New HD shown as two disks in Disk Utility

HI Experts
It is really strange for me so therefore I even don't know how to describe what the problem is.
I just got a new Seagate 4TB drive for my Mac Pro Mid 2012, I put it into the 3rd drive bay. Once powered on the machine and booted into OS X Mountain Lion, the system asked me if to initialize the new disk, I accepted and the Disk Utility started. The new disk's model name (ST4000DM000) was shown in the left pane, an I was able to select the disk and split it into two partitions. After naming and formatting each partition using the Erase option, the two partitions are now ready to use with the their name appearing in Finder. Everything seems working fine so far.
BUT, unlike other physical disks installed on my Mac Pro, the new Seagate disk appears as two "physical" disks in the left pane of Disk Utility. Instead of the product model, each disk's name is shown as the partition name that I defined when formatting the partition. I tried changing their partition name by re-erasing the partition but did not help. Now each partition has two names, one for "disk", the other for its only "partition", as shown below. The new disk's model name is no longer shown.
Not only the confusing names, the BIGGEST issue is that those regular maintenance options are no longer available for the new physical disk (or the two fake disks), including Erase, RAID and Restore. The Partition option is available but all its options seem locked in grey, hence no change can be made. However, the partition layout is shown for the whole physical disk.
The Erase option is avalable for each partition. I can erase the partition and change the name if I like. This seems to be the only thing I can do against each fake disk or real partition.
FYI - Each partition "appears to be OK" as reported by the First Aid option. The system is OS X 10.8.5 (12F45) wih 4 disks installed: Bay 1 - Apple SSD, Bay 2 - Apple 2TB HD, Bay 3 - Seagate 4TB HD, Bay 4 - WD 1TB HD.
This has driven me crazy for hours. Do you know why this could happen and how to fix the issue?
Thanks heaps in advance.
Regards
B

I am almost sure this should still be a bug in 10.9 Mavericks.
I didn't do "a complete erase of the entire drive" as a 200 MB EFI partition could not be deleted. The partition was always there at the beginning of the disk even I already manually removed all other partitions created under OS X. As shown below, I did that in Windows 8.1 after plugging in the new HD as an external drive.
Under Windows 8.1, I removed three partitions created by OS X, including two 2TB partitions plus one 120 MB one in the middle. I have no idea what the small partition was, and sorry I forgot to capture a screenshot for this status.
Afterward, I created two placeholder partitions in the same size under Windows 8.1 then connected the disk back to Mac Pro as two external drives, exactly as the work-around suggested by Apple, I could see the product model again and successfully erase the two partitions into HFS+ format.
I tried re-erasing the two partitions again (not the whole disk) under 10.9 but once one of the partitions was erased, the problem happened again: two more "physical" disks appeared in the left pane of Disk Utility. I could no longer remove the partitions and the only way to restore was to take the disk back to Windows 8.1 and redo everything above. That's why I said the bug is still there in Mavericks.
Lesson 1: Under OS X, do not touch the internal 2TB partitions that have been formatted in external enclosure.
Lesson 2: The OS X world does need Windows. :-)))
Now everything seems OK. As shown below, I can press the Info buton to see the new disk's reliability info which was not available as a "logical volume group".
BTW, why the Raw Error Rate and See Error Rate are so high? My new disk got other problems?
Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:
That should read Bug in 10.8.4 and 10.8.5.
One Apple-suggested Work-around was to do the Erase in an External enclosure (provided that enclosure can support drives over 2.2TB [older one can not]). Once a proper partition is installed, the drive can be moved to Internal and is said to work fine.
You must do a complete erase of the entire drive (not just the Volume) to decide whether this is actually a bug in 10.9 Mavericks.

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Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verif

Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verifying and repairing it but had no luck. I also tried mounting and unmounting it but still no solution. Anyone to help please?

