Iomega external hard drive not appearing in Disk Utility

I have a MacBook Pro (from 2011) and I'm running OS X 10.9.5. I have an old Iomega external hard drive. I'm not certain but this thing might be about 3-4 years old? When I connect the drive to my MBP, it shows up in Finder under Devices. But what appears is the Windows disk utility that is pre-loaded on the drive. The actual drive does not appear and I can't move files onto it in Finder.
When I go into Disk Utility and try to format the drive for Mac use, it doesn't appear.
Is there anything I can do or am I stuck with this old drive that doesn't work with Macs?

Try following tips.
USB and FireWire Quick Assist - Apple Support

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External hard drive not visible in disk utility or finder

Hi all,
I have had a good look through previous discussions and I can't seem to find an issue relevant to mine.
My external hard drive has 2 partitions (1 time machine back up, 1 general hard drive). The issue is that the HD is running when it is plugged in however it is not visible in either disk utility or finder.
I am running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) on a 2010 MacBook Pro. I also have parallels desktop running windows 7. When I boot windows and plug in the HD I usually get the option to mount the HD to either OS X or Windows. With this issue the option window appears for a split second (not enough time to select either) and then disappears. It seems that the HD may be ejecting itself as soon as it is registered by the computer. I have tried using a different power cable for the HD and also a different usb cable, this doesn't help.
The external HD is a Samsung D3 Station, which i have had for 6 months now and never had an issue with.
Any help is appreciated
Thanks,
Bruce

An update for anyone who can help me:
I have tried the external hard drive in other computers (mac and windows), each time I get the same problem above.
I have removed the HD from the enclosure and purchased a docking station for it (3.5" SATA). When I plug it in to the laptop it disconnects itself straight away before it is visible. With the windows computers it installs the drivers and says that the device is ready to use, then disconnects before it shows up.
As the HD is not visible there is no option to re-format or anything.
This is very frustrating as I was using the HD with no issues and it randomly disconnected and I have not been able to access since.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Bruce

External hard drives not showing in disk utility

When I connect a new Eagle/Consus W-Series external hard drive enclosure to my 15" PB, the hard drive doesn't show-up in the left hand pane of the Disk Utility window. The only thing that shows is the drive in the PB. The hard drive in the enclosure is a WD SATA and is connected via USB cable. The same thing happens, or doesn't happen, when I'm connected via ethernet to my G5 2.3GHz Dual Core: when I open Disk Utility on the PB, the drive on the G5 doesn't show. What I'm trying to attempt is to mirror/clone Tiger from my PB onto the new, to me, G5 using SuperDuper.

Hi, Bob. I obviously didn't understand the situation properly, and now that I realize that, I'm afraid I still don't.
When the G5 is connected, via ethernet to my PB, the hard drive does not show-up in the PB's disk utility pane.
The G5 doesn't have a hard drive in it now, is that correct? So why connect it via Ethernet to the Powerbook?
If you're trying to clone the Powerbook's hard drive onto the G5's drive inside the external enclosure, all that needs to be connected is the external enclosure to the Powerbook, via USB cable. The G5 itself isn't involved in that process at all. When the G5's drive is in the enclosure and connected to the Powerbook, does it appear in Disk Utility on the Powerbook? If not, see my previous suggestions, with the exception of my comment about it not working with either computer.
If the SATA hard drive doesn't appear on the Powerbook's desktop or in Disk Utility when it is in the G5 and the computers are properly networked via Ethernet, recheck your sharing settings: the G5's drive must be shared to be visible to the Powerbook. In that mode, you may not be able to clone the Powerbook's drive to the other one, because the drive in the G5 is being used to run the G5. But if the G5's drive is partitioned, you should be able to clone the Powerbook's drive, via Ethernet, to a partition other than the one which contains the OS that's running the G5.
While the hard drive is in the external enclosure, I can hear it spinning, and am assuming that all the connections are working properly.
If the drive spins, you can be sure it's getting power, and that's good. But you can't safely conclude from that that any or all of the data connections are working properly; in fact the evidence suggests the contrary.
In short, there may be not one but two problems at work here: incorrect sharing settings when the two computers are networked, and a bad cable, connection, or enclosure when the drive is connected to the Powerbook via USB.
EDIT: Let me also add that if the only Tiger installer discs you have are the ones that came with the Powerbook, then having copies of that Tiger installation on both of your computers would be a violation of the software license that accompanied those discs, which entitles you to have Tiger installed on only one computer at a time. If that's the case, you should really buy a retail Tiger installer disc to use on the G5.
Message was edited by: eww

