My Portable Hard Drive wont show on my Macbook Pro

I have a WD My Passport. it used to show up on my mac but one day i couldnt get it to show up. it appears on every other computer and laptop i have tried, just not mine! how do i go about fixing this as it has a few important files...

There is/was a finder option for not placing an icon on the desktop. Check finder options.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities ->Disk Utility
Check in disk utility to see if the disk is there.

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Can't get my external hard drive to show up on MacBook Pro

I used Time Machine to keep backups for my MacBook Pro using the latest version of Lion. I backed up to a WD external drive. My computer went to be repaired and they had to put in a new hard drive. When I got home and plugged in the external drive it appeared on my desktop. The Apple rep told me to drag over folders from the backup. I looked through a few of the backups (dated) and everything seemed to be there. But I got the spinning wheel as I tried to copy over "latest". I couldn't get rid of it and had to reboot.
So next it appeared, showed one folder but when I clicked on that folder there was nothing inside.
Then I couldn't see the hard drive any longer. Now I take out the drive and plug it in again and the drive won't appear in the list of devices. I use the disk utility and it doesn't see it either.
Needless to say I'm pretty concerned. I've had the problem of an external drive not appearing a few times over the years but a reboot or unplug and plug back in always fixed it. not this time.
Help!
Much appreciate,

If you have recently upgraded to Lion, it would be probably a matter of drivers. You should go to the official web site and download the latest drivers. If not, try to format the HDD with disc utilities. If your disc doesn't appear even in disc utilities, try to format it with any copy of windows in fat 32 format

My external hard drive wont show up in the "Save to:" menu when I try to import videos

My old external broke so I found my old one and plugged it in and went to import some videos on imove from an sd card but my external hard drive wont show up on the "save to:" drop down menu. I've been on utility disk to try and repair disk permission but I can't because the button isn't lit up. I can only click on verify disk or repair disk. I tried both of these but it still wont come on the drop down menu. It is showing up on the left in the event library but it has a little yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark in it.
Hope that all makes sense!
Any help would be very much appreciated!

Ok in disk utility it says Format : MS-DOS (FAT32)
Sorry Im not sure what you mean by can it connect via firewire? Sorry I'm a bit useless with technology haha

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Arghh, this is driving me mad.
I'd like to know if anyone has installed a Samsung HM641JI SATA II hard drive into a mid 2009 Macbook Pro (mine is a 2.8Ghz) and, if so, how they managed it. The drive is 640GB. These are the steps I've taken:
1. Swap out the stock drive for the Samsung
2. Boot from a USB drive which contains a mirror of my system
3. When the system identified the new disk, I formatted it with 2 partitions (GUID table, HFS journaled)
4. Reboot
5. System is very slow. Boots from USB but can't use keyboard to login
6. Switch off and try again
7. Remove Samsung drive
8. Reboot from USB (works perfectly)
9. Downgrade firmware to 1.6
10. Replace samsung drive and try again
11. System boots from USB
12. Verify that drive is running at 1.5Ghz
13. Disk utility and system profiler both crash
14. Disk unmounts by itself and other random weirdness
15. Remove Samsung drive
I've read endless reports about the firmware in this model of Macbook Pro and its issues with SATA II but struggling to find anything current and specific. Two questions:
a. Is there anythign I can do to get this drive to play nicely?
b. What drive should I get if the answer to a is no?
As a bit of background.. my system began playing up last week with lots of spinning beach balls resulting in forced switch offs. Booting from a mirror on a USB drive works perfectly so I concluded that the drive was on its way out. A drive test utility confirmed this. I'm now wondering if it really was the drive or the cable or the logic board.
Any advice appreciated.
Cheers
//A

I'm coming around to the idea that this might be a problem with the SATA cable rather than the drive.
I currently have the stock drive (Hitachi) back in the macbook. It mounted for a while and was then ejected when I tried writing data to it. System profiler reports that "There was an error while scanning for Serial-ATA devices."
I was able to mount the same drive in a USB enclosure this afternoon without any problems. Right now, I seem to be having issues with both the Samsung drive and the Hitachi drive - I wasn't suspicious of thr latter because I thought it was failing.
I found one or two accounts of other people having similar problems that were resolved with a new sata cable.
How does a cable fail? Could this be my problem?
Cheers
//A

Setting up an external hard drive to back up my MacBook Pro?