Looks bad. I would strongly advise backing up the stuff on the other two partitions as soon as possible in case the rest of the drive goes wrong.
Beyond that, Disk Utility has limited abilities to repair disks, DiskWarrior uses a different approach and might, emphasis might be more successful. It has certainly done the job for me in the past when Disk Utility could not.
See http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

Mac Pro (late 2013) New ssd not seen in disk utility

Hi Guys :-)
I have a quirky problem.
I've run out of harddrive space, so I bought a new 1 TB SSD via Ebay, which is an original SSD from Samsung.
A month ago I bought another SSD, which didn't show up, so I sent it back thinking it was a faulty drive.
Today I received a new drive and it doesn't show up in Disk Utility either
But I'm pretty sure there must be something wrong with my system. When I boot up, I use a Yosemite installer via USB.
Hope you guys can help me, it's really frustrating.
Cheers
Andy

It is the way Apple board treats the text and the link is the 2nd line. I would have had to use Advanced Editor which is needed to clean it up, is not a default option, and the problem only happens on Apple Discussions.
Thought maybe you were aware of the thread already, many are, and then tried to find WHERE in the thread there are
Photos of modules along with part numbers and other vital information, and was asking you to post back with just who and what part number they sent. There are not a lot of people selling 1TB Apple units.
You can always search thread for a particular
ie, MZ-KPV1T0R/0A2 - 655-1860B
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=20725467&postcount=652
I wanted to bring the discussion forward one data point or two: seller and device ID.
Your issue is with a used part, installing and mounting, and whether you have an external case like the one OWC sells to hold an M.2 size SSD.
Put it or your old Apple device in here:
OWC Envoy Pro
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MAU3ENPRPCI/

New HDD not showing in disk utility

Help please!
i can up on a broken G5 i have replaced the HDD. now i am trying to install tiger. but the new internal HDD is not showing up in disk utility.
i plugged my passport in and it popped right up.
some one please let me know what you think.

Well, having a had hard drive connected may cause a grey screen (if the system cannot successfully perform a check of connected devices). Not sure about the fan.
If you have not done so yet, be sure to try resetting PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
If that does not help, you can also try resetting the SMU (power management).
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1767
Follow the procedure precisely.
It is also possible that the old drive was not bad and your iMac has some other problem. Did you ever test the previous drive on another Mac (or connected externally) to confirm it was faulty? That +other problem+ may be what you are experiencing now.
Also, I asked this previously but, are you able to start up the iMac using the optical drive, with a Mac OS X installation disc in there?

New HD not showing in disk utility?

my HD fried so I just installed a new 250GB HD about 20mins ago. It's not showing up on the disk utility. It shows one for 4.8GB but not the 250GB? bad connection? I'll try to reconnect it again. It's a Seagate, same brand as I took out of my 1.66 intel Mac mini. help please, I'm computer less, thanks!

got it working.

New to Mountain Lion. Disk Utility crashes.

Called Apple Care. Led me to safe boot. It works there. But now I'm thinking, I don't want to go to safe boot. I'd like it to work. Ready to call them back, but felt like going here. Don't you agree going to safe boot doesn't feel like a proper fix? Like they just passed this off on me.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Enter the name of the crashed application or process in the Filter text field. Select the messages from the time of the last crash, if any. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Step 2
Still in the Console window, look under User Diagnostic Reports for crash reports related to the process. The report name starts with the name of the crashed process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report and post the entire contents — again, the text, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall, spin, or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.

Disk Utility doesn't show new drive when trying to install Snow Leopard

Please help because I've searched everywhere. My MacBook's hard drive failed. It's done for. I bought another internal, Western Digital 320gb WD3200BEVT. So it's brand new and when I boot from the Snow Leopard install I don't see the new hard drive in the Disk Utility App. All I see is my CD-Drive. No where is my new drive so that I can at least format it. People suggested on other forums that maybe it's the cables but i don't think it is cause the hard drive you just slide in and out. There are no jumpers on this drive either, so that's out. I've narrowed it down to two things, bad hard drive or this drive just isn't recognized by by Snow Leopard?