External hard drive not showing in disk utility

my samsung external hard drive has always worked with no problem on my mac..
I have just plugged it in to do some work and it will not appear anywhere..
not even in disk utility
i have tried the USB port and it is working fine because i also have a mouse and that worked fine in that port..
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External hard drive not seen in disk utility but can be seen in system profiler

HI
i have a 500gb western digital my passport, its been working fine, since i have used it on a windows machine, i can no longer get it to be recognised in finder. The light is flashing on the side and i can see it under USB in sytem profiler. I cant see it in disk utility. i cant format as it has photos etc loaded
cheers

An update for anyone who can help me:
I have tried the external hard drive in other computers (mac and windows), each time I get the same problem above.
I have removed the HD from the enclosure and purchased a docking station for it (3.5" SATA). When I plug it in to the laptop it disconnects itself straight away before it is visible. With the windows computers it installs the drivers and says that the device is ready to use, then disconnects before it shows up.
As the HD is not visible there is no option to re-format or anything.
This is very frustrating as I was using the HD with no issues and it randomly disconnected and I have not been able to access since.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Bruce

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My hard drive on my MacBook crashed and I purchased a new one.
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Create a data recovery, undelete boot drive
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External Hard Drive not appearing on Macbook Pro or 2009 Macbook

Hello,
I have a G Technology G-DRIVE External Hard Drive, that until now has worked perfectly.
I plugged it in today to try and back up my macbooks through Time Machine, like I have done for the last year - and on ether of the computers, the Hard Drive is not appearing in Time Machine or Finder. Having browsed online, I found that it is showing in Disk Utility and in System Information - but other than that I cannot do anthing with it. I even tried to Repair the drive, by erasing it and reformatting it - and I cant do it - I keep getting the messgae 'Error: 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.'
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At best, it sounds like this HD is flakey so even if you were able to get it working again, I would not trust it.
PlotinusVeritas gives some great suggestions for purchasing external hard drives in this thread:
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External hard drive not appearing when entering time machine.

Why does my external hard drive back up on time machine ok, but when I enter time machine (and the external device isn't plugged in) i can't see it?
It appears in time machine fine when the external drive is plugged in, but just not if it's been ejected or
I want to have the ext drive backed up in case I lose it or it corrupts....and if that happens I won't be able to plug it in to see the drive in TM - does that make sense?
I am running OSX 10.9.3 on a Mid 2010 Mac Book Pro. The external drive is a samsung and is formatted to Mac OS Extended (journaled). Time Machine is a standard Apple one and has been working fine for a couple of years

Try holding down the Option Key when selecting the Time Machine menu, then select Brows Other Time Machine Disks. See if you can then browse the backup of that drive. The normal Time Machine display is kind of a “live” restore point thing, if that makes sense.
I’m not sure if there is anything in Pondini’s FAQ, but you might peruse it and see if he discusses that issue: http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

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I have three external hard drives, none of which are showing up on my Desktop. All three drives are mounted, and I can navigate to them through the sidebar in Finder windows, and the contents of the drives are all fine and intact. In Finder preferences under "Show these items on the desktop", "External disks" is ticked. I've tried unmounting the drives using Disk Utility, then mounting them again, but they still don't appear. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Create a new admin user account, log into it, setup Finder's prefs to show all HDs, and see if the issue persists.

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My external HD has disappeared from my desktop. If I connect it via FW it does not appear in disk utilities or system profiler but if I connect it via usb it appears in both. I've switched out the cables, tried different ports and reset the PRAM and NVRAM. Can anyone offer any suggestions as to a fix?
Thanks in advance

Scott:
I take it from your explanation that even though it appears in all three of the utilities that my only remaining option is to use DataRescue II. Correct?
Let's say that it is the only one that occurs to me at this time of night
The demo version will at least show you that the data is still there. Another option might be to use SuperDuper to see if you can clone the User's Folder, or indeed the entire volume to an external firewire HDD, then using DU to reformat and erase the HDD (post for directions if needed) and clone back from external firewire HDD.
Yes, the drive does show up in sidebar in all three of the utilities I mentioned.
Is it possible to run Repair Disk in Disk Utility and see how it comes out? Or if you have done it already, what does it say?
While in Disk Utility, select the Manufacture ID of the external HDD and then look at the look at the icons at the very top. Is Mount dimmed or active? If active, click on it to mount the HDD.
Also, what happens if you try to Option boot?
If anything else occurs to me I will post back in the morning.
Cheers
cornelius
Message was edited by: cornelius

External Hard Drive not appearing on my desktop...