I am currently using a 320GB Western Digital external hard drive to back up my MacBook Pro using Time Machine, soon however I am going to be putting Windows 7 onto my machine so I am trying to figure out how I am going to back up the Mac OS X and the Windows partition at the same time using this hard drive. I am thinking about completetly erasing the drive and putting 2 partitions on it in 2 different formats (one for Mac OS X and one for Windows). I am also thinking of using Carbon Copy Cloner instead of Time Machine because it creates bootable backups. However, now that I am thinking about using Carbon Copy Cloner I am wondering if FAT32 will work for both partitions? (I have been using Mac OS X extended (journaled) only because it works with Time machine). I need help though because I would not know how to go about completely erasing/resetting the drive etc.. then partitioning it and formatting it. I am also wondering if there is a windows equivalent of CCC or Super Duper to back up the Windows partition. Thanks for your help in advance.

I'm inferring from the way you wrote about using Windows that you plan on using it through Boot Camp. Have you considered using VMware Fusion (or Parallels) instead? Then Time Machine would back up the virtual machine along with everything else. You also have the advantage that you can use both Mac OS and Windows at the same time - you don't have to choose one or the other. There are two disadvantages. First, since both Mac OS and Windows are running simultaneously, you need more memory. I'd recommend no less than 8 GB if you run any serious software on either OS. You can get away with 4 GB, but at times the system will be really slow. Second, the virtual machine images are BIG - mine typically run over 20 GB - so you'll probably want a bigger backup drive if you go this way.

I replaced my hard drive on my late 2006 Macbook Pro. I tried to do a reinstall of Tiger 10.4.5 from my start up disk. I get an error that states "can't install on this computer." HELP

I replaced my hard drive on my late 2006 Macbook Pro. I used the disk utility and erased the drive and formatted it to OSX Journaled . When I tried to install the OS from the start up disks I got the error "Can't install on this computer. I have verified the drive.
I have used Super Duper to copy my old drive to my new drive. But I wanted to do a fresh install. How do I go about this?

Did you do the Super Duper clone before you tried to reinstall the OS? If so, the original install disc is likely earlier than 10.4.11, and that may be why you are getting the message.
When trying to reinstall the OS, did you select the "Archive and Install" option? If not, you might try that. Here's a link that might help:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1103.html
Good luck!

How do i transfer music from an external hard drive to itunes on my macbook pro?

how do i transfer music from an external hard drive to itunes on my macbook pro?

easy just open iTunes and Finder together and drag the songs into iTunes
George Karakadas, hope this helped u. if it helped u PLZ RATE MY AANSWER AS: "CORRECT ANSWRER" thnx

''Hard Drive'' wont show up in Mac OS 6.0.8 (finder 6.1.8)

i'm a mac dummy.. ive used Windows all of my life but now i got my first ever mac.. Yay!... well i actually got it in may but i got it to work now.. its a ''Macintosh Portable..'' ya!, 1989...! ok, it had a hard drive..(Hard Disk 40 SC) and its supposed to run on the Hard Drive only no diskettes needed. but since i had to use a '' Boot Diskette''because when you started up the computer a questionmark was flashind.. and now the computer runs on the diskette only and not the hard drive.. so when you start up the computer the Hard Drive dosen't show up... i would like the Hard Drive to show up so i could run the installer and reinstal the OS onto the hard drive.. but the Hard drive showed up once in like 30 times i started the computer, so does anyone know what i should do to make the Hard Drive show up????
Thank you, xmartinx

The portable's hard disk is unique. It's a special low power Conner 40MB. If you're trying to run your portable without a battery, or with a dead battery, the original AC adapter won't furnish enough juice to start the HD. You can use an AC adapter from a later PowerBook, one that puts out 2 Amps at 7.5 Volts, or you can buy a rebuilt battery or rebuild your own. Here's a website with lots of Portable info:
http://members.aol.com/macportable/Portable.html/
These old machines are becoming flaky due to parts failures, particularly electrolytic capacitors in the power supply, so it's also possible yours just isn't going to work right without some repairs. It's a rare classic computer, though. First active matrix LCD, 8 hours battery power (new), fully functional Mac, and first personal computer to fly in space.

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Recently my Seagate Portable hard-drive is no longer recognised in Finder, disk utility or the system profile. It no longer sufficiently powers the device as no light appears but the external hard-drive does make a noise. The device still works with other macs.
So far I have tried turning it off and on and have consulted my local apple store with no luck.

Do other peripherals work when connected to the MBP?
Try a NVRAM reset:
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063
Ciao.

