Mirrored RAID not mounting/not showing as RAID (Disk Utility)

I have 2 Lacie Firewire Disks set up as a mirrored RAID (created by Disk Utility). I've been using this setup for about a year with no issues. But today I tried mounting the RAID and I got this msg twice (one for each drive)...
"Disk Insertion - The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
It then asks if I want to Initialize, Ignore or Eject. If I leave this msg up for a bit it eventually just goes away. But the disks never load.
I opened up Disk Utilities to check and see if the drives were listed and they are, but the RAID is NOT listed. All of the first aid options are greyed out. I tried to mount each disk but they will not mount, I assume because the RAID info has been lost?
Is there a way for me restore the RAID or at least get my info off of the drives? They contain a large photo library that cannot be replaced.
Powerbook G4 Aluminium 1.33gthz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I never technically fixed the RAID. I used the program Data Rescue mentioned above to look at the drives and pull my data off of them. What I found was one of the drives was in perfect order, and the other drive had stopped recording data MONTHS ago. Basically the RAID became un-paired and stopped working correctly, and only one of the drives was saving the data. It freaked me out at first because the drive I decided to recover first was the one that was missing data. But I then looked at the 2nd drive and it had all my data on it, and I was able to recover it.
Anyway, Data Rescue worked perfectly. Now I just have the drives running independently. But I am staying away from the apple software RAIDs for now, as I did some reading and they seem to not be so trustworthy.
Also, Data Rescue takes quite a bit of time to pull all your data off, especially when you have a couple hundred gigs of data. Hopefully this helps.
Sam

Similar Messages

Seagate drive not mounting or showing up in disk utility

I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500 Gbytes that I took out of its external casing because it was not mounting.
i assumed the sata to usb converter in the case was bad.
I took it out and put it in one of the drive bays on my MacPro 3,1 2008 and started my computer up.
my computer was beeping about once a second while it was in apple's version of a bios boot.
when i start it up the disk does not show up in finder so i go to the disk utility and the disk does not show up their either.
so i open my computer and touch the outside of the drive and its spinning just fine, it doesn't feel shaky or sound bad.
Any ideas to get my drive working?

I've pulled three Seagate Barracuda HD's from their external cases (GoFlex) for use either in drive bays or better external enclosures and all worked. However, there's a hidden Master Boot Record (MBR) in the first partition even when the GoFlex has been formatted for use attached to a Mac and the entire drive has to be reformatted with a GUID partition table for it to be usable.
In Disk Utility, is there even a Media line for the Seagate? If so, that's what needs to be partitioned. If not, do you have the Debug Menu enabled in DU? If not, enable it and see if that helps.
I had pulled the Barracudas out of their enclosures because there was no ventilation and they were overheating (Tech Support denied that but the SMART record showed they were). It's possible that yours was cooking for so long that it is now indeed fried, which would explain why it didn't work in its original enclosure any more either.

Hard Drive Not Mounting, but showing connected in Disk Utility

I accidentally locked myself out of my external hard drive. While it was connected, I went into the Info and went under "Ownership & Permissions" and unchecked the Ignore ownership on this volume and I clicked the You Can drop box and changed it to No Access. The drive doesn't mount on the desktop anymore but I see it in disk utility. What should I do?

Macintosh:~ matthewjavier$ cd /Volumes
Macintosh:Volumes matthewjavier$ ls -l
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Feb 11 07:56 Macintosh HD -> /
d---r-xr-x 21 matthewjavier matthewjavier 782 Feb 11 18:44 Matt's Extra Brain Storage External
drwxrwxrwx 3 matthewjavier admin 102 Feb 2 2007 Matt's iPhoto & iTunes
drwxrwxrwx 3 matthewjavier admin 102 Apr 8 2007 Matt's iPhoto & iTunes 1
drwxrwxrwx 3 matthewjavier admin 102 May 13 2007 Matt's iPhoto & iTunes 2
drwxr-xr-x 3 matthewjavier admin 102 Dec 8 2006 mattstaycalm
Macintosh:Volumes matthewjavier$

My external HD does not mount despite it appears on Disk Utility

I have been using an external HD to keep my video library. Just this week I updated my library and everything was OK, but when I tried to see the videos on my mediaplayer the disk didn't appear. I connected it again to my iMac but now the external HD does not mount. I tried Disk Utility, the disk appear gray on the sidebar but it doesn't mount. I run Repair but I get the b-tree node size error and the disk still does not mount.
Please help!!!!

