Internal hard drive no longer recognized. Can not mount.

I have a 1TB Seagate Barracuda (ST31000340AS) in my Mac Pro - 2 year old drive.
Yesterday, the drive just up and disappeared from my Finder view.
I tried a number of steps to get it back, but have had no luck, such as:
.. Turning computer off and on
.. Tried mounting in Disk Utility and Disk Warrior
.. Removed drive and installed in external FW enclosure
I'm guessing the thing is faulty, but am wondering if the wise souls here have any other ideas or recommended steps to recover the drive or the data.
I've seen some crazy ideas like freezing or dropping the drive, but I'd like to take some sensible steps first.
I would certainly appreciate the help as there was some very valuable data on the drive.
(For the record, I was relying on a service called BackBlaze for backups, but when I went to recover online, I found that they had only stored about 1/2 of the data... but that's an issue I need to sort out with them separately.)
Thanks.

you could try a few more programs...like Drive Genius. Failing that there are hardware recovery companies like Drive Savers.Very expensive but that call will be yours.

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EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE NO LONGER RECOGNIZED, DOES NOT MOUNT

Hello everyone, this is not necessarily a mac mini issue
last night was working on my mac mini (intel 2007), it froze up, couldnt even restart, so i held the power button (hard reset i guess)
it came back on but then would NOT recognize my external HD, (which is an iomega mini max 1TB)
perhaps this was considered by my mac as "not ejecting or putting the disc away properly "
i did a ton of research (here and elsewhere)..found various hints/fixes but nothing works so far
i tried using different cables, firewire, usb..ran hardware test...zapped the pram....tried it on my ibook (which also does not recognize it)...turned the hd off and on...
i unplugged everything, power to mac, all cables.. left overnight...tried again with no luck
restarted, powered down...nothing
tried finding the the external hd partitions in "/Volumes" to trash. there was ONE of the partitions there, which i trashed - no luck (i had 3 partitions on the external hd)
was going to swap the hd to another enclosure, but the mini max hd wont fit it/work
disk utility doesnt see it
i tried a few things with terminal - nothing
i am unable to open firmware (via commandoption+OF, as this is an intel)
it doesnt seem to be a problem with the firewire port, as that port recognized my video camera
im pretty sure the HD and my data is fine, its just that my mac doesnt recognize it. its like its already "on" or "mounted"
it cant find the path or map or something like that
in system profiler it comes up as:
"Unknown Device:
Manufacturer: Unknown
Model: Unknown Device
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec"
any ideas? why would force shutting down (by holding the power button) cause my mac to no longer recognize the external HD?
i have NOT tried "discwarrior" or norton. trying to avoid having to pay $100 and i read that others with this problem bought discwarrior, which didnt see it or help
i did try something called "total recall" by virtualab - it did NOT see the external HD
and as i mentioned above, disk utility does not recognize it
ok please let me know, i could really use some help here
i do usually backup to dvd's but not everything..also did a ton of work recently that was NOT backed up
hope to hear from you soon!!!
thanks in advance, andrew

hello, i dont have a UPS but have it connected to a power strip
what might this mean?
btw - when this first happened (3 days ago) i used disk utility/first aid to examine my mini, it PASSED
yesterday i thought what the heck, ill run first aid again
and this is what i got:
verifying volume "mac mini"
checking HFS plus volume
checking extents overflow file
checking catalog file
incorrect block count for file AbletonTmp-0001
(it should be 1 instead of 0)
1%)
checking multi-linked files
checking catalog hierarchy
checking extended attributes file
checking volume bitmap
checking volume bitmap
or repair",0)
checking volume information
volume header needs minor repair
the volume mac mini needs to be repaired
error: the underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume needs repair
it wasnt able to fix it while booting/running off the mini so
i then ran disk utility on the OSX install disc and was able to fix that problem
but alas, no luck with the external HD, still not recognized
the AbletonTmp-0001 makes sense because that was one of the programs i was running when it crashed
i was hopeful that fixing that problem would help.
ive been through quite a few crashes and restarts like that, i wonder why this time it caused such a serious problem
i would imagine there are a ton of people who have to force a restart or dont eject the HD, or unplug it, etc
i wonder why there isnt an easier/better way for a mac to deal with an external hd/flash etc. are pc's as sensitive with ex hd's?
ive had to tell new mac owners again and again -"no! you have to eject it first!"
ok well thanks in advance for any further advice/help
it means a lot to me, so thank you!!
-andrew

My internal hard drive no longer boots. Boots just fine in external usb enclosure.

