Imac doesn't recognize my external hard drive--all of a sudden

i've been using a LaCie external hard drive as my timemachine back up for several years without incident. a few days ago i unplugged the lacie and when i plugged it back in, imac could no longer recognize it. when i go to time machine and try to"select disc" it tells me there is none to select. when i go to system prefs disc utility i can see the lacie icon in the left column, but when i click on it i just get the spinning beachball forever, and have to force quit. any thoughts?

Your HD might be corrupted, try going to spotlight, look up "Disk Utility" select your external and verify disk, there might be some errors on the disk, if so, then click repair disk, try that and get back to us.

Similar Messages

My new iMac doesn't recognize my external hard drive

I've been using a Seagate external hard drive to back-up everything from my old laptop. I just got a new iMac and plugged it in (via USB) and it's not recognizing it. I can't find it in the Mac system. I'm not super computer savy but on other iMacs I've used when I've plugged in something external (iPhone, camera card, thumb drive) it pops up right away.
Any help you can give me would be much appreciated. THANK YOU!

So what is the APPLE HDD?
Here is a screenshot of my devices on my iMac:
The top entry is the internal hard drive and "iMac ML" is the one and only partition on it which is by default normally "Macintosh HD" - I renamed it (except the hidden recovery).
Can you post a screenshot of yours?

IMAC doesn't recognize lacie external hard drive

Friends,
I have an imac 2013 3TB fusion drive running Mavericks. I have a lacie external quadra drive USB 3.0. When I turn on the drive, the computer does not recognize it. However, if I restart the computer, it then will recognize the drive. Why is this? Is there a preference or something I can change?
Thanks!
Steve

Your HD might be corrupted, try going to spotlight, look up "Disk Utility" select your external and verify disk, there might be some errors on the disk, if so, then click repair disk, try that and get back to us.

The iMac doesn't recognize my external hard disk

My iMac doesn't recognize my external hard disk. The iMac also keeps a DVD inside. It doen't throw it out despite "eject".

Sounds like you might need to make that call. In the meantime here are a few of things you could try that may help:
To eject the disk try a restart holding down the mouse button - hopefully it'll eject.
If you are running either Mountain Lion (10.8) or Lion (10.7) try booting into the Recovery HD:
Restart holding down Command+r. At the screen with 4 choices choose Disk Utility and then select Macintosh HD and click on repair disk. If it fixes anything click on repair disk again until you get a clean pass. Restart as normal from the Apple menu.
If you are running an earlier OS you would normally carry out this process by putting the grey restore disk that came with your Mac in the Disk drive and restarting holding down the C key. Choose your language and at the next screen from the menu bar select Utilities>Disk Utility and then follow the above instructions (I realise you won't be able to do this if you have a disk stuck in the optical disk drive).
Try an SMC and PRAM reset: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3603
Try a Safe Boot: Restart holding down the shift key until you see a grey progress bar. Once it's booted restart as normal from the Apple menu.
If none of this helps, I guess you need to make that call. Good luck.

My iMac stopped to recognize an external hard drive. What might be a reason?

My iMac stopped to recognize an external hard drive. What might be a reason?

Hi,
This happens often because the processes that run over the MacOS, but the power was not enough to power your device. Actually this happens with external hard drives on any platform. Sometimes the USB port is not enough or even energizes permissions MacOS fumble.
When your computer finishes starting up, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities window and select your external drive and click in First Aid tab and repair disk.
Good Luck,
Eduardo

My iMac won't recognize my external hard drive connected by FireWire 400

I have an external hard drive connected to my Intel-based iMac through a FireWire 400 cable. The drive doesn't come up on the desktop after turning on the hard drive power.
If I connect through the USB cable, it appears quickly on the desktop. Why isn't this working through FireWire? I had some trouble with this in Tiger as well, but was somehow able to get it to work.

The drive does not appear in Disk Utility.
And I don't think I'll be installing DiskWarrior until Leopards countless bugs are fixed, especially after reading THIS:
Alsoft: There are some DiskWarrior "compatibility issues" with Leopard
After previously stating "you can run the (current version of DiskWarrior under Leopard) knowing no harm will come to the hard drive or to your data," Alsoft has now posted a message to its Web site stating "there are some compatibility issues when running an installed copy of DiskWarrior 4.0 while started up from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Alsoft currently recommends that you do not run DiskWarrior 4.0 while the computer is started from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard."
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071026153956503

My imac does not recognize an external hard drive

I have bought an USB external drive but my Imac does not recognize it,
the external hard drive does not appear in the desktop neither disk utilities.
characteristics of the disk
toshiba, 1TB, USB 3.0
thanks

The problem is NOT the fact that it is a USB 3.0 drive, as USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0. The problem is specific to Toshiba Canvio portable drives. They only work if you use a micro-USB2 cable instead of the included USB 3.0 cable. This problem does NOT affect other USB 3.0 portable drives (Seagate, Western Digital, etc.), and they work fine with USB 3.0 cables.
Once again, you need a micro-USB2 cable for the Toshiba to mount.

