My computer will not recognize external firewire drives...very mysterious.

I'm an editor with two 250GB d2 Lacie's and am going crazy over this problem. I've heard plenty about the notorius Lacie issues, mainly involving mounting refusals or even one last week about my friend's bursting into flames. But this one I cannot find the answer to anywhere online and I've been searching all week.
My computer suddenly does not recognize my drives are connected. They are not listed at all in Disk Utility. I tried repairing disk permissions, I tried repairing the volume with Disk Worrier. I tried unplugging everything and resetting and zapping the P-RAM, and every combination of all that. No dice. I tried booting off of CD-ROM. When I plug them in, I hear them power up and run what sounds like smoothly. I tried another friend's Lacie and it acted the same way. I tried both 400 and 800 firewire ports with various cables.
What's going on here? Years worth of editing are on those drives! S.O.S.

it is hard to say what's happening there. have you tried resetting the pmu? http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449.

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MacBook with Lion will not recognize external hard drive (AMP) that was my backup for older IBook, please help

I had a IBook G4 and an external hard drive as its back up.
IBook running something like Snow Lepord, anyway
I have a Intel Macbook now with Lion, Ive been told here there is a possible confliction between the AMP external harddrive and lion.
I will say a few times I have for limited time been able to access the drive on the newer MacBook, but then Lion (I think) drops it.
Any ideas out there?

Disk Utility sees the drive, finder/desktop doesnt.
Click on the Desktop->Finder menu->Preferences->General->Show on Desktop->HDs and ext HDs.
Mac OS Extended (journaled) what's that mean and is the format the issue here?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1604 and http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2355
No, that's not the issue.

I have iMovie 09. I just erased my external hard drive, but it is still formatted for the mac. However, iMovie will not recognize the hard drive. It shows the only hard drive available is the computers. How do I get the external hard drive to show up?

I have iMovie 09. I just erased my external hard drive, but it is still formatted for the mac. However, iMovie will not recognize the hard drive. It shows the only hard drive available is the computers. How do I get the external hard drive to show up?

In Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)
Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.
If it does contain data...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2474

System Profiler will not recognize installed hard drive if drive is in use by VMWare

System Information will not recognize installed Hard Drive (Boot Camp) when in use by VMWare.
I work in IT for a School District and I am creating a Script that system information about the computer. I am testing this on a Mac Pro with two internal hard drives. One drive is Mac OS 10.8 and the other drive is a Boot Camp Drive that is used by VMWare Fusion.
When I run System Information via the GUI or system_profiler via Terminal, both drives show up just fine. However, if I launch VMWare Fusion and run Windows from my Boot Camp drive, then run System Information via the GUI or system_profiler via Terminal, the Boot Camp Drive is no longer listed as an installed drive.
Example:
In the Terminal, I enter the following command.
system_profiler SPStorageDataType
Then it returns this information.
Storage:
    Lion Client:
      Available: 217.84 GB (217,836,306,432 bytes)
      Capacity: 639.28 GB (639,275,270,144 bytes)
      Mount Point: /
      File System: Journaled HFS+
      Writable: Yes
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      Capacity: 319.79 GB (319,790,510,080 bytes)
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      Ignore Ownership: Yes
      BSD Name: disk1s2
      Volume UUID: D4B39D4E-E244-403C-AE4D-4D58397130DE
      Physical Drive:
          Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 Media
          Medium Type: Rotational
          Protocol: SATA
          Internal: Yes
          Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
          S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
Then I launch VMWare, which uses the Boot Camp drive. The once again run the same command from the Terminal Command and I get this.
Storage:
    Lion Client:
      Available: 213.39 GB (213,392,244,736 bytes)
      Capacity: 639.28 GB (639,275,270,144 bytes)
      Mount Point: /
      File System: Journaled HFS+
      Writable: Yes
      Ignore Ownership: No
      BSD Name: disk0s2
      Volume UUID: CCB501BF-AF24-30E7-A938-5A4E52DF14D7
      Physical Drive:
          Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 Media
          Medium Type: Rotational
          Protocol: SATA
          Internal: Yes
          Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
          S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
The Boot Camp Drive is no longer listed.
I assume this is due to the the fact that the drive is "In Use" however is seems odd since the Mac drive is also in use and it appears without problem. I assume there is no "fix" for this, I was just wondering if someone may have an explaination why?
Also, I do realize that I can query the various interface types like system_profiler SPSerialATADataType to get all the properly installed phycial drives, but then I would have to query all possible interface types, isolate only devices containing Volumes, then consoldate the information to just the information that I need. I was hoping for a cleaner query.

Thank you for your response.
VMWare may be the cause, but the actual issue I am having is with Apple's System Information. I anticipated resistance from VMWare if I went to them with a question about an Apple software issue (even though VMWare software is part of the equation). I was trying to avoid the inevitable finger pointing game. I thought I would try with Apple Forums first since the issues presents itself within the Apple Software. However, you are correct that VMWare may have an explanation on why Fusion might be interfering with System Information. I will check with them next.
To answer your question. Yes, In most cases I do use Fusion to run Windows side-by-side with the Mac OS. However, that is not always the case. There are a few reasons why I have it setup using a Dual Boot configuration.
One, in some cases, due to the intense programs I occasionally run (graphic applications), I prefer to simply boot straight into Windows via Boot Camp so I may allocate all hardware resources to Windows. Additionally, some graphic applications like to have direct access to hardware and the extra layer of the VM environment can cause problems when an application is trying to directly access specific hardware like a graphics card.
Second, I often use either side, both Mac and PC, for testing. There is an advantage to not having to rely on the Mac OS to run Windows. If, for whatever reason, my Mac becomes unstable due to testing, I can still jump right into Windows to do work if necessary.
Third, I love the Mac OS, but I work in a PC centric organization. If there is a "problem" with my system, it is too easy for other system admins to say, "it's because it's a Mac". Having the definitive separation of the OS's allows me to prove that the Mac OS is not a factor.

Windows 7 will not recognize the dvd drive in my dv9925nr

Windows will not recognize my dvd drive in Windows 7. It shows up under device manager under cd drives, but will not list in in my computer and will not recognize it as a drive in burning applications.

I haven't installed and started testing the BETA yet, just downloading from MS tonight.I would suspect upper & lower filters,since that is the most common cause of cd/dvd problems from XP-Vista.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929461
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**Click Accept as Solution on a Reply that solves your issue to help others**

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My computer will not recognize my Ipod

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I had been having trouble with my iMac 400dv's hard drive. I had posted the problems I was having and had gotten some very nice feedback. The final decision was to install a new hard drive and battery.
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Lucy Rust...
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My computer will not recognize external firewire drives...very mysterious.

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