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I bought a new MacBook Pro to replace an older MacBook Pro. I also bought a new Toshiba 1T portable hardrive to backup my new computer. The Toshiba hard drive will not mount on the new computer, but it will mount on my old computer.
However, I have two other portable hard drives (320 MB and 500 MB) that do mount on the new computer. I am puzzled as to why the new MBP will not display my Toshiba 1T portable HD.
Any ideas?

The only way I could get my Toshiba 1 TB USB 3.0 drive to work was to buy this cable from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005M0ICG2/ref=oh_o05_s00_i00_details
I tried a Kindle cable, I also ordered a thick data / power cable and it would not work. So I tried this dual USB cable and my drive is working great now.
You may be able to find it else were but the bottom line is you have to use both USB ports on your MacBook in order for this drive to work. I'm using a late 2011 MacBook Pro.
SyN

How do you separate corrupt files from good files on a external hard drive importing them to my macbook pro

how do you separate corrupt files from good files on a external hard drive importing them to your macbook pro

You open them one at a time into thier respective programs and see if they are good or not and then send the bad ones to the Trash and the good ones to the appropriate folder.

External Hard drive wont show up in Finder

Hi,
After Mountain Update, the external hard drive icon wont show up in Finder sidebar, Desktop and in Disk Utility.
Is there anything which needs to be set in System Preference ??
I have the External Hard Disk checkbox checked in Finder Preference, inspite of this I cannot see the Hard drive icon
Please help.

You can try looking in Finder Prefereneces.
Go to the Finder Menu > Prefeences
Look at the sidebar pane. Make sure the Devices box is checked.
Go back to your finder window and make sure that Devices are not hidden. To the right of the Devices work there is a dimly visible show/hide command that is visible only when you have your cursor next to the Devices word.
You can also try unpluggin the drive and unplugging its USB cord then plugging it all back in to try again.
Jay

My External Hard drive wont show up when plugged in

I have an external 500GB LaCie hard drive connected to my 13inch mac book 09. It is used to house all of my itunes library (11,000 songs+), a bunch of pictures and a few movies and random other things. It was working fine until I came home from work one day and an error message was on my computer saying that I had ejected a disk without properly disconnecting it (meaning my hard drive). My HD was still plugged into my computer and I never touched it. I tried everything from unplugging, rebooting, etc, and it still wont show up when I connect it to my computer. A day earlier I had my itunes playing for 8 hours while I was at work and I had been noticing over the past few days that my power supply was unusually loud but didn't think anything of it until this all happened! I would appreciate any advice as I would like to keep listening to all my music. Please help!

Ok in disk utility it says Format : MS-DOS (FAT32)
Sorry Im not sure what you mean by can it connect via firewire? Sorry I'm a bit useless with technology haha

MacBook Pro dock and hard drive wont show up

A couple days ago on my 17" 2011 MacBook Pro, the system dock and internal hard drive icon disappeared. I've restarted a few times with no luck. I unhooked all external drives and restarted but still no luck. The baffling part is that it appears to have started up just fine - my personal wallpaper is still there on both monitors, items on the desktop are still there and I can navigate the Finder menus at the top. BUT I cannot access the internal hard drive or any external hard drives. They dont even appear to be mounting. In addition to that, the dock never shows up either.
No idea how to fix this thing or even troubleshoot it. And I really really dont want to be forced into spending time and money at the local "genius" bar.
All help is much appreciated.
thanks

Hello NC_PV,
Thank you for contacting Apple Support Communities.
It sounds like you have a couple of preferences that got switched.
For your Dock, take a look at this article:
Mac OS X: Additional features of the Dock
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2307
Command-Option-D
Hide or Show the Dock. This is equivalent of choosing Dock from the Apple menu and then Turn Hiding
On or Turn Hiding Off from the submenu.
For the HD icon, look here:
Mac OS X: Blank disc may not appear in the Finder
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3105
To show the HD on the desktop, Click on the Desktop and then from the menu bar at the top, click on Finder>Preferences>General and then select "Hard disks" under "Show these items on the desktop:"
Regards,
Jeff D.

My hard drives wont show up

I can find the drive in my utilities but I cant move any films onto it. It doesn't show up on my desk top like it used to.

~~It's just strange that it reads fine on a different macbook.
Superficially its very strange, however Ive seen same countless times, minor power diff. between Macs on a dying SATA card. Thats why its called "haunted (external) hard drive syndrome", .. 2 symptoms are illogical diagnostically
The 50 cent part inside most external HD is a nightmare.
If you had a new external enclosure, diagnosing same would take less than 2 mins.
SATA card as found inside a typical USB external hard drive

My Portable Hard Drive wont show on my Macbook Pro

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