My hard drive is no longer listed in my disk utility

I had to reinstall my OS X on my 2010 MacBook Pro after booting to a white screen that had a "?" in a folder flashing. I had to install on off an external hd because the computer wasn't recognizing my internal hd (factory installed). Once I was able to boot up (off the external drive) I opened up disk utility and the only thing listed is the external drive and a "SuperDrive" (cd icon next to it). Can anyone help? What happened to my HD? Thanks.

Either the internal drive has failed, Likely, or the cable that goes from the drive to the logic board has failed.
Replace the drive and test. If you still have the problem then replace the cable.

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My hard drive is damaged. I'm using disk utility; can I safely use CHECKSUM? will it help or give me info?

my hard drive is damaged. I'm using disk utility; can I safely use CHECKSUM? will it help or give me info?

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?

I have a seagte back up plus. I pulled my hard drive out without ejecting it and now finder dosn't find it but I see it in disk utility (although I cant repair permissions) How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?
Thank you so much for any help

In Disk Utility you need to see a volume or partition in addition to the drive.
If all you see is the drive, then when you ejected it you proably corrupted the volume or partition on the drive.
If that is true then your chances of getting anything back are slim at best.
About the only thing I know that might work not is to send the disk out to a service for recovery. This is going to cost like $$$$.
Is the data worth that much?
Allan

Hard drive will not mount shows up in Disk Utility

I have an external drive with a bootable OS X 10.6.8. I was in a transition between building up a SSD swapped drive. The SSD is installed in the CPU box but I have my old installation running from an external.
I have several external hard drives. They are all Firewire. Some have USB 3.0 and or eSATA options but my MacMini only talks to Firewire and USB 2.0.
I understand that you daisy chain Firewire drives and turn them on and off in sequence as they fall from the CPU box/case.
Firewire is a power source. I run the external with the OS using an AC adapter but one Firewire drive is powered through Firewire.
I have had as many as 4 external drives running along with the internal drive without a glitch while I was reorganizing files.
Today I booted off the external drive. It was running fine. I turned on one Firewire drive (the one that runs on Firewire power). That drive stumbled. I recognized the sound when there is an interruption in power. This cause the external boot drive to stall. I had to force a reboot.
Now the external boot drive will not boot up. It does not mount but Disk Utility sees it. The drive itself is bright and clear in Disk Utility but the partition (single) is faded out. I can run Verify and repair in DU. DU says it doesn't see anything to repair. It will not mount on its own or when I click the Mount button in DU. It does not produce an icon on the Desktop (because it is not mounting).
I also have SpeedTools. But although it sees the drive I cannot do anything with it. None of its tools run more than a spli second before they fail.
This drive has USB 3.0 and I see everything through USB that I see through Firewire. Connecting the other way did not get around the problem.
Of course I will buy an AC adapter for every external drive and never run them using Firewire again but the horse is out of the barn.
I have the original installation disks and could run the Archive and Install option but it would require physically swapping drives with the internal. I'd like to avoid it if possible. It is a MacMini and tedious.
Any suggestions?

I took the problematic hard drive and installed it in my Mac Mini so I could attempt a Safe Boot and then Archive and Install if necessary.
Safe Mode didn't work. The drive produced the circle with a slash symbol.
I reset the PRAM which was part of a list of steps to work through I found created by Apple Support.
I was able to boot up to Verbose Mode and view the text of the boot process. I wrote it all down. I can answer questions about the content better than typing it all out exactly. It includes, "...journal magic is bad..." "...failed to open..." and ends with "...cannot mount root, errno = 19"
I attempted Archive and Install however when it went to show what target drives were available it was a blank box and all buttons were grayed out.
I rebooted and opened Disk Utility from the DVD. The drive appeared the same with the top main line bright and the partitioned volume faded. Still was unable to mount. I ran Verify and this time a red line of text appeared "Invalid content in Journal" and at the end I ran Repair. When running I could read line by line and at one point it showed "checking volume information" then the following line "Repairing volume" the following line "Rechecking volume" more line of checking then it ended with "The volume was repaired successfully."
It still would not mount. I ran Verify again and again said "Invalid content in Journal" and this time it stopped midway saying "The volume was found corrupt and needs to be repaired. Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk."
I clicked Repair and it ended with The vol. was repaired successfully."
Still unable to mount I began repeating Repair over and over. Each time it found something to repair and ended with a success message. After several more Repairs I tried Verify and it stopped midway saying to Repair the disk.
Question: Does running Repair multiple times continue to correct bits and pieces little by little or is this a generic message and we should treat it as a problem Disk Utility cannot pinpoint and is just beating its head against the wall?
The step by step instructions I downloaded mentioned running Repair more than once but it did not say that running it 20 times would erode some problems and eventually lead to a fully repaired disk (if the problem was something DU could take care of in the first place). At this point I have run Repair about 20 times total with a series of 10 back to back skipping Verify. I keep seeing the lines about invalid content in a journal and that it repaired something successfully. Yet I still cannot mount the disk.