If DiskWarrior can't fix it, you might try Data Rescue II...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
(Has a Free Demo to see if it could or not, but you'll need another drive to recover to).
Or FileSalvage...
http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?%20mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
to recover what you can.

External HD Won't Mount, Only Shows up in Disk Utility

My external Time Machine drive won't mount any more. It seems like it's very sensitive to being disconnected
without putting it in the trash, and my USB interface seems to spontaneously disconnect -- possibly loose.
The drive shows up in HD Utility with the mounted name greyed out, but it can still be selected to try a repair.
It always says it cannot repair the disk and to back it up. Well, it IS a backup. Disk Utility does seem to give up
on repairs quite frequently anyway. I've tried df -hl and then fsck_hd, but df -hl doesn't give me a /dev name that
fsck_hd can use.
I've gotten into terminal and been able to look at some backups, so apparently something is mounted, just not completely
to the point of seeing it on my desktop.
Is there a way to moving these backups to another drive? Perhaps via an OSX-specific darwin *nix command for copying
an entire directory in Terminal?
Is there an app that's particularly good at disk recovery other than Disk Warrior (which tends to take days to work)?

Have you tried another USB cable?
Also, you may need to take the drive out of that enclosure and use a different one.

XServe RAID disks not showing up in Disk Utility

I have a new (to me) xServe RAID box and I'm stuck, the stays lights are green the fiber link light is green on the RAID and not lit on the PCI card but shows up as green in the fiber link section of the settings tool but the RAID array doesn't show up in Disk Utility so I can't format the drives.
I set up the disks as Enhanced JBOD using RAIDadmin and I've deleted and created it a couple of times, I'm just not sure what else I should try, I've read the manual but. Can't find any suggestions of what's going wrong.
Thanks

Port 1: Link Established
2Gps
Point to point
Status light green
In the system Profiler I'm not sure what you're asking for, I'm running 10.5.8 standard not server.
the fibre channel shows link established 2Gps and cable type copper but nothing else, the disks & RAID controller don't show up anywhere I've looked.
RAID Admin shows the JBOD disks as online and lists the LUNs etc.
System looks fine, only error is missing second power supply.

Macbook Pro 2012 HDD not mounting/not showing in disk utility

I opened the macbook to find all apps freezing, nothing would work. So i did a hard shutdown and restarted the machine, and when it booted i just got the flashing folder icon. I re-booted into internet recovery, and went in to Disk Utility and found that the hard drive was not mounting and showing in there. I swapped the hard drive with a spare SSD and it worked fine, so it's not the cable. Also when i boot up, i can hear the hard drive spinning so its not completely dead. I have booted it up as a target disk with the iMac and it still will not appear. There's some photos and other bits that i really want to recover from this drive. Any advice?