If you have tried restarting a few times and it still doesn't show up I'm afraid you are gonna have to go back in and check the connections. I know they just slot into the carriage, but possibly it is not in tight. I can only suggest you open it up and check everything thoroughly. If after a thorough check, if it still does not mount you may want to take the hard drive back and swap it. Are you sure it was only a hard drive failure in the first place? I only ask this because WD hard drives have quite a solid reputation.

Transferring data from one HDD to a new HDD using disk utility?

I do not have a time machine backup of my HDD. I was wondering if it is posssible to use disk utility to restore data from the old HDD to the new HDD. Will I need the system disks to partition the new HDD first or is this even possible. If it is possible, will everything transfer using the Restore in disk utility?

How to replace or upgrade a drive in a laptop
Step One: Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) 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.
Step Two: Remove the old drive and install the new drive. Place the old drive in an external USB enclosure. You can buy one at OWC who is also a good vendor for drives.
Step Three: Boot from the external drive. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive then click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Step Four: New Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your new hard drive (this is the entry with the
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3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from
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4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the
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5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the
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6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several
      hours depending upon the drive size.
Step Five: Clone the old drive to the new drive
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the
      Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the
      Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new internal drive. Source means the old external drive.
Step Six: Open the Startup Disk preferences and select the new internal volume. Click on the Restart button. You should boot from the new drive. Eject the external drive and disconnect it from the computer.

Cloning new HDD with Disk Utility

Hi,
Currently experiencing some problem while cloning to a new drive. Have properly prepared the new drive to "Journalized OS" compatible. My problem occurs when the clone is at its verifying stage. It simply got stuck at that stage and states it take 5 hours to finish, but it simply is not moving forward. As a result of this, I have tried cloning to the same drive twice and have canceled the process at the verifying stage.
Also, I notice when it hits the verifying stage - the new drive (in the enclosure for cloning) disappeared in the left side list. See photo below.
My question is:
1) Should I just let the cloning process alone and let it keep going even though the new drive disappears from the left list ?
2) Is there a possibility that the enclosure is causing the issue? But could that still allow the drive to copy all the blocks in the initial stage, and stop at the verifying stage?
Thanks in advance for all your responses.

I dont use CCC anymore, Superduper is easier and never encountered an issue with same, its 2 clicks and sit back for 40 mins until done.
however if CCC or Superduper, here are clone and replace info:
1. grab carbon copy cloner or superDuper CLONE app.
2 attach target clone drive via USB in an enclosure or HD dock. Firstly format the target (external new) HD or SSD in disk utility in “Mac OS extended journaled”
3. clone internal HD to target HD or SSD (external) [takes about 40 mins depending on size]
4. Boot ONCE from external (go to sys. preference to boot from external) to TEST the new Clone
5. open bottom (see videos on ifixit or youtube on same) and remove old, install new.
(this video is for a 2012, look at this site for YOUR specific year / model)
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Replacing+MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+Hard+ Drive/10378/1
Done
(FIRST TIME after installing, boot will be SLOW,...normal and ignore that).
Clone APPS
Superduper does not clone the recovery partition, but that is NOT necessary if you keep the original HD as a “backup clone”. Most don’t bother with the recovery partition in a clone, however that is your prerogative.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
(Free superduper APP above)
CCC App
http://www.bombich.com/