I am encountering a major problem with my Maxtor external hard drive. I have had the drive a few weeks, and everything has been sweet, swwet enough for me to trust it enough to back up 10 years of professional work and irreplacable photos. Today however it has decided to not show up on my desktop, and instead give me the option of initialising it, ejecting it and ignoring because 'my computer can not read it'!!!
I have tried disk utility but get get end of messages and am unable to repair the disk eeven though it says it needs fixing.
My next step has been to download TechTool, which seems to be sticking a 3rd of the way through a disk surface test?
I am pretty desperate as I REALLY don't want to loose what I have on it, so any light anybody can shed would be HUGELY appreciately.
Thanks in advance
s

Some people recommend erasing a drive (write zeros) before using which may pick up and mapout most bad blocks. Then benchmark the drive over various areas with something like intech speedtools QuickBench 3 and Zone Bench.
I like to load some test data to fill the drive to 90% and then erase and start using. but always keep two backups, one of which is off-line so if something happens you still have the alternate, as a minimum.
Are you using TTPro 4.12? there were problems with earlier versions and FW, and, FW is not immune from problems itself, as each OS X upgrade has attested, and updates to Oxford 911/912/922 chipset.
Also, you would not be alone in having trouble with Maxtor One-Touch. A search on http://www.macintouch.com for one, yields some hits. Another good place to look would be
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com
you can also good for Diamond Max 10/11 or Maxline III.
While you can access the data, backup. Maybe look into external SATA, or build your own FW800 912/922/924 drive and case.
I'm no longer a big fan of 3rd party tools, but Disk Warrior is good to have on hand.
And never, ever, fill a drive beyond 80-85%. After 75% you start to lose performance and high fragmentation can be a problem.

External Hard Drive won't load, Disk Utility and System Profiler crashes,

I've had the WD 1TB Passport for Mac for about a year now and as of this afternoon, my MacBook Pro stopped recognizing it. It's encrypted so when I plugged it in, my computer asked me for my password, but then it said there was an error and wouldn't mount. After restarting the computer, the password prompt for my external drive didn't even pop up. I can hear the hard drive spinning and the light flashes for a good 30 seconds before going solid. I have tested my USB ports with flash drives and they are reading them just fine. I tried to run Disk Utility but it goes into the never-ending loading mode. So then I go to the "About my Mac" page and clicked on storage, and the profiler crashed (never-ending loading). Can anyone help me? It was working just fine up until today. I even tried different Micro USB chords on it. This drive is incredibly important to me and I would appreciate not having to erase anything from it (kinda defeats the purpose of backing up a computer if the external hard drive is the one needing the backup).
I have a
Mid 2010 13in MacBook Pro
OS X 10.8.2
1TB WD Passport for Mac

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Finder wont recognize my external hard drives (NTFS), even when disk utility does, just after upgrading to OS X Mavericks!

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If they show up on the Desktop baltwo is correct since the finder does see them but the default preference hides them from the sidebar on the left.
Click the word finder by the Apple and choose preferences.
Choose the tab along the top that says sidebar.
Check away at those boxes.

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I wanted to share this with others that may have or do run into the same problem. I used the iomega external drive 1TB on an XP computer for a couple years, then when that computer went bad, hooked it up to a windows 8. This worked perfectly fine, but last week I did the upgrade to windows 8.1 and the drive was no longer able to be read. It showed in disk management as unallocated.
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The hard drive will not show up on the sidebar or desktop unless Finder preferences are set to do that:
In Finder's General preference section, make sure "External disks" is checked in the list of things to show on the desktop if you want to see them there.
Likewise, in Finder's Sidebar preference section, make sure "External disks" is checked in the "DEVICES" section to see them automatically appear on the sidebar.
But you don't need to do either for the MBP to recognize the drive, or to get files from its Time Machine backup set. To do that, you should use the Time Machine "Star Wars" interface. Pondini's FAQ's (already mentioned) tell you how to do that. Tip 17 is particularly relevant.

Iomega external hard drive not appearing in Disk Utility

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