My portable hard drive doesn't pop up in my computer

i have a :
500GB Toshiba Automatic Backup Portable Hard Drive
when i plug it in, the blue light pops up and it doesnt sound like theres no problem but it just doesnt pop up in my computers.... so i right click computers and go to manage>Disk management, and i found it so if i assign somehow doesnt have a drive path i guess? so i assign it one and it works now, it's in my computers, i can put files and it'll save it. but everytime i go to a new pc, i have to go to the entire process of assigning it a drive over and over to have it available in my computer. is there an actual fix to this?

Im having the same issue - the drive was operational until it became unreadable.

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Moved all my files to my portable hard drive and put them back on my computer but all downloads - music and apps - aren't showing up on my computer

I had a problem where I had to remove all of my picture, movie, and music files from my computer and now that I've put what I moved back onto my computer, I went to sync my iPod and realized that all of my previously downloaded apps and music files are not showing up in iTunes and I haven't been able to locate my apps anywhere. If I sync my iPod, will the files on my iPod transfer to iTunes or will I lose everything? I paid money for a lot of those apps and I don't want to risk losing them. Help please!!

You can transfer iTunes purchases to the computer by:
iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to a computer
You can transfer non-iTunes purchased music by using a third-party program like one of thse discussed here:
Best iPod to PC

MBP doesn't recognize my portable hard drive anymore

Hello!
To provide some background on my issue, my portable hard drive format was NTFS, and I wished for it to be FAT-32. I was trying to transfer some files over from my Windows computer to my Mac, however it wouldn't work due to the formatting. To change the formatting, I used some third-party software and started the conversion (without formatting the drive so that I could keep all my files) however mid way through the process, my stupid laptop entered sleep mode and stopped everything.
When I tried to re-plug the hard drive in my Mac, it didn't show up in the finder, but the Disk Utility did find it. The model I have is the iStorage DiskGenie portable hard drive.
Screen shot of Disk Utility: http://i.imgur.com/TqKLSvY.png
I would really appreciate any help.
Thanks

betkolia1 wrote:
What if there was no backup of the data? (It had about 130GB on there/750GB)
That was a bad decision, you may have lost the data.
If you want to try to recover it you will need some data recovery software, and you need to stop using the drive at once. Don't use it until you have recovery software.
What 3rd party software did you use to mess your drive up, maybe a warning to others?

New x1 carbon: portable hard drive not recognized

Hi everyone,
I found this issue really annoying, let me show you the detail
1.Both usb ports work well after I reset my computer.(USB flash drive or USB portable hard drive can be used at anytime)
2.After I installed all the drivers provided on the website, this issue came out
3.If you plug in the USB flash drive, both ports work well at anytime
4.If you plug in the USB hard drive, most of the time system cannot recognize it
5.If you plug in the USB hard drive right after restart, the system will recognize it, but after a while, it can't
6.One interesting fact: if you plug in a USB falsh drive first, then unplug and plug in the hard drive, the hard drive then can be recognized...And the other unused USB port will not recognize anything...
7.When the system cannot recognize my USB hard drive, you can hear the HDD is working but you cannot find this device in device manager, however, when you unplug it, there will be a warning tone just like you unplug any other devices.
8.I have to restart Windows and plug the hard drive immediately to use it, or after few minutes Windows will not recognize it unless you restart again, sometimes I have to restart more the 3 times.
P.S. Both the USB ports are fine, both my flash drive and hard drive are fine, this issue happen right after I installed all the drivers. The hard drive is 2.5'' so do not need extra power. My BIOS is the latest. And I trived set the "USB 3.0 only" mode in the BIOS, doesn't work
Thank you for your help!
Moderator comment: Please refrain from bumping your thread(s) / post(s) more frequently than 3 days. Doing so, unfairly, pushes other members' threads downwards. Bumping post(s) removed.

are your portable hdd connected to two usb? one for data and one for power?
Regards,
Jin Li
May this year, be the year of 'DO'!
I am a volunteer, and not a paid staff of Lenovo or Microsoft

URGENT Trying to wipe and reinstall Leopard 10.5 on my 2008 imac8,1 from the disk but my hard drive doesn't show up