Okay, so i have held off going to an Apple store because i wanted to recover the data from the hard drive before repair/replacement. I fitted a 120GB SSD drive which worked fine until today when i opened it up and the same thing occurred. It would seem that it is not the hard drive that had a problem, but perhaps a software issue. I managed to boot up once after the crash and the error report listed a kernel panic as the root of the problem. Here is the full report, which i also got the first time it happened...
Anonymous UUID:       810341CF-8185-F411-7C6C-347DC4B4CDBA
Wed Aug 27 01:24:36 2014
panic(cpu 1 caller 0xffffff80226dc24e): Kernel trap at 0xffffff802267bf83, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0x000000000000003c, CR3: 0x000000004de2c03d, CR4: 0x00000000001606e0
RAX: 0x0000000000000000, RBX: 0x0000000000000000, RCX: 0x00000000cbb09500, RDX: 0x0000000000000821
RSP: 0xffffff8144263ac0, RBP: 0xffffff8144263af0, RSI: 0x0000000000000000, RDI: 0xffffff8022c9f500
R8: 0x0000000000000000, R9: 0x0000000000000000, R10: 0xffffff8022cd1600, R11: 0x0000000000000000
R12: 0xffffff8022c9f500, R13: 0x0000000000000000, R14: 0x0000000000000000, R15: 0x0000000000040000
RFL: 0x0000000000010286, RIP: 0xffffff802267bf83, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010
Fault CR2: 0x000000000000003c, Error code: 0x0000000000000000, Fault CPU: 0x1
Backtrace (CPU 1), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff8144263750 : 0xffffff8022622f79
0xffffff81442637d0 : 0xffffff80226dc24e
0xffffff81442639a0 : 0xffffff80226f3746
0xffffff81442639c0 : 0xffffff802267bf83
0xffffff8144263af0 : 0xffffff80226705a1
0xffffff8144263b70 : 0xffffff80226706b0
0xffffff8144263b90 : 0xffffff80226711a0
0xffffff8144263bd0 : 0xffffff8022695c5b
0xffffff8144263c00 : 0xffffff802268f39d
0xffffff8144263c30 : 0xffffff802268e5ec
0xffffff8144263c70 : 0xffffff802267e58c
0xffffff8144263d80 : 0xffffff80226825cf
0xffffff8144263db0 : 0xffffff802263d9e3
0xffffff8144263df0 : 0xffffff80229cec5e
0xffffff8144263e60 : 0xffffff80229e25ed
0xffffff8144263ef0 : 0xffffff80229e2967
0xffffff8144263f30 : 0xffffff8022620b3b
0xffffff8144263f60 : 0xffffff80226dc883
0xffffff8144263f80 : 0xffffff80226f3712
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: xpcd
Mac OS version:
13E28
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 13.3.0: Tue Jun 3 21:27:35 PDT 2014; root:xnu-2422.110.17~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: BBFADD17-672B-35A2-9B7F-E4B12213E4B8
Kernel slide:     0x0000000022400000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff8022600000
System model name: MacBookPro9,2 (Mac-6F01561E16C75D06)
System uptime in nanoseconds: 85519367877618
last loaded kext at 85449604909270: com.apple.driver.AppleIntelMCEReporter      104 (addr 0xffffff7fa44d8000, size 49152)
last unloaded kext at 83626591194872: com.apple.driver.AppleIntelMCEReporter    104 (addr 0xffffff7fa44d8000, size 32768)
loaded kexts:
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelMCEReporter 104
com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC      1.60
com.apple.filesystems.autofs    3.0
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager        4.2.6f1
com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver    124
com.apple.driver.AGPM   100.14.28
com.apple.driver.X86PlatformShim        1.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA       2.6.3f4
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient        3.5.13
com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyDriver       2.6.3f4
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltIP     1.1.2
com.apple.driver.AppleBacklight 170.3.5
com.apple.driver.AppleSMCPDRC   1.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleSMCLMU    2.0.4d1
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC       1.7.0
com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl       1.2.5
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelHD4000Graphics       8.2.8
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelFramebufferCapri     8.2.8
com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport     4.2.6f1
com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet 1.0.0d1
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X   7.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHWAccess 1
com.apple.driver.SMCMotionSensor        3.0.4d1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCButtons      240.2
com.apple.driver.AppleIRController      325.7
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyboard     240.2
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless     1.0.0d1
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeLZVN 1.0.0d1
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib 1.0.0d1
com.apple.BootCache     35
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient      3.6.6
com.apple.driver.XsanFilter     404
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage      2.6.0
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI    5.0.2
com.apple.driver.AirPort.Brcm4331       700.20.22
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort 3.0.5
com.apple.driver.AppleSDXC      1.5.2
com.apple.iokit.AppleBCM5701Ethernet    3.8.1b2
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub    683.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI   660.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBXHCI   683.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleSmartBatteryManager       161.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons       2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC       2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET      1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS    2.1
