[SOLVED] External HDD not mounting at boot

So, I've got this USB external HDD which won't mount at boot time. I set it in /etc/fstab using its UUID and it works immediately after boot if I do
sudo mount -a
I had it before on a different machine, running Arch too, and never had this problem. How can I see what's going on at boot time? I usualy just start the computer remotely (wake on lan).
Last edited by RaisedFist (2010-10-21 11:22:46)

Couldn't it be caused by the external HDD not being ready yet when the system boot? Nowadays I rarely encounter these issues, but some years ago even certain internally connected drive would need a delay to get ready for boot. If so settings in BIOS has to be adjusted.
Just a quick guess.

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External HDD not mounting; cannot use Time Machine backups

I upgraded to the Lion OSX and after that my external HDD wont mount. It shows up in Disc Utility but cannot be repaired as it won't mount (it keeps running and running the repair bar).
I followed some discussion and tried to install MacFuse and likes but it doesn't work. I could not also locate the ufsd.fs in my folder - /System/Library/filesystems/ufsd.fs - as was suggested as a remedy.
I tried this advice :
"Download and install NTFS-3G
now try this
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/usb1 "
but all i got was this message:
what is the best course of action??
thanks

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
It sounds like TM may have started a new "sequence" of backups. Try the +*Browse . . .+* option, per #E2 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

Help please: iOmega external HDD not mounting

Hello,
I hope someone can help me 1) solve this problem and 2) give me some tips on how to avoid if it was self induced.
My iOmega external HDD won't automatically mount. It does not display in Disk Profiler. In System Profiler I can see an unknown Firewire device which I believe is it. It has data on it currently so I'd prefer not to have to format it! I tried searching some other threads but they tend to be very specific.
Thanks!

Hi, za_. Is this a bus-powered portable USB2 drive? If so, it probably demands a little more power than the port it's connected to can provide. In that case, the problem can be resolved by supplying power to it from (a) an auxiliary power cable that draws additional power from your Powerbook's second USB port, or (b) its own AC adapter, if it came with one, or if one is available as an option for it. If the drive enclosure has no port on it for an auxiliary power input, then (c) you'll have to interpose an AC-powered USB hub between the computer and the drive. Option A is the best, because it isn't bulky and preserves the portability of the drive. Option C is the worst, because it's the bulkiest of the three.
If your drive isn't a 2.5" portable unit, please supply exact details about what model it is and how it's powered, and we'll see about other explanations for the problem.

[SOLVED] NFS share not mounting at boot

Hi All,
I have an NFS share listed in fstab and it doesn't mount at boot; however, when i mount -a, it mounts fine. Any thoughts?
Thanks.
Shawn
Last edited by shawn.abdushakur (2011-05-06 12:21:27)

@damnshock: Good point . Here it is:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
#/dev/cdrom /media/cd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /media/fl auto user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
LABEL=arch / ext4 defaults 0 1
UUID=c1a8b2e0-bf9e-4382-ac4e-15c2aec65090 /srv/nfs ext3 defaults 0 0
/srv/nfs/shawn/Documents /home/shawn/Documents none bind
/srv/nfs/shawn/Downloads /home/shawn/Downloads none bind
/srv/nfs/shawn/Music /home/shawn/Music none bind
/srv/nfs/shawn/Pictures /home/shawn/Pictures none bind
/srv/nfs/shawn/Videos /home/shawn/Videos none bind
xbmc:/srv/nfs/watch /home/shawn/Downloads/torrents/watch nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr

[Solved]External HDD only mounts as read only

Okay, I have a general log, but I'm not completely sure what all information you need. Ask and you will receive.
So I run udiskie through i3, works great, but my file systems get mounted as read-only, which is..not great. It's pretty irritating. So I thought, hey, let's just chown that shit, right? No. It's a read only file system.
Anyway, so I did killall udiskie, tried mounting it manually and all as demonstrated in lsblk, and it's still read only, for some interesting reason. (Sorry the lsblk log isn't clean). If there's some other output you'd like, let me know...
I run the thunar file manager, which is alright, but it doesn't auto-mount (I tried setting it up, googled it a lot, it just didn't auto-mount, and udiskie looked like it worked fine until I realized it was all read-only).
In lsblk I ran sudo thunar to view the drive, since permission was denied to myself. It was still read-only, meaning it's not necessarily a udiskie problem? I could mount my other flash drive alright it appeared, but when I did it with udiskie it was also readonly.
The flash drive was made with dd, so it had two partitions, the second one mounted fine, the first one not so much, and with udiskie it just mounted what looked like the second one with more files (So maybe both? I was a bit confused).
lsblk: http://pastebin.com/WdJbky9j
udiskie -a: http://pastebin.com/RT2sQE01
On a side note, those awesome arrows on the side of my terminal thanks to zsh and oh-my-zsh? They're just empty rectangles in rxvt-unicode, and I have no idea why. They display fine in pastebin. If anyone happens to know what I'm missing there, much obliged.
Solution:
Actually understand NTFS in linux (Working on it)
Install ntfs-3g
Last edited by Rojikku (2014-07-02 02:06:18)

lsblk -f: http://pastebin.com/KeHpDtF6
Anything I could say would be repetitive of the data. >>; But for record purposes, btrfs and the external is ntfs.
Edit: I don't have ntfs-3g installed, FYI. It seemed like an alternative to udiskie and I dislike installing things frivolously. I noticed another user fixed a somewhat similar problem like that, would that be my issue?
Last edited by Rojikku (2014-07-02 01:37:24)

External drive does not mount on boot

I have a Toshiba MK5055GSX 500GB external drive which I use for Time Machine but for some reason it does not automatically mount from a cold boot. Before I started to use it for Time Machine (it was formatted as NTFS at the time) I had not problems with it. All other external drives correctly mount on boot.
I had thought it might be a problem with the drive itself but if I disconnect it and reconnect it with my iMac running it mounts every time without fail. If I reboot after it has mounted it also mounts at boot. Only if I start the iMac using the power button with the drive already connected does it fail to mount and the results are consistently repeatable.
Does anyone have any ideas why this might be happening and how to fix it?

Does this drive have a separate power brick? If it does I suggest using it to see if that fixes the problem. If the enclosure has both USB and Firewire ports try using the drive on a Firewire port instead of a USB port.
It sounds like the drive is not spinning up early enough in the startup process to be detected.
Not knowing how you prepared the drive for the Mac, you should re-prep the drive as follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

External Hdd not detected

Hi guys,
I've got this issue where my Macbook Air cannot detect my external hdd (not showing up on disk utility), where as my Mac Mini can. I assume it's a software issue. Both are running OSX Mavericks (Latest edition) and there is nothing wrong with my USB port in the Air (detects my mouse, flash drive etc.).
The hdds' LED no longer flashes when plugged in the Air but functions fine when plugged in the Mac Mini.
Is there any manual reset command (through Terminal) or setting in the Macbook Air without having to factory reset?
Thanks in advance for your help!

If the hard drive is bus powered (it doesn't have an independent power supply) the MBA may not be supplying enough power to the drive. This isn't an uncommon problem. I have a cheap external at work with this problem which I solved by plugging it into a powered USB hub instead of directly into the computer. Had that not worked I'd have tried finding an external power supply for the drive - or junking the enclosure.

External USB HDD not mounting

I have a 500GB USB external that has decided to stop mounting on my desktop. I believe the drive is fine, as it will mount on my girlfriend's PC and the files are still on it. A different external HDD mounts just fine.
A few days ago I had trouble unmounting the HDD and also ejecting a DVD. I believe this happened after doing the SuperDrive update, but I am not positive. Also, the upgrade from 10.4.9 to 10.4.10 happened in the past couple of days.
I need this drive to store some HD video (I know USB 2.0 is not the best choice for this).
MacBook Pro C2D 2.33 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Hello! "A few days ago I had trouble unmounting the HDD"?? If you forced a dismount by removing the cable or turning the drive off when it didn't dismount the directory is probably damaged and DiskWarrior is the best at such problems. If the drive is formatted as Fat32 (which it probably is since you are using it with your girlfriend's pc) try connecting it to the pc and using the disk checker on the pc to repair the drive. Tom

