Need help with external hard drive!

Hi all,
I have been having trouble with my external hard drive.
My mac is reading the disk however all my files from the hard drive are missing?
In disk utility is seems to show that there are files on the disk but I cannot see them?
At the bottom is shows that there are files on the disk!
PLEASE HELP!!!!
Here is a screenshot of my disk utility

Ok just to clarify the format issue...
Just move the data from the external drive, format and then move it back if you want, as JiveMasterT explained.
If the external drive is FAT file system, then you don't need to format the drive unless you are planning on using the drive as an OSX backup.

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Need Help with External Hard drives and too much music

I am not terribly tech-savvy, and I need your help. I have a G5 PPC dual processor with an internal 250GB drive. I have two seagate firewire/USB2 external hard drives. One is 250GB and one is 350GB. I want to know how to use them to get my Mac to run faster and better.
My original hard drive is 7GB shy of being full. Almost half of this is my itunes library which is over 100GB. The older (250GB) hard drive has about 150GB of photos/videos.
My Mac is running slow as molasses and when I power up the external hard drives it slows down to what I recall my original Mac Plus ran like.
I use the G5 primarily to work with photos, illustrations and creating the occasional DVD with video and photos. the apps I use most often are Photoshop, Illustrator and Painter. I always listen to music while work.
I hope all of this information is helpful! Here is my question:
What is the best way for me to set up and use these external hard drives to return my G5 to its original blazing (to me) fast speed?
PPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I think you should look at adding two 500GB internal drives. I'd say Maxtor MaxLine Pro for cost, but they also run much warmer (43ºC even when nearly doing zilch) so I'd go with WD RE2 500GB for $40 ea. more.
dump whatever you don't need, trash anything that is hogging space and is just temp file or useless cache. Web browsers can leave behind a ton of small files eating up tens of MBs.
Use SuperDuper to backup/clone your drive.
Disk Warrior 4 to repair (after it gets to 15% free, or just forget for now).
A 250GB drive formats to 240GB and you have ~3% free it looks like.
For every data drive plan to have two backup drives.
Keep your boot drive to 40% used.
And your data drive to 60%.
Backups can go a little higher.
Drives are cheap and inexpensive, especially for the space and performance. And they have improved SATA over the years it has been out.
By doing a backup followed by erasing your drive, and then restoring it, using SuperDuper, which optimizes the organization, skips copying temp files that aren't needed, it also defragments your files. I would do backup daily to different sets that you "rotate." And before any OS update. And do the erase and restore probably every 2 months.
Make sure you keep one drive partition somewhere that is just your disk utility emergency boot drive that is not a copy of working system, used for doing repairs like running Disk Warrior and Disk Utility.
You may need to repair; backup; even erase and restore your external drives. Rather than spend on vendor made case, just pick up a good FireWire case either with drive, or bare (and add your own). I think it'd add 500GB FW drive though.
Why?
To begin backup of your current drive. To leave your other FW drives "as is" for now.
Then install a new internal 500GB drive as well so you now have a good current backup, and you have moved your data off 250GB to 500GB. If anything happens, you have one off line FW backup.
Then begin to clean up, organize, and get your FW drives working. It sure sounds like they have had some directory or file problems.
You can find a lot of Firewire and SATA drive choices over at OWC:
http://www.macsales.com/firewire/

Help with external hard drive please????

I am ready to chuck my computer out of the window I am so frustrated!! I really hope someone can help... Fingers crossed, here goes...
I have two macs - a MacBook running OSX 4.11 and an iBook G4 running OSX 3.9. I also have an Iomega external hard drive. I reformatted it when I bought it for the MacBook, and have been using it fine.
Now, I want to move a load of music from my iBook to the external hard drive. But when I plug in the hard drive, the iBook says 'MAC OSX CANNOT READ THE VOLUMES INSERTED' and gives me options of initialize, cancel, or eject.
I don't want to initialize as I'm assuming this will re-re-format the ex hd and lose the stuff I have on there already.
Is this the case?
Why won't the Iomega talk to the iBook? (the Iomega website says macs need no drivers for their products...)
Can anyone think of any genius ideas for getting the info off the iBook? Bearing in mind that there is no DVD writer, my internet connection is a teeny 2mb/s and the largest alternative storage device I have is a 2 gigabyte photo card (which i have been using, painstakingly, but is causing me massive grief by taking all night to upload from the ibook and then all day to transfer to the hard drive via the macbook, and losing a bunch of files in the process => AAAAAGH!!!!!). I've also tried firewiring the ibook and macbook together but they don't recognise each other. I created a network and accessed the iomega from the ibook via that but the 2mb/s broadband was so slow it would have taken all week, and the machines crashed anyway.
Thoughts? Ideas? Inspiration? Magic wand????
THANKS

Ok, deep breath & relax...
What format & partition table is the drive in?
On the macbook with drive installed, Open up Mac HD/Applications/Disk Utility.app
Select the drive from the list. If the partition scheme is GUID, then 10.3 won't be able to see it.
& changing requires a reformat of the drive.
So, what I would do is hold T while booting the macbook until the firewire logo shows on the screen. plug the 2 macs together via firewire 400 cable. your macbook should now show up as a firewire drive on the ibook.
drag & drop the files you want to move. eject the drive when done & press power on the macbook to exit this mode. press power again to boot.