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC    2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC      1.7
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient     217.92.1
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall       153
com.apple.security.quarantine   3
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement   217.92.1
com.apple.kext.triggers 1.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 10.0.7
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib     2.6.3f4
com.apple.vecLib.kext   1.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily   1.9.7fc2
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib    1.14
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP    2.2.6
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController     2.6.3f4
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily     2.6.3f4
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusPCI 1.0.12d1
com.apple.driver.AppleBacklightExpert   1.0.4
com.apple.driver.X86PlatformPlugin      1.0.0
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 5.7.1d6
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController   1.0.12d1
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport   2.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2    98.22
com.apple.AppleGraphicsDeviceControl    3.6.22
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport   4.2.6f1
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface       91.1
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily        2.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily       4.2.6f1
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC       3.1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPInAdapter    3.1.7
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPAdapterFamily        3.1.7
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltPCIDownAdapter 1.4.5
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMultitouch     240.9
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver 660.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub       650.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite      656.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice 3.6.6
com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily       1.7
com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily      1.7.1
com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily       1.7.1
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCISerialATAPI       2.6.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily   3.6.6
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltNHI    2.0.1
com.apple.iokit.IOThunderboltFamily     3.3.1
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily        4.5.5
com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family   640.36
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily    2.6.5
com.apple.iokit.IOEthernetAVBController 1.0.3b4
com.apple.driver.mDNSOffloadUserClient 1.0.1b5
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily      3.2
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient 660.4.2
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily     683.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime        2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily     2.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily   1.1
com.apple.security.sandbox      278.11.1
com.apple.kext.AppleMatch       1.0.0d1
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 7
com.apple.driver.AppleKeyStore 2
com.apple.driver.DiskImages     371.1
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily 1.9
com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily 23
com.apple.driver.AppleFDEKeyStore       28.30
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform      2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily     2.9
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily    1.4
com.apple.kec.corecrypto        1.0
com.apple.kec.pthread   1
Model: MacBookPro9,2, BootROM MBP91.00D3.B09, 2 processors, Intel Core i7, 2.9 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 2.2f44
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Built-In
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x45424A3431554638424455352D474E2D4620
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x45424A3431554638424455352D474E2D4620
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0xF5), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.100.22)
Bluetooth: Version 4.2.6f1 14216, 3 services, 15 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en1
Serial ATA Device: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120GB, 120.03 GB
Serial ATA Device: MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-8A8
USB Device: Hub
USB Device: FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
USB Device: Hub
USB Device: Hub
USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
USB Device: BRCM20702 Hub
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller
USB Device: IR Receiver
Thunderbolt Bus: MacBook Pro, Apple Inc., 25.1
Any help or ideas what may have caused this? I can't boot into safe mode, and i cannot mount the drive to repair in disk utility. Is there a way to resolve this myself?