So to give a little big of a background on my computer. I got it January 2009 as a graduation gift, because I was going to get a degree in Graphic Design and Animation. I only worked on it [mostly brousing the web, and itunes] for about 6 months because I was taking all of my general courses for college. I then met my boyfriend [late 2009] and moved in with him, my boyfriend has a macbook so I left my mac at my parents house. I was only Using it every now and then and it would be idle/ or shut off the rest of the time.
Fast forward to fall 2011. Me and my boyfriend live in a condo so I brought my computer over because I am now taking graphic design courses and need my computer. I installed a free 30 day trial of adobe cs5.5. It made my computer kind of slow and it froze alot even though I still have over 250gb's of memory in it. After the trial ended I kind of stoped using my computer again, rather installing the free trials of cs5.5 on my mom and my boyfriends macs until I had enought money saved up to buy it.
Here's where it gets tricky.
So now its March 2012 and I tried uninstalling the trial of cs5.5 on my computer since it was just taking up un needed space. I had to uninstall all of the programs one at a time other wise it would freeze up. I have had to hold the power button down to get it to turn off because i couldn't even move the mouse even after waiting a while. Anyhow I get to the last program and it keeps freezing, I tried shutting down my computer via<apple< shut down. But when I start it up again I got a file with a question mark flashing on my screen. So I looked up how to fix that and had to locate where to start up [I selected my hard drive] then I was able to get on to my computer.
So then I go to disk utilitys and do a repair on my internal hard drive to fix if there were any messed up files. After the files are repaired I figure I'll restart it and let everything get up to date. When I do I get the gray screen with the apple and the spinning wheel. This happens OVER and OVER. I tried soft reseting it, manually turning off the computer, you name it. But it still keeps happening. So I figure I'll just wipe it clean and reinstall the whole thing. [I have it backed up on an external drive]
I try to reinstall leopard 10.5 from the disk that came with my computer, all goes well until I gets to the 3rd screen where you select where to save it to, my hard drive doesn't show up. But if I connect my external hard drive it shows up right away. I try seeing if it pops up on disk utility, and it doesn't show up there either.
Is it possible that my hard drive is shot? I haven't really used my computer that much. Its pretty much sat at my parents house for 2 of the 3 years I've had it. So its not like I used it a whole lot.
Help! I'm a college student who needs her mac now more than ever for my design classes!

The battery alone is a $5 to $15 part. Hard drives vary in cost, and depending on the iMac, they may or may not be able to install a third party hard drive, or one resold through Apple.    The resold through Apple drives tend to cost more. This article discusses the varying successes of third party drives on iMacs:
http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgrade-options-on-new-im acs
The labor costs depend on the store as well as the time to get the parts in stock.    Call around.

I have moved all of my music from my laptop to a portable hard drive...need help :( cant play music

Hi all,
I moved all my music from my laptop to a portable hard drive, my hope was that i could just plug and play into my mabook air not the case...
I was wondering if anyone could help with the following, in a perfect world i would love to be able to keep the music on my drive (there is about 500 gb worth) and then when i want to play through mac to apple tv be able to just plug into mac and then be good to go, or if poss for itunes to be able to recognise the music on my portable drive...and for me then to play through itunes without adding it (as there wouldnt be enough space)...and to also have the capability to plug the drive into my windows comp and be able to also still play from there.
I dont know if any of this is poss...it all seems really complicated to me...and i am new to mac.
If anyone thinks they could help please get in touch!
my main goal is to be able to play my music through apple tv to the surround system in the house, and to be able to play music through my mac if poss, doesnt have to be itunes so long as i can air play or even better select through apple tv.
thanks so much in advance to anyone who can help me out
p.s. i tried this...didnt work, unless i am doing it wrong
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449

iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music [library] to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 - a somewhat bewildering and not always easily understandable set of options.
Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the iTunes Library.itl file in the moved iTunes folder.
For the record there's this reference for iTunes 11 but it really doesn't strike me as having the specifics you need. iTunes 11 for Mac: Move your library to another computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12168
Windows users see tip at: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18879381
If you put it in the default location of Macintosh HD > Users > *User Name* > Music then you don't even need to start with the option key held down, iTunes will automatically look for it there. (Make sure there isn't anything already in the iTunes folder there that you want to keep since you will be replacing it with the one you are moving.)
Do not confuse (as you did) moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

How can I connect a portable hard drive?