Disk Utility, Bootcamp, and Mountain Lion

Basically the following message will include all the above.
I just recently upgraded to Mountain Lion, and decided that I wanted to install Windows. When I tried to use bootcamp to create the partition, the error message that stated something along the lines of needing to have one partition that needs to journalized. The problem that I found with this statement was when I used the 'Disk Utility' only two partitions were shown, the Mac partition and the recovery partition. So next I tried to create and delete a partition hoping that would get rid of the error message. Again I hit a brick wall because the error message was still present, and then a new problem emerged with the 'Disk Utility.'
The partitions that I manually created after bootcamp failed caused other problems for the 'Disk Utility.' The problem was that I could no longer resize my partitions. The process would complete but the partition would still be at the same amount it was before the partition was supposedly resized. (Ex. Hard Drive has extra 20 GB, Current Harddrive partition is 420 GB. Resize to 440 GB. Go through the Process, which states success and the hard Drive still states partition is at 420 GB instead of 440GB). I then went into recovery mode to try the 'Disk Utility' and resize the hard drive, but again the hard drive could not be resized. Nothing seemed to work, so then I reinstalled OSX Mountain Lion.
After reinstalling everything, I tried to install Windows with bootcamp. This was also a failure. I was then forced to realize that maybe it was because of the recovery partition. I then deleted the recovery partition in order to see if maybe I could resize the disk so that way there was only one partition on the harddrive. This too led the problem discussed in the previous paragraph. In the end, I used my Snow Leopard Disk to restore my system. Then using Snow Leopard's Bootcamp I was able to install Windows. I just thought that I should share my experience with the community
PS. I did the repair disk, and permission before executing a new resize of the partition. As a matter of fact, I did these steps any time I used 'Disk Utility' to change something.

Boot Camp forum:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/windows_software/boot_camp

Disk utility stuck in the middle of system installation

I have just fitted a new solid state hard drive. My old drive is now where my non functioning Superddrive users to be, which is working fine.
I started by giving my new drive one partition with disk utility. That was fine and I began to install OS Lion. The machine restarted.
Then I got a message to say that my disk was damaged and that I should run disk utility. Within the installer programme I went back and clicked on 'Repair disk'. However disk utility reported no problems. So I tried to repartition my drive. This is where the utility got stuck 'waiting for disks to reappear'. Eventually the machine started getting hot, so a hard restart seemed my only option. Soon I was back in disk utility and still there was no reported damage to my drive. Partition restored, (by selecting 'Erase' rather than 'Partition'), I went on with my installation, but this time was told a recovery partition couldn't be created. Back into disk utility, still no damage but the partition 'erase' is trying to restore is taking forever!
What should I do now? It looks like my plans for a faster system are doomed!

I forgot to update you on what has happened since.
I wanted to get back into the system on my old hard drive. Disk Utility was totally stuck and so I hard restarted once more. I seemed to be going round in circles but was glad to see that every time I asked D.U. to repair my new drive it reported that all was well. Eventually, holding down the option key in the vain hope of getting back onto my old drive I found a screen wheere I had the opportunity to start up from the recovery drive, presumeably of my old drive since it had told me it couldn't create one on the new drive.
I followed this and went through the process again. This time it asked me to sign in and get connected to the internet. I soon realised that it was trying to download the install programme which I know takes ages as I did it yesterday. So I quit out of that and was then finally offered the chance of starting up in my old drive.
Running D.U. from my old drive revealed loads of red writing. I'm currently searching for my Disk Warrior CD in the hope that it may be reparable as D.U. doesn't seem to be able to do much.
I can't believe these SSDs are so fragile! They are surely the same technology as the seemingly indestructible flash drives we all carry around on our keyrings and yet I've now had two of these fail me on system installation. Maybe I should just put a flash drive in my computer and have done with it!