Hard Drive not properly showing up in Disk Utility or Finder

Hi there,
So I have a new 2 tb external western digital hard drive and i think at one point it was not ejected properly. Now it no longer mounts on the desktop/finder and when it shows up in Disk Utility, the information is incorrect. In other words, it shows up as a 4gb hard drive that is unformatted, without partitions, etc. This hard drive has info on it and three partitions.
Also, Disk Utility won't allow me to mount it, verify or repair anything.
Thoughts?

it actually just says Generic External Media and there is just one line showing it (no subfolder or anything like that.

IPod Touch not showing up in Disk Utility

Hello,
As my title says I can't get my iPod to show up in disk utility. It will show up in my iTunes fine, and works great but for some reason when I bring up Disk Utility, nothing shows up, as if it's not plugged in.
Thanks,
Chris Kefalas

Chris Kefalas wrote:
So my next thing to try was to take an image of Snow Leopard that I have, and put that onto my iPod touch and then boot off my iPod touch, and install it that way since my disc drive isn't working...
i wouldn't even consider doing that with an iPod classic. instead, i would get a cheap USB drive (better yet, a firewire drive), use *disk utility* to restore the image of the SL install disk to a small (10 gig) partition there, and boot from the external.
you could also use another Mac to do a *remote install*. click here for information.
yet another option, again involving another Mac, is to enable *remote disk*:
The CD/ROM in my computer busted, so I decided to try to remotely mount the CD from another computer on mine. I know the MacBook Air can do this, so I reasoned that any Mac could. It turns out it is possible, but the solution is far from obvious -- after much searching, I found the solution here.
Here's a quick synopsis. Go to System Preferences » Sharing, and enable 'DVD or CD Sharing.' (I think you need to do this on both machines -- the one with the drive and the one without the CD/ROM drive). Then, on the computer that does not have the CD drive on it, go to a Terminal window and enter:
$ defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool true
$ defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser ODSSupported -bool true
Reboot this machine, and when the reboot is finished, you'll see the remote CD/DVD under Devices in the Finder's sidebar. Thereafter, you can remotely mount a CD/DVD from another machine.
JGG

I have a mid-2010 iMac and just purchased a 2TB TC, can't join existing wireless network with AC standard so attached to iMac via ethernet with TC wifi turned off. How do i access TC now? not showing up in disk utility or on desktop. working fine with TM

I have a mid-2010 iMac and just purchased a 2TB TC, I just found out that it can't join existing wireless network with new AC standard so attached to iMac via ethernet with TC's wifi turned off. How do i access TC now? not showing up in disk utility or on desktop. It is working fine with TM. My cheeper seagate drives etc kept crashing, so i didnt trust cheeper back up options anymore. Connected those drives to TM via firewire and could see the drives and access them.
Also, I didn't want to bridge TC with my new fios router that I paid 100 dollars for, to get N speed and also paying 10 dollars more a month for fast speed. I heard that bridging slows down everything and then there can be port issues with mail etc. I connect to the internet via airport only and it is pretty fast. Getting over 50mbs downloads and over 30mbs uploads. Plus everything in my home it connected to my fios router, airport express for music streaming, two apple tvs, vuezone camer system. I really didn't want to monkey around too much with my system. But are there other options to connect the new TC. Can't find info anywhere for this and called apple who gave me the info above. after hanging up, i see that i cant access my TC and I am wondering if i would have to reset it to turn wifi on again to make changes to the drive, turn off blinking light or repair it in disk utility if it should become corrupted.
For other with similar issues i did solve some other problems: when i connected it to my ethernet port on my iMac wifi stopped working. Found that I had to turn off the ethernet in the system>network screen, but then TM didn't see the TC so i restarted after changes and then it saw it.
Now a rant. I can't believe in this wireless age that Apple would make a product that cant join a wireless net work. The apple rep said i could return it and look for the previous TC that would join an existing wireless network. Are we going backwards?
Thanks!
lennydas

Ok... it is getting a bit clearer but there are still some questions.
I connect to the internet via airport only and it is pretty fast.
I was assuming airport in this statement in your first post meant the TC or the Express.. but I now realise we are still in the mass confusion stage where apple calls everything wireless an airport. So what you mean is the airport internal card of the computer??
Also, I didn't want to bridge TC with my new fios router that I paid 100 dollars for, to get N speed and also paying 10 dollars more a month for fast speed. I heard that bridging slows down everything and then there can be port issues with mail etc.
I think this is mistaken.
Putting the TC in bridge mode plugged into your FIOS will not slow the network.. nor will it cause mail or port issues.. in bridge the TC is just a fancy WAP and switch plus the network hard drive.
If the computer is close it will be faster than the FIOS.
You can run both wireless networks with different names.. so it is clear which is which. But you can also setup roaming so the computers themselves pick which is the best wireless.
I tried extending the wireless net work and tried joining wireless network, but the TC kept crashing and I had to keep resetting the TC. the Apple support person said these, extend wireless network and joint wireless network, are no longer a connection option with the new TC because of the new AC protocol.
Thanks again!
You cannot extend to a non-apple wireless router.
You cannot use join a wireless network because when you do the ethernet ports will be cut off.
But that has not changed.. I don't think Apple support is correct.. there has been no change with the AC model.. it is simply a fact that apple routers do not work in join wireless mode other than as a dumb client. The same applies to AC as to the earlier version.. but I have asked another person to check this.
Join in the express is the only apple router that still allows an ethernet connection.
For now you best use of the TC is bridged to the FIOS. Wireless you can sort out between several options.