I need to erase free space on my hard drive. But when I am in disk utility the format and name are pale as is the erase free space button so I cannot erase free space.

My start up disk is full. I have been through my computer and erased a lot of music and video to free some space. I then went to disk utility to erase free space and find that the erase free space button is pale and therefore won't work. Nor can I select or deselect MacOS extended journaled.
Advice please?!

Recovering Disk Space
If you have less than 20% disk space then it is time to roll up your sleeves and search for what you can delete and what you can offload to another disk.
If you have less than 10 GB you definitely need to delete or offload some files or purchase a lager disk or SSD (see below). You may want to maintain at least 20 GB of free space so when your disk starts filling again it will have some room before it hits that 10 GB mark again. More headroom is better. If you let the space fall much below 9 GB you might not be able to boot your machine.
Initial easy steps to gain disk space:
- Delete all files in the Downloads folder.
Empty the Trash.
- Start iPhoto.
Empty its trash.
Restart.
- Restart in Safe Mode:
Restart the computer.
As soon as you hear the chime press and hold the right shift key.
Be patient. Hold it down until you see the Apple icon.
Empty the trash.
Restart in normal mode.
- Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Hold the option key down and click "Go" menu in the Finder menu bar.
    Select "Library" from the drop down menu.
    Library > Mail > V2 > Mailboxes
    Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
- Empty the Trash.
- Restart.
- Re-index your system disk (Macintosh HD):
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409
Time Machine Snapshots:
If your disk is 80% full that is normal. Time Machine uses up to 80% of the disk space for local snapshots. To get rid of these snapshots simply plug in your Time Machine backup drive and run a backup. See About Time Machine's 'local snapshots' on Mac notebooks: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878 and What are Local Snapshots? http://pondini.org/TM/30.html .
If you are concerned that the “Other” category of disk usage is taking too much space and for information on deleting files then look here: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-5142
Backup:
Run a Time Machine (or other) backup since you are about to delete and move files and you may need to recover from any inadvertent mistakes or decisions. You will need one external hard drive for your Time Machine (or other) backup and a second if you plan to offload some files. (See suggestions for where to purchase hard drives at the end of this message.)
For more about backups:
Time Machine Basics: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Most commonly used backup methods:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031
Deleting files:
Then use the free application OmniDiskSweeper http://www.omnigroup.com/more to explore your volume in descending order by size so you can attack the problem from the top down, deleting the largest unwanted files first. Delete with caution and do not delete any system files. Remember to empty the trash after trashing the files.
Additional reference on freeing disk space:
http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
Offloading files:
Consider moving some of the no-often-used large files or directories to an external disk. Use ODS again to find them. As noted above this will be at least your second hard drive. Your first one(s) is/are for your Time Machine (or other) backup(s). Do not offload files onto a Time Machine disk.
Format the second drive as Mac OS Extended (journaled). Using OWS to find large files/folders and copy them from the system drive to the external hard drive and delete them from your internal drive.
Then  > System Preferences > Time Machine > Options… > Remove the offload HD name from the exclusions list.
Now both your system disk and your external offload disk will be backed up onto your Time Machine disk.
From: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
To move your iTunes Music folder to another disk or partition:
To change the location of your iTunes Music folder, carefully follow the instructions in the AppleCare® Knowledge Base document "iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder."Additional information can be found in iTunes Help.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.thexlab.com/105/ 00000849.html
Laptop users may want to consider having two iTunes libraries: a small library of current favorites on their computer, while their complete library resides on an external hard drive. Utilities like iTunes Library Manager enable you to easily have multiple iTunes libraries you can use with your account. https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7689/itunes-library-manager
To move your iPhoto Library folder to another disk or partition:
To move the iPhoto Library folder to a new location, employ the instructions in the AppleCare Knowledge Base document from http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506 corresponding to the version of iPhoto you are using. Additional information can be found in iPhoto Help.
Laptop users may want to consider having two iPhoto libraries: a small library of current, favorite photographs on their computer, while their complete library, or archives of older photos are saved on an external hard drive. Utilities such as iPhoto Buddy and iPhoto Library Manager enable you to have multiple iPhoto libraries that you can use with your account.
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/12175/iphoto-buddy
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7158/iphoto-library-manager
Hardware — Bigger disk/SSD:
If your system has upgradeable storage then if you are still tight on disk space consider larger storage. If you have a disk consider replacing it with a one TB disk. Check out a one terabyte HGST 7K1000 7200 rpm, SATA III drive from OWC http://eshop.macsales.com ($100). If you have an SSD consider increasing its capacity to 240 or 480 GB. A standard 240 GB SSD would cost from $200 to $280. See OWC and Crucial: http://www.crucial.com/ for options. OWC sells 120, 240 and 480 GB SSD upgrades for MacBook Airs. A 240 GB upgrade costs $265.   http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/ . If your Mac is under warranty or AppleCare replacing the SSD will void the warranty.
PlotinusVeritas gives some great suggestions for purchasing external hard drives in this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5602141?tstart=0