My internal hard drive no longer boots when inside my laptop. The drive boots just fine in external usb enclosure. It is also fully recognized when internal (as seen in single user mode, recovery mode or while booting from another drive).
I have tried:
with disk utilities
•fixing permissions
•repairing disk
in single user mode
•fsck -fy
zapping the pram
removing ram and zapping the pram
Any suggestions or diagnostics would be appreciated.

Can't believe I spent days reformating my hard drive, restoring it, getting another hard drive... and it was all a cable that failed. I wonder what can make an internal cable like that fail (seems like the least likely part of all to fail).
Thanks PlotinusVeritas
Thanks to ifixit:
bit.ly/1q0EnOx
If you can't fix it, you don't own it!

I lost my images from my hard drive and now I can not access them in Lightroom. What can I do?

I lost my images from my hard drive and now I can not access them in Lightroom. What can I do?

Your images are truly no longer present on the hard drive(s)? Have you had your operating system do a search for them?
If such a search fails to find them, here's what I would do, in order
Look in the trash can/recycle bin
Restore from backups
If you don't have backups ... well, why not? ... find a program on the internet called an "undelete utility" (free versons are available) and then download and install it and run it. If you are going to do this, then do not perform any other tasks on your computer except find the program, download it (if possible to a different drive than the photos were stored on), install it (if possible to a different drive than the photos were stored on), and run it. In the future, you will need to commit to making regular backups of your photos and of your Lightroom catalog file, no excuses.
If that doesn't work, but the thumbnails still appear in Lightroom, you can probably recover the thumbnails from Lightroom via a plug-in, but these would be low-resolution versions of your photos, if you really need instructions on this step, write back

HT1420 how do i Deauthorize a computer that has had the hard drive lock up and can not get it working

how do i deauthorize a computer that has had the hard drive lock up and can not get it working

You can only deauthorise individual computers directly on them. Otherwise if you've reached the 5 computer limit, then you should be able to log into your iTunes account and 'deauthorise all' (which you can only do once every 12 months) and you can then (re-)authorise up to 5 computers : authorising and deauthorising.

SATA Hard Drive no longer recognized by Mega 865

I recently put together an MSI Mega 865 barebone system with the following specifications:
Processor: Intel 3.2c Ghz (Northwood core)
Hard Drive: Western Digital SATA 10kRPM Raptor
Memory: 1 GB (2 x 512MB) Kingston 3200 (400Mhz)
DVD Player: Plextor 8X DVD RW
Video Card: HIS Excalibure 9800Pro 128 MB
OS: WinXP
Finally got everything up and running, and then I went to boot up, and the system can no longer find the SATA harddrive. In fact, it's not even an option in the BIOS now.
My question is the following:
Would the SATA be available all of the time, or only if a SATA enabled harddrive was recognized?
When the system is first powered on by plugging the power cord into the wall, the hard drive makes a small amount of noise, as if it's spinning a bit. When the computer starts up, there is no noise at all, although the hard drive does get warm (which makes me think there is power to the unit).
I tried the 2nd power supply (old IDE) for the hard drive, but that provided that same results as the SATA power supply.
There were some inconsistencies with my mega 865 prior to this. First, the HIFI would randomly lock up, and the only way to get it back was to unplug the computer from the wall. 2nd, it had lost communication on the serial port (why, I don't know). 3rd, and final, it doesn't seem to recognize my hard drive (or my hard drive is ruined).
Can someone help me out here, I'm not sure whether to return my HardDrive, my MSI Mega 865, or both.