Help with external hard drive connection

I have two external hard drives. One is connected to my PCMCIA card firewire and the other to the original firewire port. When I get into the final cut pro program, the program shows little red slashes through my different things that I have put into the computer. I need to know how to retrieve those files. The computer does show that the external hard drive is connected, but it shows that the media is offline. I have done this before I just want to know how to reconect the media. I think it should be easy. Please help.

Have a read of of your Final Cut manuals, Volume IV, Chapter 6, Reconnecting Clips and Offline Media, then experiment with ctrl-clicking the offline files and selecting Reconnect Media.
If all is well and you have a good naming convention for your clips, a simple search should reconnect everything. If you have changed volume names or have a whole collection of files named 'Untitled Capture' then you may be in more trouble.

Need help formatting external hard drive for OS 10.5.8.

My older 2007 iMac is running on OS 10.5.8. I purchaed Snow Lepoard but was told to back up years of music and pictures. I bought an external hard drive that is compatible with Mac OS 10.6. How do I format the external hard drive to accept OS 10.5.8.? Showing error code -43....? HELP PLEASE!

How is the current EHD formatted?

Need help with replacement hard drive

My hard drive has stopped working on this computer and since i only purchased it on 10/2012 I really don't want to replace it just yet. I am trying to buy a new hard drive but I would like a Seagate. I want to upgrade from 1 TB to 2TB. I was wondering if there is a Seagate product out there that would be compatable with the original hard drive but in 2 TB.The original hard drive is a HDD GNRC 1 TB SATA 3 ECO 7200 rpm 3.5". I was looking at a Seagate 2TB SATA 6.0 but I do not know is the SATA 6 will work with the original SATA 3. Can you please help me or guide me in the right direction for a replacement. I also have the HP recovery CD's coming to me in the mail.Thanks,GinaCee

Hi Big_Dave,Thank you for your help. I found this hard drive at Newegg and I was hoping you could tell me if it would be compatable.Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive. Or is there any Seagate product you could reccomend? I have a Seagate external hard drive and I like thier product, so I was hoping that they made something compatable for my HP. I will be installing this drive myself. I have all the instructions from the HP website and it doesn't look that difficult. Just waiting for my restore CD's and a replacement hard drive so I can start this project. Thanks again!Gina

Help with External Hard Drive

Ok, I have all my music on an external hard drive, and a brand new version of itunes that is completely blank. I'm trying to transfer the music from my external hard drive into Itunes but am having trouble. I've gone to file - add to library - and then chosen my music folder in the external hard drive, and Itunes starts to look like it'll load the songs in, but then nothing happens and the main song menu remains completely blank. Any ideas?

Ok, well i was using limewire to get some llegal shareware files and wanted to make sure i didnot get any viruses.
I am swapping drives, my internaal drive is fucniction yetn when i scanned with disk utility it siad Catalog file, illegal namee (in red) so i booted form my mac install disk ran disk utility, aand it did not fix. So some told me to get disk warrior, which i did, ( i ddownload form there site) and it told me to boot form another drive.... but i could not since m 250 gb drive is corrupted.....so i used a old 10gb drive i had kicking arround... i formated it, then installed maac os x.... and then put disk warrior on it, aandd tried to boot form it.
Yes i am swapping...
O i just thought of this, could i put the hard drives in my windows computer and then use my network to boot form them?????
no, i never iinstalled noton on my exdternalls, jusdt my internal...
how do i burn the disk warrior cd? I Tried burning the disk image and it would not give me the option to boot form it

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2 questions: 1) Does anyone know if there is a hub made for the firewire 800 to allow more than 1 device to be hooked up at 1 time? ex... capture deck and external hard drive.
2) I was cleaning up my external hard drive. I ejected it and now it won't come back on line when it is plugged in. Any Advice?

Most external FW enclosures have 2xFW800 ports that allow daisy-chaining multiple drives.
There are FW800 hubs available, but I don't recommend them if you intend to use with a camcorder or deck. Ditto regarding daisy-chaining a camcorder or deck with a FW drive ... the camcorder/deck usually locks up the FW bus if you have daisy-chained it with a FW drive.