Installed new hard drive, and it is not detected by disk utility.

Tried 2 other hard drives with same result. Original hard drive (failing) is detected normally. Mountain Lion can install and boot if hard drive is in external enclosure. But once hard drive is installed into MacBook Pro, the system does not detect it. It has been formatted as a GUID partition, and the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. I'm at a loss as to why this isn't working. I've tried everything I can think of.

Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
When the formatting is completed quit DU to return to the installer. You may now install OS X.

External Hard Drive doesn't mount, not showing in Disk Utility

I have had this Western Digital external hard drive for a few months now and until this evening it worked fine. It won't show up on my Macbook Pro and it is not present in the Disk Utility section. The light on the external hard drive is on so it doesn't appear to be a power issue. I have another of the same exact hard drive and it works fine. I tried switching USB cables and even power supplies and I can't get it to work. Does anyone know how to recover the files or is the hard drive toast?

Something's wrong inside the case; it's either a problem which is preventing the computer from properly connecting to the drive or the drive itself is dead.
Data recovery from a failed drive can only be done by a professional service, which can charge hundreds or thousands of dollars.
(93717)

Problems with External Hard drive, will not mount and errors in disk utilit

i have a powerbook g4 aluminum. i have an external hard drive for it. a simple tech 100gig portable drive, almost brand new. i dont know what happened to it, but one day i was starting my computer up with it attached. it wounldnt fully start up, said "waiting for local disks" so i uplugged the external hard drive. now it wont mount and will only show up in the disk utility of my friends macbook. i tried to verify and repair, and this is the message i got.
Verify and Repair disk “UNTITLED”
** /dev/disk1s1
could not read boot block (Input/output error)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 non HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
Im in mexico writing a book and so i really need help on this one guys.

Hi, hjbugs, and welcome to Apple Discussions. Disconnecting the drive while your Powerbook was accessing it probably caused your problem. It may be repairable using DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro, but if you don't have access to one of those and aren't going to buy one, reformatting the drive with Disk Utility may be the only other way to make it usable again. If it contains data you need to recover first (i.e., data that isn't also stored on your internal HD or other storage media), download the free demo version of one of the data recovery utilities mentioned in this thread and use it to see what is recoverable. If the files you need are recoverable, buy the full version of one of the utilities and recover them.