The system worked for 4 days or so. One day, I started it up, and it couldn't boot because it couldn't detect the SATA drive. When this happened I decided to flash it to the the latest BIOS, but even this did not help.
The unit had problems before, it would lock up on initial power up, the HIFI/CD/DVD would not respond (when the computer was not on of course). I would have to plug and unplug the unit 3 or 4 times before it would power on and not lock up.
I contacted MSI support, and explained my problems. They told me to return the unit to the reseller. I'm not sure if the problem was the unit, the hard drive, or both, so I went ahead and returned the HD and the MSI unit. It'll be another 2 weeks or so now before I get my computer up and running. :(

Time machine (hard drive) no longer recognized

Took note that the Time Machine was no-longer backing up onto my iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive (last backup states 8/18/11). This was noted when I was attempting to recall an Excel worksheet; alerted that the worksheet I most-frequently use could no-longer be read. When attempting a (Time Machine) backup retrieval it was realized that the system had not performed a backup since the above date; now the system doesn't even "see" it (backup drive)???
Can you help?

BUMP! Count me in on this one. The last Time Machine back-up was 12/6. I take my machine to the office during the week but am working from home this week. My other external drive (Archives) shows up, but Time Machine is MIA. Looking at System Profiler under USB, I can see the drive on the USB hub and the volume is labeled Time Machine, so the computer sees it, it just doesn't mount it to the desktop so Time Machine can't find its drive.
I've turned the drive off and on. I've swapped cables with the Archive drive. I've rebooted. Nothing works. Both are Western Digital MyBook Studio editions. Both are plugged in to the same hub. I also switched the cables on the hub, but if it's showing up in the Profiler, the problem isn't with the hub, the drive or the cable.
Suggestions? Clues? Comments? I'd rather not lose a year's worth of Time Machine back-ups at this point, plus I can't even reformat the drive.

HELP! Hard drive no longer recognized

Installed Lion on my MBP first day. Everything worked great except that my TM backup would no longer work on my WD external hard drive, so I had no backup. WD is supposed to be working on this.
Yesterday, while checking email I get the spinning wheel. Spun for about 15 minutes so I did a hard boot. (Held the button down until shutdown)
When the computer tried to come back, all I get is the apple screen with a spinning wheel again. So I restart with option key down so I can look at the drives. The drives shown are the Lion recovery disc, Bootcamp, and EFI boot disc. Everything I read said I need to erase the Macintosh HD and reinstall OS. I erased the disc, still no luck. When I run disc utility, verify disc, it says the volume MacintoshHD appears to be OK, but when I try to reinstall the origional OS from the DVD that came with my computer, it says the disc is not available.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I can see it in the disk utility, but not in the install window. This is the part that I don't understand.
I don't understand it either. I think there may be issues involved in installing Lion on a drive with a Boot Camp partition. That's why I think you should start over with a blank drive. Restore everything except Boot Camp to the state it was in before you installed Lion. Go through the whole installation process again, and when everything is working, run Boot Camp in Lion if you wish.
By the way, for future reference, you made mistakes that may have made matters worse.
When an application hangs, force-quit it. Don't do a forced reboot except as a last resort.
If you can't boot, try booting in safe mode, or from the Lion recovery partition. Don't erase a boot volume except as a last resort.
You need at least two independent backups of all your data, one of which should be off-site.

