Mac won't mount external HDD since 10.8.4 update

Hi All
I'm fairly new to Mac (3mths) so still finding my feet...hopefully someone is able to help me here!
Hardware:
MBP 2.7Ghz running (now) Os 10.8.4
WD HD5000D032-000 (the old drive)
3TB WD Red (the new drive)
Solutions tried to the problem (described in detail below):
- restart Mac
- restart eHDD
- different USB and power cables for eHH
- different Mac(mini)
- removed eHDD from stock housing and used SATA docking station
- bought new HDD and used with SATA docking station
Now to the detail of my problems:
I've had a WD 500GB external HDD for about 8yrs. Formatted FAT32. Used with PC/Win laptop no issues.
Switched to Mac and no issues at all. However after a recent trip to Japan I plugged in the HDD to back up all the photos and vids I'd taken (I took my Mac with me to download off the the various SD cards,etc), the HDD plugged in and booted fine as normal and file transfer was initiated. The folder was large (don't recall how much but a few GB at least). Everything seemed to be progressing fine so left both Mac and HDD plugged in and carried on watching tv. Noticed a few mins later that an error message had popped up saying disk could not be found (or something similar).
HDD was no longer visible. Therefore I unplugged and reconnected and.... nothing. I can see the HDD in Disk Utility but it's not mounted. Options to verify/repair disk are greyed out. At this point I tried using different cables and USB ports and still no improvement. I've also tried restarting both Mac and HDD.
A few hours of reading forum posts suggested the HDD housing may be the culprit as it was quite old and prone to failing. As I'd tried all else, I went out and bought a SATA docking station and removed the HDD from its stock housing. This yielded the same results - I can see the HDD clearly in Disk utility but can't mount or verify/repair.
I then tried plugging into mate's Macmini running and older Osx and this time, the verify/repair options are available. Tried them and result was disk could not be repaired by Disk Utility. I still couldn't mount the drive and access any files though.
I had been planning on setting up a NAS anyway so ordered a new 3TB eHDD (WD Red) which arrived yesterday. I plugged it in using the docking station ni order to format it to FAT32 so that I could at least download my data from my Mac (and then subsequently look to recover all the data from the old eHDD) but the option 'MS-DOS File System' isn't available in the drop down in Disk Utility/Erase.
All the steup guides on formatting HDDs using Mac suggest that I should have this option in order to format as FAT32. All I see are 3 types of 'MS-DOS (extended)' and 'exFAT'.
The twist:
All this time I just assumed that it was the hardware acting up but the fact that the new HDD isn't recognised properly either made me wonder. I remember updating the OS to 10.8.4 whilst I was away in Japan and connected to wifi. I presumed that any update that was pushed down to me was good to go - could I be wrong??
I've also noticed that my wifi sometimes takes a while to connect / disconnects by itself and skype repeatedly drops calls. From more reading around, I see that these are some issues people have experienced since updating to 10.8.4.
So could my HDD issues be being caused by 10.8. 4 as well?!
I'm out of ideas so now wondering whether I should try and roll back the 10.8.4 update but I've not idea whether this is safe/easy to do, etc...
Any help would be VERY much appreciated!!
Thanks in advance!
Vig

Duplicate post. Answered here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1614533

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Throne777 wrote:
debdj wrote:
Ohhh, pmount worked a treat ^ ^
Any way to get it mount it automatically when I log in?
mm..I guess you can put it in your ~/.xinitrc file
but put the line before the DE/WM invocation line.
so, if you use say, use lxde and have a line like
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Hmm, pmount isn't working as well as I thought.
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Edit: Typo
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Last edited by meph (2012-03-31 16:45:25)

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Disque /dev/sdb: 500.1 Go, 500107862016 octets
255 têtes, 63 secteurs/piste, 60801 cylindres
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lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 jui 26 13:06 1da8b247-2a03-4a00-817c-d4da8df63488 -> ../../sda2
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lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 jui 26 13:06 6853-5BA9 -> ../../sdb1
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Last edited by vomix (2007-08-09 17:56:28)

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IMac Won't Recognize external HDD

Hello Everyone, I have been at this for eweeks to no end and no resolution. I'll take you back to the beginning being as specific as I can.
I had a Macbook Pro and used my 1TB Western Digital Caviar Green for time machine backup. Recently I purchaed an iMac so I set up th HDD to backup my new iMac with time machne and also use it for extra storage. Worked seemlessly. Then I noticed sometimes when I would try and access some of my files on the WD HD it would promt me for a password. I found this to be annoying so I tried tweeking the permissions to allow read write for all users. Probably not the best idea but I was annoyed having to constantly put in my password eberytime I watched a video. Didn't work same old problem...So, I just said oh well. Next I perpared to sell my Macbook Pro so I plugged in the external and began putting all of my files on it that I wanted to keep on the external. The Macbook Pro was on Lion 7.2 I beleve. I reisntalled Lion on it thinking it would wipe everyhing off the computer and I soon learned it did not. It just brought me back to 7.0. Got frustrated went to sleep. Next day I plug my external into my iMac and I get nothing...Absolutley nothing...Does not show up under USB in System Profiler. DOes not show up in disk utility and does not show up in FInder sidebar llike other usb devices do once mounted. So, I mess around with cords restart computer, etc and get nothing still. I unplug the exrnal plug it into the Macbook Pro and it works perfectly as it always has before. Recognizes it intantly with no problems...So, with the Macbook Pro I ran disk utility and erased everything off the HD (I put all the data onto a different external and the iMac recognizes it perfectly fyi) and reformated it to MAC OS X Extended (Journaled) . When it finished I unmount it plug it into iMAc and still get nothing. I screwed up somewhere along the lines of toying with the file permissions or reinstalling Lion again on the Macbook Pro. I have no idea what wnet wrong. All I know is the Macbook Pro recognizes the drive but my new iMac will no longer recognize it at all. I have since given the Macbook Pro to my buddy and have been trying to figure out what the **** is wrong with this drive. Anyone with any ideas/suggegtions I would greatly appreciate it. Thank You very much for your time.

Download the software or driver from the manufacturer's site.

Mac won't mount external HDD since 10.8.4 update

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