Time Capsule Disk Doesn't Appear in Finder or Disk Utility

I have a 500G Time Capsule (single band, I think) that I want to partition (just into disk images, not volumes) so that I can maintain separate-sized locations for my family's music library, photos, and Time Machine backups for the non-media files on each of a Mac Mini and 4 laptops. But I will ask more about that later.
My more immediate problem is that the Time Capsule Disk Volume generally just doesn't appear in my Finder or in Disk Utility at all. A couple weeks ago, for some reason, it did appear once and I took the opportunity to create a 215G Disk Image--leaving 250G for the rest of the Disk Volume which was indicated as having 465G rather than 500G actually available. But since then (as before) the Time Capsule volume hasn't appeared in Disk Utility at all, and only rarely in the Finder.
In the Finder the Time Capsule appears under the Shared heading in the left panel, with the Time Capsule disk volume appearing as a folder in the right panel (if it connects, which it usually requires a password for, but sometimes it doesn't...). If I open the folder then the right panel goes blank (indicating, I think, that I have opened the volume but there is nothing inside) and the volume (usually) eventually shows up under my own Mac in the Devices heading. (That is, the Time Capsule disk volume shows up along with Network, Macintosh HD, and Remote Disk in the right Finder panel when I select my Mac under Devices in the left Finder panel.) At that point the TC volume shows up in the Finder as a 220G Volume and the disk image shows up indented under it as a 215G Disk Image; indented under the Disk Volume there is also a 5G Sparsebundle file from a Time Machine backup. If I open the 220G Disk Volume in the right Finder panel then it shows only the 215G Disk Image and the 5G Sparsebundles in the right Finder panel. This seems to suggest that the 215G Disk Image and the 5G Sparsebundles are both treated as 'used' and the 220G size given for the Disk Volume represents what is left (although 215+5+220=440, so where the extra 25G went I don't know).
If I open the 215G Disk Image in the right Finder panel then, after a while, it shows up as a Disk Image in the right Finder panel when my Mac is selected under Devices in the left panel. I can create folders in the Disk Image and copy documents to those folders, at least.
But in any case, regardless of whether I open the 220G Disk Volume or the 215 Disk Image in the Finder, the Disk Volume never appears in Disk Utility so there is no possibility of reformatting it. The 215 Disk Image has sometimes shown up in Disk Utility (and once it apparently allowed me the option of partitioning the Disk Image into further Disk Images), but sometimes it doesn't show up and I haven't been able to figure out why it does or doesn't.
I find this all very confusing and the Finder and Disk Utility behavior seems downright erratic. I'm not sure whether something is broken or if I just don't understand how it works (starting with the difference between the Devices and Shared headings in the left Finder Pane). I would appreciate any advice on how I can reliably access the Time Capsule disk volume in the Finder and Disk Utility. Thanks.

Same problem after 10.8.2 update yesterday,
Time Machine functions but disk does not mount in finder.
The disk also shows up in disk utility when TM is running
as mounted (beneath a sparse image file) but not visible.
Is this a bug, or a feature?
LW
MBPro. OSX Mountain Lion, backing up to Time Capsule

Disk Utility - Unable to Shrink Disk Error

hey guys,
I have been trying to shrink my system partition but i keep getting an error.
I had Vista installed on a boot camp partition, but i needed to reinstall it and i decided to start from scratch. I erased the vista partition and tried to recreate it. I ran boot camp assistant but that failed at creating a new partition.
I ran disk utility to first try and shrink the system drive, then increase the size to full before i rerun the boot camp partition. however, i cannot shrink.
this is the error i get.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/734117/Screen%20shot%202009-10-25%20at%208.48.54%20AM .png
I had only about 35 gigs free and i tried to create a 20 gig partition. after that error, i erased some data and now have just under 100 gigs free. but the drive still cannot shrink
I was hoping to find a way to shrink the drive, or defragment without having to erase the entire disk and reinstall. i do not have the backup capabilities to move all my data at this point.
Thanks for your help

Hahmad wrote:
How do i create a clone?
first, you need an external drive. then use CCCloner http://www.bombich.com/index.html
or Superduper http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
to clone the OS X partition to the external. make sure that the external is formatted with GUID partition scheme before cloning. if needed reformat it first with disk utility.