USB Hard Drive no longer recognized after SW Update

I just updated Cisco software and my external hard drive is no longer recognized by Cisco. It is a Seagate drive that is listed on the Cisco tested - passed - approved list. It worked prior to this update. I have disconnected the drive. Reconnected it. Rebooted. Turned machine and router on and off and its still not recognized. Any ideas? Thank you, Jim S.
Model name: Linksys E4200
Model number: E4200
Firmware version: 1.0.03 build 14
Operating system: Windows 7 SP 1
Software version: 1.4.11266.0
Connection type (WAN): DHCP

It's great to hear that everything is back up and running.
However, just in case you missed some step while upgrading Cisco Connect or Firmware. These are the steps.
http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?vw=1&docid=cd2cb366ce254f51a5bed7539b068fed_Updating_Cisco_Co...
Link to download latest version of Cisco Connect & Firmware.
http://homesupport.cisco.com/en-us/support/routers/E4200

Lacie Hard Drive no longer recognized

I had the power go out in my apartment for a couple of seconds today and now one of my Lacie FW external hard drives won't be recognized or mounted by my Mac. In System Profiler, it recognizes it as "Unknown Device", but the Disk Utility won't "see" it at all. I also have Data Rescue II, but it won't recognize the drive either. I have 2 other Lacie externals that didn't seem to be affected by the outage.
Troubleshooting I've already tried:
- rebooting
- shutting down, uplugging all drives, and unplugging Mac for 15 min
- resetting PRAM
Are there any other ideas out there? I've read good things about Disk Warrior, but I don't want to buy it if I'm not sure it will even recognize the drive. Thoughts?

That was the kind of malfunction exhibited in some LaCie drives: They powered up, spun, but were unable to mount. Sometimes, the blue ligt on the front was barely dimmed or slighty pulsated along with the spinning. And usually, the cause of the problem was a bad AC adapter.
Just Google for that info, or have a look at this page.
If one of the other power supplies matches, you loose nothing but a copule of minutes by trying. If it doesn't work, the internal bridge board could be fried.
It could also be a corrupt firmware issue, but if System Profiler is unable to identify it, the LaCie firmware updater will probably fail as well.
MacMini G4 1.25GHz 1GB Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Expansion base USB ports & hard drive no longer recognized

I have an HP dv5000 laptop and the xb2000 expansion base with a built-in hard drive in the base. I routinely undock the laptop while it's running and plug it back in again and have no problems. Yesterday, I undocked as usual, but then shut the laptop down while it was undocked. Then I put it back in the expansion base and booted up again. The problem is that now I can no longer see the hard drive in the expansion base and the USB ports for the expansion base will also not work.
The really sad part is that this is a new expansion base because the same thing happend about a month ago, but I thought it was a hardware problem and just bought a new base.
Can anyone please help me get my laptop to see the hard drive in the base and also get the USB ports working again as well?
Thanks,
OneTrader

I tried to post a reply on a computer with Internet Explorer 8 RC1. My CPU would always be 100% busy as soon as I hit the Reply button.
I complained to HP Support and was told that this forum is not compatible with IE 8. So, I am now on a computer with IE 7. UPDATE: I just executed C:\WINDOWS\ie8\spuninst\spuninst.exe and my HP Notebook reverted back to IE 7 without any problems so far. I am now able to edit this reply (without my CPU being 100% busy)!
I had exactly the same problem with all USB Ports and the optional 160GB USB Hard Drive being nonfunctional, immediately after Microsoft
Update (Custom) finished installing recommended driver "Cypress - Other hardware - HX2LP Kit (3.03.0000.2).
The device appeared in Device Manager, under Universal Serial Bus Controllers, as "HX2LP Kit (3.03.0000.2)". I uninstalled the device but
after a restart it was there again.
I executed System Restore to a date before the Cypress drivers were downloaded and installed.
All xb2000 USB Ports, the USB Hard Drive and Sound now work as before. I have been using a mouse and printer plugged into the xb2000 today. Also,
I completed a Windows Live OneCare, complete backup, to the Hard Drive in the xb2000 base, today.
The one thing that I hate about my xb2000 is that the Hard Drive keeps spinning as long as the Hard Drive Power Adaptor is connected to
the base. I use "Safely Remove Hardware" on the task bar to safely remove the USB drive and then disconnect the Power Adaptor from the base. If I leave the disk spinning, after a few minutes I get a very loud clicking sound which sounds like something inside the drive is beating on the hard drive chassis. Maybe it is the arm which holds the heads. Complaints to HP have not resulted in a solution to these aggravations.
Message Edited by iwampfler on 02-27-2009 11:45 PM