Help with external hard drive issues

After force quit and system freeze my external hard drive wont read. It shows on the desktop but when you click on the icon it make all the other icons disappear for an instant. The drive will show in disk utility and I have verified and ran repair...both say disk seems to be ok. The drive shows in Finder under devices...however when I click on the drive it again makes all the icons disappear for an instant. Does anyone have any suggestions??? I am deployed in Afghanistan and do not have enough bandwidth to download Disk Warrior.

yes, I set it up with time machine as per requested when the hard-drive was first installed. How do i find the settings for my time machine backups? Nevermind, i went to my system preferences and checked it out. It is set to back-up to my external hard drive. yet my mac is still showing that I have 40.62 GB worth of backups on my internal

Help with external hard drive as time machine

specs of my kit
Processor 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3
Software OS X 10.8.2 (12C60)
iomega ego 1tb external hd
I ahve been using this hd for time machine but it is no longer connecting to the mac. i have tried using usb and firewire cables. no joy. i have tried restarting and shutsown on mac. no joy. in disc utilities no external hd found. in system information under firewire it states firewire bus - unknown device.
any help will be greatly appreciated. i have spnet a lot of jours on other forums with no joy
thnaks
leon

I once had a connection failure to an external Firewire Hard drive. It turned out that the Firewire port on the iMac had stopped working. The eventual solution that solved it and got the Firewire port working again was to reset the SMC and Reset the PRAM:
Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
Resetting the SMC for Mac Pro, Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini, or Intel-based Xserve
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait fifteen seconds.
Attach the computer's power cord.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
Resetting NVRAM / PRAM
Shut down your Mac.
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 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.

Need help with total hard drive replacement and reinstall

Hello everyone, let me first say thank you for all the help I hope I get. I have a HP Envy 14 1260se Beats Edition Laptop and I recently purchased a new SSD which really made my laptop speedy. The only problem I am having is that I purchased the recovery disks from HP so I could get all the drivers and everything restored but it does not work at all. So I used a windows 7 professional iso disk my friend had and installed windows (64 bit) and everything works perfectly, but I am missing the volume controls that show up on the screen. Usually when I press volume up or down using the keys on my keyboard it would show a bar in the middle of the screen telling me where my volume is. Now I just see the little volume icon in the taskbar which is just a little annoyance. Also I no longer have the beats on off button working. Is there a way I can download these little things to make my laptop almost the same as it was out of the box without all the bloatware? Any help would be appreciated and sorry in advance if this is confusing.
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi:
I don't know about the Beats audio thing but I think you need the HP OSD utility to get the volume control to show up on the screen.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-106851-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en
Did you install the quick launch software?
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-97078-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&...=
The probable reason the recovery disks didn't work is your SSD was of a smaller capacity than the mechanical HDD the notebook originally came with.
They won't work normally on any hard drive that is smaller than the one the PC came with.

Help with external Hard Drive on Powermac G5

Hi, i have an Powermac G5, and i also use an external SCSI hard drive, which worked fine the other day, but then today i cant seem to connect to it. usually an icon appears on the desktop but its not there and i cant figure out how to connect to it atall, its all powered up fine and if i go to disk utility its there, but i have no idea what to do.
ive tried various things including re-starting with it powered up, and again switching it on once its powered up.
can anyone please help?

I wondered what card?
Sorry this Sassenach doesn't use SCSI but you could try searching in this forum
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=593
Great! Glad you fixed it.
Message was edited by: maclover

Need help with second hard drive on mac G4

I recently took apart another computer and installed the hard drive on top of the "master" drive hoping I would be able to download more videos, music ect but when i try and download anything message pops outs that my disk is almost full i need help as you can see. I thought all i had to do was connect the drive but I guess that wasn't it.

chuck818, welcome to Apple Discussions.
What size is your Master HD & how much free space do you have? Are you getting messages about the HD being full?
Insufficient HD space can lead to many problems - freezes, directory/file corruption, etc.
 Cheers, Tom

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Can I upgrade to a hard drive that has SATA 3 interface with my Macbook Pro mid 2009 model?

It may well work and be backward compatible as jk said, however your machine was spec'd for one type of drive. For me, even if the older technology for the same capacity was slightly more in cost, I'd want to put that in my machine rather than something that may not be fully compatible. Just my opinion.

Need Help with External DVD Drive on my iMac

Hi, This is my first post and I hope there is someone out there that can help me. My PC just died and I'm finally moving on and taking it where it belongs, the dumpster. Anyways, I've been using my Pioneer DVD burner in there and now I'm trying to use it on my Intel iMac. When I hooked it up using an external firewire case, this is what shows up in my profiler.
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-110D:
Firmware Revision: 1.41
Interconnect: FireWire
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
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Reads DVD: Yes
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DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
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Montri - THAIICE

Apple Discussions!
Since you have an Intel, you will need to repost in the Using DVDs and CDs with your Intel-based iMac Forum so that users using the same model computer as yourself will be able to help you.
This is the G5 iMac Forum.

Need help with external hard drive!

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