Western Digital drive not showing up in disk utility--Help please.

Hello all. This is my first post. I am having trouble with my WD 500GB external hard drive. It is not showing up in disk utility when connected either via the firewire or USB ports. I purchased the drive about 8months ago, brought it home and set it up as my Time Machine backup drive. It worked great for several months, until it got full. Then it stopped showing up on the desktop for no apparent reason. I discovered through reading support documents on the Apple web site that when I set the drive up initially I should have changed the partitioning protocol from master boot record to GUID, but I did not. I followed the apple web site instructions for making the change expos facto, but was instructed to press buttons that were "grayed out". As such, I couldn't do it. Perhaps foolishly, I thought that I would just start all over by reinitializing it, formatting it correctly (with my new found knowledge) and then do the time machine backup fresh. However, the drive no longer shows up in disk utility no matter how or in what order I connect it. When the drive is connected by firewire there is evidence of some recognition of the drive in system profiler, but it is listed as "External HDD Buttons and Lights". There is also evidence of the My Book showing up at a minimal level (eg. the firmware revision and a few other details are listed). On the front of the drive is a ring of blue lights that progress in a clockwise direction as soon as a connection is made via either firewire or USB. Before that it is solid blue. I have read through all the info that I can find on this site, and all the suggestions require the drive being recognized in disk utility. Without that, I am stuck. I know this must be a solvable problem, because the drive just a bucket of parts before it was manufactured. I just don't know enough to solve the problem or even know what qeustion to ask. I would really appreciate some help. Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post.

If you can't boot from an OSX DVD, it sounds bad. Yet I think you said you were running Disk Utility from the DVD?
I got an external Firewire drive enclosure for 2.5 inch IDE drives from Other World Computing (OWC)
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MOTGFW400/ but similar items are available from many vendors like Newegg. About $60 for the basic model. More money can buy additional interfaces on the enclosure like FW800 and USB2; an AC adapter instead of letting the firewire bus power the drive (usually OK).

Portable Hard Drive will not show up in Disk Utility

I purchased a Toshiba Canvio Slim 500 GB hard drive a few months ago before I updated my computer to Mac OSX Version 10.6.8. I was running out of Hard Drive Space since I bought my computer in 2009 and decided to use a portable hard drive to store some of my personal information. I was able to read and successfully transfer data to the hard drive, but then I updated my computer to 10.6.8 and now I can't access it at all. It won't even show up in Disk Utility. I read on a few forums that some people were having the same problem as I was and they bought a y-cable adapter to power the hard drive through two usb cables. I bought one and tried it out and I'm still not having any luck. I tried using my girlfriend's computer to see if I can access it from her computer and it shows up in disk utility, but I can't access it. The lights turn on and I can hear it working like it worked the first day I used it, but nothing is happening. Please help me fix the problem.

Evidence, as scant as it is from Disk Utility, suggests the Toshiba external
HDD is indeed without Partion Map Scheme, has no files on it, unformatted.
So I wonder if there isn't a wire or defective circuit inside the box (enclosure)
that may be hiding access to the actual HDD unit inside there. Those kinds
of enclosures generally use a laptop 2.5" HDD since they can run on USB
power from the port. Matching up the internal HDD from that case, with an
other one with correct life support (connections) is a way to test it.
However if the Toshiba HD is a 3.5" standard drive, a larger enclosure, or
an adapter that simply plugs into the connections of the bare hard drive,
would be a way to access that external drive. These 'drive adapters' can
work with both SATA and IDE hard drives; or just one of the two. They
run in the range of $40 or so, and essentially are a wire kit with a power
adapter to spin the drive, but some do not even have the adapter, so as
to still use USB power for smaller drives of slower disc RPM speed.
Most competent computer stores with a skilled staff would know of these.
However some of the smaller HDD enclosures may be hard to open up.
And if there were a Toshiba warranty, this action could void the same.
Adapters would be to 'test the idea of recovering any data,' if enclosure
the drive shipped in has somehow developed a defect. Though it may
be if there is a defect, it may have existed at a point in time to affect
the actual save-to-disk process. Or later. A wire could be not allowing
information to be received, if broken or circuit damages, by the Mac.
But by the look of the Disk Utility's partition map, along with the other
earlier image that shows the same info in the bottom of the image of
the status, in Disk Description, this does not bode well for recovery.
I'm not sure what else to suggest. When the dust settles, Toshiba may
have a residual warranty that could only replace that one with another.
Some older mailorder catalogs show these kinds of adapters, some use
USB port power, others also include an AC adapter so standard faster
HDDs can be used without an enclosure. This also helps if one wants
temporary access to a hard disk drive, but does not want to install it.
•USB drive cable adapter kit SATA and IDE HDD - google results:
https://www.google.com/#q=USB+drive+cable+adapter+kit+SATA+and+IDE+HDD
Companies also make hot-swap docks to allow fast swapping of HDDs
of either or both 2.5" and 3.5" size, these have their own adapter and
one simply puts drives inside from the top, like a bread toaster.
Hopefully you can take the Toshiba along to a computer store and ask
a somewhat skilled person there about getting the cable adapter kit or
another enclosure. The cable adapter would cost less & be quicker, yet
that would still involve opening up the failed HDD's enclosure for access.
Good luck & happy computing!