LaCie 120Gb external hard drive no longer recognized

I've had a LaCie 120Gb external hard drive working independently off a firewire cable for a couple of months now. This morning it stopped being picked up as an external drive. It connects because you can feel it whirring, and stops when the computer is turned off (so the cables are working), but it no longer shows up in the finder or disk utility. I tried resetting the PRAM to no effect. Any ideas anyone???
Dave Nicholls, Auckland.

it spins because it has power. maybe your firewire port is damaged? does the drive have a usb port that you can try? if not, you can remove the hard drive from it's enclosure and install it in a tower mac or pc if you have one and see if it shows up then.

Hard Drive no longer recognized. Input Output Error.

Recently my iBook G4 1.0 Ghz, has stopped recognizing my hard drive.
I have taken the hard drive out of the computer, erased it 35 times and reinstalled OSX 10.4 with all the updates. The hard drive runs very smooth. No clicks or problems associated with bad hard drives. This is a new hard drive from Toshiba 5400 80gig.
After runner the hard drive utility program from OSX several times (about 30) no errors. Also after running fsck about 14 times, not errors where found.
Everything appeared to be fine after installing the hard drive once again into my iBook. About 3 days later though, the same problem.
Hard drive Utility says the Tree is dead and BSD is for the cats. Can't repair anything. The computer has ceased to work and I have no desire to take the hard drive out for a third time before I know what might be wrong with it.
Can anyone help me with this?
Thank you kindly.
iBook, Powerbook, iMac Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Thank you Jon for your reply.
I forgot to mention that I am actually in the process of becoming a certified apple portable hardware technician. Just started going through the training program.
I've taken many Apple computers apart and replaced most everything in them. I had to replace my original hard drive from Apple a few months ago after it was having serious problems.
I am familiar with DiskWarrior and such programs. But that's just the thing. The Hard drive is coming back with no errors and is working fine when attached to the iBook externally via Firewire.
I was thinking it has something to do with the logic board. But being I am not quite that advanced in my tech training I am unable to answer the problem on my own.

After installing Lion, my iomega ex. hard drive no longer recognized for time machine

Is all my back up gone? Lion does not see the iomega external hard drive. No more automatic backup? How can I restore to Leopard if Lion doesn't recogize the Iomega?

Thank you Jon for your reply.
I forgot to mention that I am actually in the process of becoming a certified apple portable hardware technician. Just started going through the training program.
I've taken many Apple computers apart and replaced most everything in them. I had to replace my original hard drive from Apple a few months ago after it was having serious problems.
I am familiar with DiskWarrior and such programs. But that's just the thing. The Hard drive is coming back with no errors and is working fine when attached to the iBook externally via Firewire.
I was thinking it has something to do with the logic board. But being I am not quite that advanced in my tech training I am unable to answer the problem on my own.

Freecom 160gb hard drive no longer recognized?

Hi
This drive worked for months with no problems but now it no longer appears in Finder.
I tried using Disk Utility but it freezes when it searches for HDs - however it runs fine once I power off the Freecom HD.
I also tried powering off/disconnecting everything.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

I tried using Disk Utility but it freezes when it searches for HDs - however it runs fine once I power off the Freecom HD.
Hi, flumaxed. This sounds like a hardware-based problem to me. Do you have cats in the house? If so, check your Firewire cable for toothmarks, and try using another, known-good cable.
If it isn't a bad FireWire cable, it may be a bad drive enclosure. The bridge circuitry that mediates between the bare hard drive's ATA connector and the FireWire cable — which is part of the enclosure, not the drive inside it — may have failed. If that's the case, replacing the drive enclosure with a new one would solve the problem.
It's unlikely, but perhaps not impossible, that a failure of the drive itself would cause Disk Utility to freeze.

Internal hard drive no longer recognized. Can not mount.

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