Second hard drive installed but fails to appear in disk utility

I have installed the original 160GB into the second HD bay of my Dual 1.8 G5, and have had little success of it working. I say little success because one time (not the first time) it appeared on the desktop and I was able to view and run apps. from it. However, with each additional boot it has not been visible on the desk top, system profiler, or disk utility.
?Why did I install the original Hard drive in the second bay?
Just before leaving the country I sold my mother this computer, just before delevering the computer it crashed to catastrophie. She took the computer to
a certified apple repair facility, and they removed the drive, and installed a new drive in HD bay 1. In addition, they sold her an external firewire case that which the original drive could be installed in and therefore connected to the G5.
I would rather work through this problem than use the external drive, so Please Help.
power mac G5 Mac OS X (10.3.4)

I am having the same trouble with my G5! You are not alone but I am also trying to get the answer to our problem.
Would someone please help us with this problem?
Thanks in advance.
Arnold

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$

Portable hard drive powering, but not showing up in Disk Utility

I just purchased an ADATA portable hard drive and my MacBook Pro powers it but does not recognize it. It is brand new and has not been used on any other machine. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Justin

Some portable drives draw too much power, the Mac might have cut it off or it doesn't have enough power for it.
It might be defective, take it back and buy a quality Hitachi external drive, Western Digital next in quality, preferablly self powered and not a eco-type drive.

My WD hard drive won't "mount" it shows in disk utility but can't be repaired. I'm thinking this is a software issue since the disk is being recognized.

I
I have a WD drive that won't "mount". Tried repairing, turning off and back on, unplugging and nothing has worked. Can anyone help?

The WD Passport has no independent power supply, relying instead on getting power from a USB port on the computer. AS the drive ages it can need more power to spin the platter and many USB ports on notebook cannot provid that much.
Anther issue is the WD drive itself. WD uses an odd proproprietary formatting scheme that makes the drive not always behave like typical Mac drives.
If the drive contains nothing you need to access, use Disk Utility to reformat it to "Macintosh Extended (Journalled)"
If the drive contains important data, there are a couple of inexpensive ways to get more power to it:
1) Get a "Y" conenctor cable like this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/USB2AYMBPB/
It draws power from two USB ports and ofter that is enough to make the drive work.
2) Get a powered USB Hub:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/USB2HB7PRO/
It has its own power brick and that is usually enough to get an older USB external drive recognized.

Firewire external mobil disk hard drive is no longer recognized

After last system update, my firewire external mobil disk hard drive is no longer recognized. Any solutions?
Why does MacOS go backwards... gets worse over time?

Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work! I have had no trouble with any update Apple puts out (the Combo update is what I normally choose). Are you running 9.2 like your specs. say? You are in the Tiger forum, so I'll assume you haven't updated your Macs specs.
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 30 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that did'nt work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try. Yours may be the 10.4.5 Combo update. Others reading, download the Combo that applies to your system.
If that still did'nt get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
For those of you with Macs that are not PowerBooks or iBooks, a bad internal battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Good Luck!
Cheers!
DALE

My WD external hard drive will no longer show up on my Macbook pro.

My WD external hard drive will not longer show up on my macbook pro. The light turns on and you can hear it running but it won't show up either in finder or in the disk utility. This happened a while ago but I really want to get all my photos off the hard drive. Is there anything I can do to get my computer to read it again or get my data off of it?
I don't have access to another Mac to test it.
Thank you

dead sata bridge card. very common problem.
see all about it here:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD
verify HD on another Mac however, if same, dead SATA card most likely

My external hard drive will no longer connect to my macpro......any ideas on how to solve this problem??

My external hard drive will no longer connect to my macbook pro via FW800........Any ideas on how to solve this??

Reset the SMC, see this Apple note: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Also reset the PRAM:
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
In most cases, those two actions will fix the port issue. If it's still an issue, you may need to see if the external hard drive can connect to another system, to ensure it's not having problems.

My hard drive is no longer listed in my disk utility

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