I use a number of portable hard drives with my MacBook Pro, mostly Seagate.
The one I use for my TIme Machine back up has stopped working - when I connect it to my Mac, nothing happens (e.g. no sign of the drive within Finder).
I have rebooted the Mac, taken the cable out of the drive and reinserted it, etc but still no luck.
Other portable hard drives seem to work so it would appear this one might be faulty, although the two lights show on the drive when it's inserted.
Are there any workarounds to try and get the drive to mount?
Thank you

I have tried a different USB port on the MacBook Pro and it doesn't show up in Finder on that one either.
However, it does appear listed in the Disk Utitlity. It states: The partition map appears to be OK
What should I do next - do I select "Repair Disk"?
Thanks.

Why is my Seagate portable hard drive not connecting with my LG TV?

Can someone please help me figure out my problem. I recently purchased a Seagate Expansion Portable Hard Drive 2T, 3.0 USB compatible. As I own a MacBook Pro, I formatted it to fit my Mac instead of windows. I have finished downloading all my movies on to it and have connected it into my LG TV usb port but nothing happened. The little green light was on my hard drive indicating it was on and not a broken drive and the TV came up with a prompt saying 'USB Loading.." than immediately after it came up with "Problem on the USB Device. Please check USB". Yes I know the problem is that its formatted to Mac and there for the TV cannot read it. But I don't want to format it to windows for my MacBook doesn't read/write it, (If anyone can help me change that, that would be great!), (as I have another hard drive and it doesn't let me drag movies onto or out of it and only lets me see them,) and the hard drive will be rather useless, Plus I'm using Time Machine and I want to keep a BACK UP of my Mac on a partition of my hard drive (Which I have already done).
Please & Thank You,
Jaycee

Templeton Peck:
Well yes I know the problem to why it won't connect to my TV (the hard drive is Mac formatted) but I'm hoping someone would have a SOLUTION to the fact that I want it to stay in Mac format AND also somehow work with my tv (If thats even possible?..probably not) OR I can maybe change the format back AND hopefully can get it compatible with my Mac (Can that even be done too? Maybe download some prgram?) so I can still copy/past stuff off of it ---> Which by the way, I'm hopping also someone might have that solution too (Which I stated mildly up the top).
Also, I posted this up for the reason of which I would expect the people who read these know a little something about Mac/Apple Products (not necessarily about Mac formating but anything else really), So this question is technically about my MacBook for which my hard drive is MAC FORMATTED and that maybe theres a way for my MacBook to copy/past from my old hard drive which ISN'T Mac formatted (In saying that, I can just reformat my new one back IF there is a way for me to still copy/paste stuff off of it onto my MacBook).
So yea, I think this does has something to do with my Mac.
- Jaycee

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.

Catalog not readable from a portable hard drive...

I have been using a portable hard drive as my master files since I started using LR and so this is a first for me. When I create the catalog on my laptop on the portable drive that is attached and then plug the drive into my desktop to continue working a dialog box pops up saying...
I have assigned the same drive letter on both machines like I always do. I can't figure this one out and need some help please!
thanks,
Ken

Beat,
Well after doing the permission changes on my desktop and being able to then work on the catalog I then went to laptop today and had to change permissions there as well. Now back at home on the desktop got the same problem with dialog as in first post. This time I was not able to get them set to where I could open the catalog so I just give up for now and went back to the laptop. Once I get through with the client jobs I am working on now and have more time I will try reformatting the drive and loading things back on it and see if this fixes the problem. Over the last few years of using LR since version 1 I have not ever had this problem....I am thinking it has something to do with my machines rather than LR4 but time will tell and I'll watch to see if anyone else has this problem in the future. Thanks for your help!!
Ken

Firewire Powered Portable Hard drives

Are there in good firewire powered portable hard drives like the firelite you can get at the apple store? Maybe something with more space or a bit cheaper.