[SOLVED] /home not mounted on boot after installing tp_smapi

Hi. After installing tp_smapi, my /home partition isn't mounted on boot any more.
I can log in as a normal user, but I am then left with a command line and thus need to mount /home manually and launch X/dwm with startx. The startup shell shows no error messages.
After I uninstall tp_smapi, X starts up automatically again and everything seems to work.
Here's my fstab:
/dev/sda2 / ext4 rw,noatime,data=ordered 0 1
# /dev/sda4 UUID=9d976c9a-4fe2-4cc9-a8b9-c22c713149d7
/dev/sda4 /home ext4 rw,noatime,data=ordered 0 2
# /dev/sda3 UUID=a6153a96-b9ef-412f-a670-af6775275f15
/dev/sda3 none swap defaults 0 0
I am dual-booting Arch with Windows XP on a Thinkpad X60s. A /mnt/home folder also exists. And, the error aside, tp_smapi seems to work nicely,
Thanks for any help!
Last edited by marttt (2013-06-01 20:59:55)

Okay, it works now (after creating /mnt/home anew and rebooting). However, I wonder why did tp_smapi touch my mount points in the first place?
Last edited by marttt (2013-05-31 20:46:09)

External HDD not recognized after unsafe removal

Dear,
Yesterday i bought my first macbook pro. Before i bought that macbook i saved all my data from my windows laptop on my external USB HDD.
Today i connected the external hdd trough USB. the macbook recognized it immediatly but i accidentally removed the usb cable from the disk, so it dissappered.
Now when i connect the usb drive my macbook freezes for a period. After the freeze i don't see the drive.
If i remove the usb cable during the free the macbook comes back alive.
Since i am a newbie on mac i need your help !
cheers

Welcome to Mac-land.
This wouldn't happen to be a WD external drive, would it?
Is there some utility on your Windows laptop that you can use to repair the external drive? Something equivalent to Disk Utility on a Mac? I'm not a Windows guy so I don't know.
If the data is still on your Windows laptop, then maybe your Windows machine can erase the drive enough for you to get it to mount on your Mac.
Another option might be to see if your Mac will boot into recovery mode (restart and hold down ⌘R until you see the Apple logo), and then maybe Disk Utility (you'll find it when you boot into Recovery Mode) would be able to see the external drive and either repair it or reformat (erase) it.
Occasionally Techtool Pro 7 will be able to repair something that Disk Utility can't. Techtool is a good thing to have; it's the only third party maintenance/repair utility that you need. Techtool installs a repair partition (the eDrive) on your internal hard drive, similar to the recovery partition that is already there with Mavericks. So you might be able to boot into the eDrive and then see the external drive and either repair it or format (erase) it so it will show up under normal boot conditions on your Mac.
It seems less likely, but perhaps your external drive has chosen this time to die. If you can't get it to mount/erase/repair with either machine then that's probably what's going on.
Less likely than that, but still possible, is that the problem is with the external is in the enclosure itself, and not in the drive within, so if you can't get it to work any other way, it's worth a shot to remove the drive and put it in a different enclosure and see if it will work.

USB HDD not mounting on 10.4.9 but does in 10.4

Posted this in Tiger forum too (I know, probably not really supposed to), but I thought I'd post it here too.
I know there's nothing wrong with the drive whatsoever, because it mounts on PCs, and it mounts when booted from both other hard drives on the system, on Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS 10.4.0.
I know it used to mount on 10.4.9, too. I thought maybe when I installed a 4-port USB 2 card things would resolve, but they haven't.... so I expect it's a driver (extension) issue.
I deleted a bunch of extensions a while back that I was sure I didn't need... I suppose it's possible I deleted one vital for USB HDD support on the HDD using 10.4.9, only I don't know which it would be... things were self-explanatory in the days of OS 9, not so much with OS X, it would seem.
I didn't notice it until fairly recently since I'd been networking to the external HDD via another computer as the built-in 10BT was sadly faster than the USB 1.1 card I had installed prior.
Anyway.... since I assume this is an extensions problem (it says when I turn on the drive that a certain extension is missing, but I can't remember which), can anyone tell me what particular extension it is that enables USB Hard Drives?
By the way, USB flash drives mount and run at USB 2 speeds just fine.

"AppleXsanFilter.kext"
That is likely an extension for Storage Area Networks. If your Mac is complaining about it, it probably has unsatisfied external references in some of the Mass Storage Extensions. I don't know why you would need a lot of stuff in those folders, but they are tiny. You get no payback from throwing them out.
To fix those complaints, presuming the extension is located in the correct folder, you need to repair permissions (so that the System owns it) and delete the cache files named:
extensions.kextcache
extensions.mkext
which are pre-linked versions of most of the kext files. Then your Mac will recreate the cache files with the newly fixed-up kext added.