Windows based WD external hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility to reformat to Mac... how can I erase the drive

We have a WD external harddrive previously used with a PC that we want to completely erase and reformat for use with our iMac desktop for use with Time Machine. The drive shows up on the desktop of the Mac, but it does not show up in Disk Utlity, assuming because it's Windows format. Outside of the standard "erase" feature in Disk Utility, is there any way to reformat this drive for Mac OS X? Or how can I get this drive to show up in Disk Utility? Note: The drive functions properly, has power, and we are able to view its current contents through the desktop icon, so it is a working drive. And we are ok with losing all the current data on the drive.

Hmm strange, I had just moved my external Lacie drive from my windows machine to my iMac and it was showing up in disk utility still formatted fat32 or whatever. I would disconnect the drive and restart the machine then replug the drive and try again.
Also not that it will make a difference ( I dont think it will but hey why not ) try accessing disk utility from the install disk?

WD 320GB in my macbook does not show reliably in Disk Utility

Hi
I have bought a Western Digital 320GB Scorpio for my C2D MacBook but it does not seem to work as an internal disk in the macbook, when unformatted it does show up (but not every time) but when formated as MacOS Journaled it never shows up in Disk Utility, I've tried using the leopard installer as well as booting from my original 80GB disk plugged into an enclosure. Once the disk is formatted disk utility is very slow at showing the other disks compared to the mere seconds it usually takes. I've tested this disk in a PC and it seemed to work fine formated as NTFS, successfully copied and read some files from it.
What could be wrong with this disk or my macbook?

After unsuccessfully trying two Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" SATA drives (320GB SATA II and 250GB SATA I) in the MacBoook, I have resorted to buying a Seagate Momentus 250GB drive which works perfectly.
I suspect an incompatibility between the Merom-based Core2Duo MacBooks and the WD Scorpio drives. So if you have an early Macbook, I'd steer clear of WD drives.

External hard drive not showing up in Disk Utility

I'm attempting to transfer something from my Mac to my Windows with a Toshiba 1 TB USB external drive. When I plug it in, however, it doesn't show up in Disk Utility, Finder, or the Desktop

No I don't, I was using it less than a half an hour before then I plugged it in, and it wasn't popping up again.

I recently tried to erase a seas gate expansion external harddrive and when i did all that shows up in disk utility now is something called expansion and all my opitions are greyed out in the partation tab, it doesnt mount and idk what to do please help,

when i did all that shows up in disk utility now is something called expansion and all my opitions are greyed out in the partation tab, it doesnt mount and idk what to do please help.
Running macbook pro 2.53ghz late 2010
mountain lion
8gbs mem

I would try it on a PC and see if you can format it, then put it back on the Mac and try again. If it's not seen on a PC, then there's the strong likelihood that there's a hardware issue; either the bridge/chip set or the HD itself is dying/dead. There's also the small possibility that the cable is faulty, so I'd try a different cable too.

Mirrored RAID not mounting/not showing as RAID (Disk Utility)

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