Search external hard drive

I just got my Mac two days ago and I cannot search for movies on my external hard drive. I tried to add and remove through System Preferences-Spotlight-Privacy then add/remove but I still can't search it.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.
Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
mdutil -as 2>&- | pbcopy
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal 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 and start typing the name.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.
The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.
If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.

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Searching external hard drive attached to Time Capsule

I have a 1 TB Time Capsule which I use for backing up my 2011 MacBook Pro and for providing my WiFi. I also have a 1 TB external hard drive plugged into my Time Capsule which I can access via WiFi. I can go to Finder on my laptop and browse the folders/files on my external hard drive. It appears under Shared in the sidebar of the Finder window. I can open files from it and I can save files to the drive, so it appears to be working fine. I have hundreds of gigs of files on the drive. But when I was recently hunting for a specific file, I noticed that my Spotlight wasn't doing a very good job at finding files on my external hard drive. I tried many different searches - by name, by type, by date - and had no luck. But as I was searching, I realized that I had more files of certain file types than Spotlight was showing me. So I tried searching for files I first confirmed were actually on the external drive. And again Spotlight failed to find them. If I used a partial filename search, it would find some files that matched but not the ones I was looking for.
So, this led me to think the index is corrupt. I'm not sure if this problem is related to my recently upgrading to Lion or not, since I haven't had to search the drive in awhile. I tried to force Spotlight to recreate the index on the drive by using the Privacy panel trick (of the Spotlight Preferences) but that didn't work. I then tried to get Spotlight to recreate its entire index and I think all that did was recreate the index for my internal harddrive.
So, are there things I need to know about attaching an external hard drive to a Time Capsule that I perhaps forgot to do? Should I be able to search the drive with Spotlight? Do I have to somehow force Spotlight to look in external drive when doing a search or is it supposed to search everything it can?
I should mention I have been having a little trouble with my Time Capsule as well. I recently had to erase the drive and set up a whole new backup since the backup was failing - not sure what happened to it, but it seems to be working again now. But I did notice yesterday that my Time Machine hadn't backed up all day but it was not giving me a warning message. It was just sitting there not backing up. I had tried resetting my PRAM and after doing so, my Time Machine was back to backing up. I'm not sure if the PRAM reset helped with that or if it was just the restart of the laptiop.
One more thing - I feel like since upgrading to Lion I have had to restart my laptop more than ever. Things just start acting funny, especially when I am using Safari and I find myself resetting Safari and then restarting my laptop all the time. Odd.

It should be HFS+.. it may work with fat32 but that is a lousy format.
The actual format of the drive is irrelevant to the PC.. the TC offers SMB connection.. so it is a true file sharing device.. the format used to store the files cannot be directly read by windows but is "interpreted, translated" via the firmware of the TC.
BTW this is true of all network storage.. A NAS can store files in whatever format its OS requires.. freebsd like freenas might use XFS.. or linux use EXT2 or REISFS.. it makes no difference as long as it offers that store to the windows (and apple) network as SMB.. then windows can handle it.

Spotlight won't search external hard drive

I have recently upgraded to Yosemite but when I use Spotlight to search for a file spotlight does not search or include any files on my external hard drive. I have had one community member suggest to explicitly check the Spotlight index via command line. I tried to follow his instructions but my limited skills produced a zero. Unfortunately, he hasn't replied back for further instruction.
Can anyone else please shed some light on this annoying problem?

Hi chalkybones,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand that you would like Spotlight to locate files on your external hard drive but it is unsuccessfully locating them. In this situation I would recommend first re-indexing the folders or volumes in Spotlight if you have not yet done some. Please use the attached article as a reference on how to complete the process.
Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes - Apple Support
Cheers,
Joe

Screen Lock When searching external hard drive?

Why would my screen be locking up when I try to access my external hard drive? It shows the folders contained in it, but won't let me scroll down to see the rest or open the folders when clicked on. when I try to use the menu at the top I just get the spinning wheel. I have to force quit to get back to my main hard drive, which works fine. I'm able to access the folders through lightroom so I feel like the hard drive is not at fault.. Any help or ideas would be greately appreciated

…and I suspect you want some clairvoyant or mind reader to guess all the details and specs of your setup?
Please read this FAQ for advice on how to ask your questions correctly for quicker and better answers:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/419981?tstart=0
Thanks!

How do I search external hard drive only

thanks

To search an external drive with Spotlight it must first be indexed. External drives are not indexed automatically. Or you can download the freeware search tool, Easy Find - VersionTracker or MacUpdate, that does not need to index a drive.