Tiger's external HDD not showing up in leopard

Hi, I just got myself a new MacBook Pro and it has Leopard on it. I also have my mac mini running tiger. The mac mini has an external harddrive which I need to access from the laptop.
I can see all normal mounted drives from leopard, but the external hard drive will not show up. I desperately need files off it and I have no idea how to solve this.
Thanks
-Rob

Okay -- some kind of progress.
If i share the external hdd using sharepoints i can access it through smb://{compname}/hdd
yet it refuses to show up automatically under the shared folder in leopard's finder.
I have a feeling its something minute and silly -- but I just can't figure it out, any help would be appreciated

External HDD not recognized by Retina MacBook Pro

I recently bought this external HDD (http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Backup-Desktop-External-STCA1000100/dp/B00829THK0/ ref=dp_ob_title_ce) to backup with my new retina macbook pro. It uses usb 3.0 and if I am not mistaken, the usb ports on the new macbook pro are usb 3.0.
I plug the hard drive into the wall and then into my computer. It spins and there is a light on, so I know it is powered on. Nothing shows up in finder and nothing shows up in disk utility. The box says it is compatible with macs and it works with other Macs that are not my own.
Has anyoher else had this problem? Do all usb 3.0 periphrals work with the new macbook, or only Apple's?
Please help

I had some luck with these terminal commands. The drive mounted and showed the right speed in System Profiler. I recommend copying and pasting the commands into the terminal if you're not comfortable there.
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext /System/Library/Extensions/PXHCD.kext.not
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions
Reboot the system after running these commands.
I had migrated from my previous machine and had this problem. I restored it, and it worked fine. I put everything back on and started isolating. This extension seems to be from when I had installed LaCie drivers on the old machine.

Seagate Goflex external drive not mounting

Upgraded to Yosemite with no problems. However my Seagate 3tb external drive will not mount, but it is recognized in the disk utility and it is recognized on a pc but will not mount? Is there anything I can do? I tried the goflex thunderbolt dock, Ive tried usb, Ive plugged it into an older imac with 10.7 on it and it says "unrecognizable drive" and gives me options to initialize or eject. Is there anything I can use to just get these files off of here on win or osx?
I have also plugged in two 1tb drives seagate and toshiba and they both work perfectly. And, I have also updated the thunderbolt drivers and all that... I am at a loss of what to do next.

Okay found out the problem, on my exfat formatted drive, after I upgraded to Yosemite it basically created a new partition, a corrupted partition and would not mount my drive. However, I could open it and see it in Disk Utility.
Here's what I did to fix it:
Goto disk utility to see the name of you drive.
Open Terminal and type: sudo fsck_exfat -d disk1s1(this should be the name of your disk)
It will ask for your password then press, enter and it will display all files on the disk.
Then is will ask: Main boot drive needs to be updated?
Type: Yes
It will update and say that you can repair disk in disk utility.
Do that, and it will show up on the desktop.
Link to original forum post if you need more information:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4154638?start=0&tstart=0
Hope this helps, it was a headache for about a week but, Ive read osx does not handle exfat formatting very well.

IMac keep ejecting my 2TB external HDD but in safe boot mode it is totally fine. How to resolve the problem?

Hi,
I have WD 2 TB external HDD. It has two partitions, one I use for my time machiine backup and one for my personal files and documents. Recently the iMac keeps ejecting the external HDD as soon as it gets connected to the iMac. I tried to reboot the computer in safe boot mode (by holding down the shift key at startup) and found out that problem is not there anymore. I can access my external HDD there and it never ejects the HDD.
It seems like the HDD is fine, the problem is with the iMac. Can anybody please give any solution to this problem?
Thanks!

Thanks Allan for your reply!
It makes sence that there must be some log in /start up item which is causing this problem. I went System Preference>Users & Groups> Login items> disabled all the items there to make sure, and restarted the computer but the problem is still there
Is there any other way to stop/configure the log in items?
Thanks again!

[SOLVED] External HDD not mounting at boot

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