Time Machine doesn't recognize my external hard drive

My external hard drive is no longer recognized by my iMac. I have had this problem before and had to repartition the drive. There is not a drive that is available when I go into Time Machine preferences. Any ideas?

If you completely repartitioned the external hard drive, you may need to Erase & Reformat each Partition on the drive now in order for them to be recognized. You can do that in Disk Utility.

Mac doesn't recognize Seagate external hard drive

I've been using a Seagate Free Agent Go Flex external hard drive to back up as Time Machine. Today, I plugged in the hard drive and my mac didn't see it in Finder. I could see it in disk utility. I ran verify and that failed and told me to repair the volume. I ran repair and it failed and gave me the following message, "Disk Utility Stopped repairing Free Agent Go Flex Mac OS Extended Format. Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files." Since I can't see the disk in Finder, how can get the files off the external drive? Has anyone else had experience with this?
Thanks!

Well, it's either erase it/them, or trry stronger Disk Repair Utilities...
You must repair the HD, if Disk Utility or fsck should fail to repair it, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft, you'll need the CD to boot from if you don't have another boot drive...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD/DVD though.
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
But others that may work…
Drive Genius…
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php
TechTool Pro…
http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

My Macbook Pro doesn't recognize my external hard drive

I had my external HD attached to my MBpro when I attempted to empty trash. The trash window showed it emptying thousand upon thousands of files (way more than was in the bin) and had a negative sign in front of the number of items being deleted. I canceled the emptying, but now the computer won't recognize the HD. It appears in Disk utility but not in desktop or sidebar. What happened and how do I fix it?

In Disk Utility, try using the Mount button in the top menu.
Disconnect the external drive, turn it off, wait about 1 minute, reconnect, and turn it back on. While waiting, restart the computer.
Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk

IMac won't recognize my external hard drive, and cannot backup onto it.

Time machine fault with Western Digital "my book" external drive
In trying to select a backup disc I follow these steps:
I have the drop down panel from Time machine preferences which asks me to select "time machine" by clicking on the "use for backup" button.
When I do this message appears,
"You do not have appropriate access privileges to save file “.0016cb83cfe5” in folder “Time Machine Backups”.
How do I set up "My book" to start backing up again? It was originally installed and backed everything up without a problem, but although the icon still appears on my desktop time machine will not backup.
Hope there is a simple explanation folks!

Welcome to Discussions compuvic!
I believe you're experiencing a problem that happened with the 10.5.6 update. There is a workaround found by V.K in [this thread|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8668572#8668572]. If you follow the instrux it should work.
/p

Why does my iMac (with Mountain Lion) no longer recognize my external hard drive I have used as a back up via Time Machine after the hard drive was accidentally unplugged?

Why does my iMac (with Mountain Lion) no longer recognize my external hard drive I have used as a back up via Time Machine after the hard drive was accidentally unplugged?

Do you mean the external hard drive is not mounted on the iMac desktop?
Check if Disk Utility sees the drive. Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility. If the external shows up in the left column, select it and click on Mount.
If it does show up this way, I recommend using DU to Repair Disk.

Time machine doesn't see my external hard drive.

Why doesn't Time Machine recognize my external hard drive? The icon is on the desktop but it won't back up and fails saying the backup volume can't be found.
It works on my mac mini but not on my intel core 2 duo. I have other backup files on my external hard drive. Any suggestions ????

I used it with my imac power pc before and now am using with my intel iMac. Is this possible without reformatting? Here is information you requested.
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Name : My Iomega HDD
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk1s3
Mount Point : /Volumes/My Iomega HDD
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : FireWire
Device Tree : /PCI0/RP04@1C,3/FRWR@0/node@d0b87de0002bb1/sbp-2@c000/@0:3
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : 4692F5BF-C808-3459-8090-F05D5724133C
Capacity : 298.0 GB (319,938,674,688 Bytes)
Free Space : 199.7 GB (214,375,014,400 Bytes)
Used : 98.3 GB (105,563,660,288 Bytes)
Number of Files : 367,381
Number of Folders : 85,981
Owners Enabled : No
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 3

My macbook pro retina wont recognize my external hard drive

my macbook pro retina wont recognize my external hard drive.
i opned the hard drive in the past on my computer and used it alot.
one time when i took it out i forgot to eject it, and since then when ever i conect it it would never show up on my computer or ever recognize the device.
please help me!

For starters try a PRAM reset.
DALE

I recently updated the software on my MacBook Pro. Now, my computer no longer recognizes my external hard drive. Could this be related to the software update and, if so, how do I correct the problem?

I Recently updated the software on my MacBook Pro. Now, my computer no longer recognizes my external hard drive. Could this be related to the software update and, if so, how do I correct the problem?

Ari343 wrote:
No, the external hard drive does not show up on Disk Utility. I don't have another computer to try it on.
Perform a PRAM reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
Have you tried all the ports?
Have you tried with a different cable?
Have you tested all the ports with other devices to see that they are functioning?
Ciao.

Imac doesn't recognize my external hard drive--all of a sudden

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for