External Hard Drive unable to search with Spotlight

I have an external hard drive that is connected to a mac running 10.5.8, and is availble as a shared drive to all in the dept.
Until recently, we could perform Spotlight searches to find specific files, but that ability has ceased to work.
I have tried re-indexing (using the spotlight privacy dodge). I have rebooted the sytem, repaired permissions on the host computer, checked the hard drive with disk utility. All to no avail.
Please can someone suggest a possible solution to this problem.
The macs accessing the drive conatin a variety OS from 10.5 to 10.7, and none seem able to search for the files.
thanks

i tried this:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3865/session/L3RpbWUvMTMxMjQwOTU zMS9zaWQva25STDhFQWs%3D
then the message still popped up. So I did the following:
1. making sure the name i give my hard drive doesn't have space in it (it probably didn't matter but i was ready to do anything to make it work!)
2. empty my trash (the one on the computer, that is...)
3. make sure that any previous files from the drive isn't open
then it worked! i hope it works for you too.

Help, I need to search for duplicate photos in my external hard drive

Hi Mr. Toad and others who have been answering questions in these forums:
Thank you very much for all your help so far. I have been using a mac for the last few years and LOVE IT! I was wondering if I could pick your brain for a moment. I have backed up my iphoto library onto my external hard drive...a few times...once or twice before I really knew what I was doing. There are a couple of folders that I fear have duplicates and I wasn't diligent about naming pics after having a baby (and now I know the errors of my ways). Now I have lots of folders like 01, 02, 03, etc and within each, there are the different days of the month. So, my question to you is do you know of a program that can seek on my external hard drive and show me duplicates and ask me if I want to remove them? I am trying a program right now called DupeGuru, but it has been running for abot 6 hours already and is only 1/4 done!!! It isn't even showing me that it's found any dupes yet. I've looked at iphoto diet and duplicate annihilator and both seem to only work with iphoto.
I really need an application or workflow to search my iomega 80g usb drive. if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. My brain hurts trying to figure all of this out. Thanks again for your help!!!
ibook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

well PhillyPhan, I can't tell that you're better looking just by your iphoto icon, now can I? Although it is a lovely sunset you've got there.
Thanks for your response to my question, I see your point and will do that, however, I have another folder that was created before I had a Mac, which has all sorts of lovely titles and labels and some of those pictures I brought over to my ibook when I first started. So there are some duplicates in my iphoto library that I already have backed up in that other folder. I guess I shouldn't really obsess about those. I guess I am just nervous about deleting all my prior iphoto library, but I should have faith that it will all be there in my pictures library. Just trying to clean up the virtual mess.
I'll hold my breath and take the plunge.
Thanks!
ibook G4

How to search a network/external hard drive in finder?

I use my Macbook at work where I am required to save all files I work on to a network hard drive on our server. I also have to be able to find and access files from the network drive for customers. In Snow Leapord I had the ability to type in the search bar in finder and it would search the entire network drive and find what I was looking for very quickly. Lots of people at work access the network drive, and every one of them has a different sense of organization. The ability to search is an absolute must in order to find anything. After upgrading to Lion, I discovered that the ability to search a networked or external hard drive has been removed. Lion only allows me to search my local hard drive in my Macbook. Does anyone know how to search a network hard drive in Lion? If not I am going to have to eat the 30 bucks and downgrade back to Snow Leopard. I have scoured through every little preference and option and have found nothing that even sounds remotely like it has anything to do with the search feature. Anyone please help, if not I am going to have to break out the time machine backups and remove this broken os from my computer.

system preferences, spotlight, privacy, add the network or external hard drive and then remove it from the privacy list. it should start to reindex this drive. You'll experience some slowness while this is happening and depending on how big your network is, it might take a really long time. But after that, you should be able to search in them as well. You can also organize what types of files show first so you can navigate to them easier.
hope this helps

How can i perform a search on my external hard drive on my mac pro os x 10.9.2 ?

how can i perform a search on my external hard drive on my mac pro os x 10.9.2 ?

Mac OS X 10.9.2 is 12 years newer than 9.2.x. You need to make sure that Spotlight has indexed the external hard drive by adding it and removing it from Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy. Check the menu for it:
to determine if indexing is still going on, as it will say indexing.
Alternatively, you can use a non-Spotlight tool, such as:
http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/
http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/freeware/ - EasyFind
http://www.osxbytes.com/ - iFileX (note the MacUpdate link provided on osxbytes page has a Malware advertisement for MacKeeper, do not download).
http://www.barebones.com/ Textwrangler has a Search file for content, which works on any Text file.