Depends what you like. There are many little devices available both on the open market and in the AppleStore, which do exactly the same thing, even a DIY version (choose and buy a OEM drive, stick it in a FW housing) - they work too! Cause FW housing are made to a standard, hence it doesn't have to be specifically state it's Mac compatible.
However, from experience, the prices tend to be slightly inflated compared to the open market. Maybe you like to shop around.. could save a small fortune.

Ipod as a portable hard drive

hey all,
does any one know if you can set an ipod to just be a portable storage device for say a powerbook. i have a retired a couple of ipods and would love to know how, if at all, to use an older 40 GB ipod as a portable hard drive with my powerbook? for me it would be ideal to keep my photo library on an ipod and then access it from my powerbook. what would be even more useful would be if i could use an ipod as one of my aperture vaults.
can this be done?????
thanks thomas

Plug in to your powerbook. Launch iTunes if it doesn't automatically launch. On the Summary page, check the box next to "Enable disk use". You may want to also uncheck "Open iTunes when this iPod is connected". If you want to erase everything on the iPod, use the Restore button on the Summary page. Just remember, like any removable drive, you need to eject it from the finder.

New shuffle & portable hard drive

I'm currently managing a family of 3 IPods on 1 computer and have our music files stored on a portable hard drive. We are trying to add a 4th IPod, which is a shuffle and for some reason when the new IPod is synced, my computer will not recognize the portable hard drive so we cannot fill the new IPod with music. If the new IPod is not connected, then the computer finds the portable drive with no issue (the other IPods work fine). I know to go to advanced settings and change the musice storage location on the new IPod to the portable hard drive but I can't select that drive when the new IPod is connected so they never get synced together. Any suggestions?

Get an externally powered USB hub... shuffle is power hungry. Apparently your USB controller doesn't provide enough power.

Wanted: Portable Hard Drive With SD Slot Used with Leopard/Timemachine

Are there external/portable hard drives that work with Leopard/Timemachine, which have an SD slot? It would be convenient to take the hard drive on the road to download frequently. But I'm not sure about a power source unless I bring my laptop.
I have an 80GB MacBook and looking for external picture storage. I use the computer mainly for IPhoto and web browsing.
The Apple store online doesn't have such a device and I would consider getting the iomega 160 GB portable hard drive from them.
Many thanks,
Carlos Marques

You can boot your iMac from a connected FireWire drive. It must be FireWire and not USB. G3 Macs cannot run Leopard. Tiger will work fine, if you have more RAM.
Also, can a Mac Mini be connected to my iMac and used as an external drive?
If the Mac Mini is PowerPC and not the current Intel version, you should be able to start the Mac mini in FireWire Target Disk Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
and connect it to the iMac's FireWire port as an external drive. If the Mac mini is PowerPC and has Tiger installed on it, the iMac should even be able to boot from that installation. If it has Leopard, you can still connect to it for data storage purposes, but you cannot boot the iMac from it.
If the Mac mini is Intel, the drive is partitioned using +GUID Partition Table+ (instead of +Apple Partition Map+ used by PowerPC Macs). Therefore, access to the drive using FireWire Target Disk Mode will depend on the OS installed on the iMac. It should work if the OS is Tiger. It will not work with Panther and earlier.
If you want to use a Mac mini to off-load some of the data on the iMac, you may want to use a network connection instead. Then, you will have full access to the Mac mini while it shares its storage space with the old iMac.

Backup I-Tunes Music to another portable hard drive?

I would like to backup my music to a portable hard drive instead of multiple DVDs within the I-Tunes program. Is there another way to do this?

You can't backup to an externa hard disk in iTunes, but there is nothing to stop you doing it in Windpws Explorer.
Assuming you have a default installation i.e music files in the iTunes Music folder, just close iTunes and copy the iTunes folder to the external disk.
It more convenient to use backsoftware which can backup changes, so after the intial backup, further backs are fast.
There is an article on backup here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1522195&#1522195

My portable hard drive doesn't pop up in my computer

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