:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464
iBook 1Ghz + G5 DP1.8GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion. I have a Laice 1 terabyte external drive that worked fine with Snow Leopard and now no show ... tried connecting it to front port and Mac Pro can't see it. Also lost Office,Quicken, and Final Cut Pro says: " You can't open application because Power PC apps are no longer supported" this is Not a good surprise!

Does the drive work when just directly connected? If so, have you prepped the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. 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 or Leopard.)
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. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. 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 can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Bluetooth problems: iMac cannot find iPhone

I am trying to set up a bluetooth internet connection between iPhone (iOS 8.1.2.) and iMac (OS X Yosemite). However, the iMac cannot find the iPhone.
So visited this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18559
The website suggests that I shd enter the information you received from your wireless service provider. This information usually includes an access phone number and an account name and password.
Firstly, what is a wireless service provider, my mobile operator?
Secondly, what is an access phone number, an account name and password? Access phone number, is it my mobile number? What is an account name and password, I do not have those?

Hello 5480,
It sounds like you’ve found a general Bluetooth Internet connection article which your using as a guide to use to share the cellular data connection from your iPhone to your iMac, but it’s requesting information that you don’t have. I suggest taking a look at the article linked below instead, it’ll show you how to quickly and easily setup a Personal Hotspot on your iPhone, which will allow you to share your cellular data connection with your iMac.
iOS: Understanding Personal Hotspot - Apple Support
So long,
-Jason

My IMAC recognises an external drive but won't let me save to it. Message is the there is no space available but there is 500G left.

My IMAC recognise an external drive but won't let me save video or files to it. Error message is that there is not enough space but the drive is 500G.
Only just started happening a week ago. Same with USB drives.
Regards,
Robert

How much is "plenty of storage"? Go to Settings>General>About>Available
The GB size of the download file is the compressed size (like .zip or .dmg). When the file is installed/uncompressed it can be 2-3 times larger.
 Cheers, Tom

IMac cannot find library after moving from external hard drive?

After transferring my library from an external hard drive to my new imac the library cannot be found by itunes, although i can see the content in the folder I selected in advanced preferences and the content appears to br there

In Preferences set the loaction of the library that should do the trick.
I have about 1TB of content on an external drive and it works sweetly ( drive needs to be turned on before launching iTunes ).

After upgrading to 10.7.4 my iMac cannot find my remote external harddrive. any ideas?

i upgraded to osx 10.7.4 today and now my iMac cant find the HD i have connected to my airport. anyone having the same issue?

Yes, me - will wait and see if it resolves itself in next cople of days. Most annoying.

Imac cannot find external drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for