My macbook pro (using lion os) can't search files and folders on external hard drive! How can i solve it?

When i used Snow leopard, i can search every files and folders on my external hard drive (NTFS). But when i upgraded to lion OS, sportlight didn't index files on exteranal hard drive and i can't search everything on external hard drive whatever i type in the search box! I also check the Finder preference and select when performing a search to "Search the current folder" ! How can i solve this problem! Please help me if you know!

iTunes>Preferences (Cmd+,)>Advanced
Choose the Ext HD (and the appropriate folder) as the location for your library.

What can I do to search properly a file in an external hard drive?

I've installed Paragon app. to copy files in an external hard drive. That application is working well, however I have the following question: what can I do to search properly a file in an external hard drive? I'm referring to look up a file using Finder.
Thanks in advance!

Old Phone to New Phone http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2109

How to override "All My Files" and restrict search to a single external hard drive?

I've got 3 large external hard-drives--WD, Seagate, iOmega--connected to my iMac to contain a sprawling music collection. I'm working on deduping, etc., but each attempt to search a single hard drive results in my search being shunted to "All My Files." I'll watch the Finder each time I enter a search term in the window of one drive, and upon entering a syllable in a drive's Search box, the area is expanded to include every folder in at least 4 different hard drives (inclding my iMac's).
I'm not sure if the problem is overly large drives (500 GB to 1.5 TB) or some default setting, probably associated with Spotlight, that interprets each and every search as, basically, "everything Spotlight can conceivably see." Needless to say, my cleaning project is going slow--primarily because I can't work "one room at a time."
Any suggestions much appreciated.
Cap

HI Cap,
I've disabled Spotlight on all my Macs, I use these 2 exclusively to find what I need...
Find Any File...
http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/
I'd get EasyFind...
http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/
Near the bottom of the page.

Spotlight search not working on external hard drive

Hi all,
The spotlight search doesn't seem to be working on my external hard drive.
It is also not working as part of Time Machine, I cannot retreive anything via the spotlight search that has been backed on on the external drive.
I know I have the files on there but it's not picking it up like it used to.
Any ideas???

Solution:
1. System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
2. Drag and drop or add your external hard drive in the Privacy window. This will reset the old preference.
3. Then remove the external hard and close the System Preferences.
4. Wait for 30 seconds. Spotlight will start indexing of your external hard drive.
Update: It's supposed to scan for 8 hours but it took only 15 minutes and stopped. I tested the search and it's still not working. It's strange that it works on my other two external hard drives (USB and Firewire) but not this particular one (USB). I have three external hard drives.

Can't get search results on External Hard Drive..??

Hi guy's,
I recently bought a brand new external Acomdata 160 gig Firewire hard drive in order to back up all my important stuff off of my G4 1ghz iMac due to Kernel Panics and a couple of other frustrating issues.
I loaded the external hard drive, did an erase and install from the OS X dvd and so far, most is ok EXCEPT that I don't get any results when searching through Spotlight, Command+F, Search windows - from my external hard drive.
Does it need to be indexed? If it does, I haven't been able to find how.
I notice the external hard drive is frequently running more so than when it was a few days old. It makes a lot of "snap, crackle, pop" noises as the hard drive spins and processes.
Everything I put on it is still there and I can manually locate files but it's 75 gigs worth of stuff and I'd much rather be able to automate the search.
Spotlight/search does produce results for my iMacs hard drive, just not the external hard drive.
Any help?
Thanks guys.
vanessa_b

There is a pulsing, reddish dot in the middle of the
blue light but on the hard drive itself, I don't see
any "lights" in any "menu bar".
It's at blue circle with a white Q-shaped symbol at the right end of your menu bar.
If you dare to use the terminal application (can be found in the utilities folder) you can use the following command to re-index that drive. Start Terminal and type (or paste) the following line and hit enter:
sudo mdutil -E "/Volumes/xxx/"
Replace "xxx" with the name of Your drive! If there is a space in that name type it like "/Volumes/My\ Drive/"! You will be prompted for Your admin password to proceed.

I have a external hard drive connected, Finder will not let me search for files in the external hard drive how do i search in a hard drive

i have a external hard drive connected, Finder will not let me search for files in the external hard drive how do i search in a hard drive

What are you using to search? You should be able to search any drive in from the Finder. If you're having trouble, try "EasyFind" from the App Store (free). You can search any volumes with it.
Clinton

Search external hard drive

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