Copying a drive with Disk Utility

I have a USB drive used for Time Machine that is failing. Disk Utility says it can't fix it, but says I can copy files from it.
I attached a new drive and am using Disk Utility's "Restore" function to clone the new drive from the failing one (both are 1TB drives).
Disk Utility says on the screen that it is "copying blocks". Does this mean it's doing an image copy rather than a file-by-file copy? It seems to me an image copy in this case might be bad, because it could cause any file or directory corruption on the old drive to be copied to the new drive.
Are my worries justified? Would I be better off just using the Finder to copy files? Are there third-party programs that might be better? (DiskWarrior says it can't fix the old drive because of insufficient memory.)

I have SuperDuper! but didn't have it installed on that machine and thought I would give the Disk Utility process a try.
I'm fairly sure SuperDuper! must use file copying, not image copying, and I suspect Disk Utility does too. But that "copying blocks" message made me wonder.
BTW, Disk Utility is telling me it's going to take over 24 hours to copy the terabyte. Both drives are connected via USB 2.0.

Desktop/Finder won't display external hd's, but will in Disk Utility

Yesterday, I replaced the original hard drive on my late 2008 Macbook Pro (OSX 10.9.4, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Memory) with a 1TB SATA hard drive matching the data transfer speeds of the original hard drive. I backed up via Time Machine (on a 2TB) and even cloned onto a second external hard drive (now called 3TB) and had recovered documents (less than 100GB) from a crashed external hard drive (1TB from OWC brand) onto a third one (now called "1TB portable") with the intent of merging the files from the 1TB OWC crashed hard drive via the 1TB portable back onto an internal hard drive which now had some elbow room. My problem is that after erasing & restoring the new internal hard drive using Disk Utility & Time Machine and reinstalling Mountain Lion and then Mavericks, the 3TB external & 1TB portable external hard drives went missing on my desktop and on Finder, but were still listed in the sidebar in the "Disk Utility". Both external hard drives displayed and were able to be browsed through prior to my Time Machine backup & internal hard drive replacement. Both the 3TB & 1TB portable drives were purchased new and specifically said they were for Mac OS X. All drives are virus-free and are physically working. Fortunately, on the 2008 Mac, the new internal hard drive is working beautifully like a brand-new Mac. Additionally, the 3TB & 1 TB portable are NOT recognizable by other Mac's, but, again, were recognized and operational before I reinstalled OS X ML & Mavericks and restored from Time Machine. Also, I've set my Finder Preferences to be able to see them. Both were Mac formatted. The only additional relevant info I think to add would be that in installing my hard drive, my OSX was Mavericks both before and after and that the Time Machine backup was within within the hour before replacing my hard drive so not much changed there time-wise. Once again, I had verified successful data transfer to the 3TB external & 1TB portable external hard drives immediately before Time Machine backup on the separate third drive. 1) How do I recover the backup data from the 1TB portable drive that I already recovered from the crashed OWC drive and 2) since I was obviously misapplying information from the forums somehow, how should I appropriately clone/transfer data in the first place? Thank you in advance for your help.

Hi,
I have had a similar problem. I have a 1Tb portable Seagate drive which I have been using successfully for backups with time machine on a Macbook running Lion for 18 months.
I decided to upgrade to Mavericks and experienced the same symptoms as above. The machine would not recognise the disk in finder. Disk utilities could see the disk but the partition was greyed out and several attempts to repair disk were to no avail. I am afraid that I made matters worse by unsuccessfully trying to reformat the disk.
I made a backup of my macbook to another older mac and tried the hard disk with an old Windows laptop running Vista. It recognised the disk but said it need to be formatted. This I did.
In the mean time I had upgraded my Macbook from 10.9.3.to 10.9.4. I am not sure if this made a difference.
I then plugged the hard disk back in to the Macbook. It recognised it immediately and said that it needed initialising. This I did successfully and (MAC os extended Journal). The disk now works perfectly with 10.9.4 on the Macbook and I have been able to use Time Machine with it to make a backup.
I know this does not help with rescuing data from the hard disc but at least I now have a usable hard disk!

New HD shown as two disks in Disk Utility

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