Spotlight is not indexing my hard drive? Mail won't search for anything.

Ok, So I tried the command prompt: "sudo mdutil -E /" and it just tells me that indexing is disabled. I've tried everything I can think of. Any ideas? I can't find a way for spotlight to re-index my hard drive. Also, when I search for anything in mail, nothing will come up. And I have it set to search for everything. Any ideas with that? Help with either problem would be appreciated! thanks.

Might give a try with Spotless...
http://www.fixamac.net/software/spot/

Similar Messages

Spotlight is CONSTANTLY indexing my hard drive

Mavericks Server 10.9.5.
Whenever I use Spotlight, I virtually always get "Indexing <my hard drive name>", and "Estimating indexing time".
If I put in a search term, it often works, but still with the "Estimating indexing time" barber pole at the bottom of the results window.
I have tried all the known solutions with no effect. The problem has persisted through multiple OS updates.
Possible clue: I notice a LOT (like about 5 every second) of lines like this in the System Log:
7:49:533 AM mdworker: (Warning) Import: Bad path:
(other than the timestamp, they are all exactly like this).

Safari Web Content can build up over time. You could try doing Safari>Reset Safari. I check every item in the list except "Saved names and Passwords" which would otherwise be a pain to re-enter for everything.
Note also that unlike SL, Lion does not quit the app when you click on the x, so maybe you have very many lingering in memory. This should not make a difference as normally the memory manager copes with it, but just maybe a third party app is not letting go as it should.

Mail won't search for mail

Hi guys I have a iMac, and a have a bell.net mail account and if I manually press the mail button to search for mail it won't do anything after 2 minute it would makes a sound. and even if I wait 5 minutes to make it search, it still won't work. the only time it searches for mail if I restart the computer.

Might give a try with Spotless...
http://www.fixamac.net/software/spot/

Spotlight not indexing after hard drive replaced

Hi all
Just wondering if anyone knows how to encourage Spotlight to re-index? Just had my hard drive replaced as part of the recall, and now Spotlight wont index anything.
I've tried previous suggestions (adding and removing hard drive to privacy list, commands through terminal etc), but it's still not working. All the software is up to date (10.7.5).
Any ideas? It's incredibly annoying, and making working on this computer virtually impossible at the moment.
Cheers

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
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 "mdworker" (without the quotes) in the Filter text field. Post the most recent 50 or so messages that appear in the Console window — the text, please, not a screenshot.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — edit that out, too, but don’t remove the context.
Step 2
Do the same with the search string "mds".

Why can't spotlight index my hard drive?

Since Spotlight can't index my hard drive, time machine won't make any backups. The old time machine backups still work and I can see and restore old files, but I cannot create any new backups.
The problems seem to have started when I upgraded to iPhoto 11 (which would not load until the latest iPhoto update).
The drive is attempting to index for literally weeks at a time and the system becomes unresponsive.
How do I fix this? I have already brought it into the store where they fromated the drive but the problem came back.

Since Spotlight can't index my hard drive, time machine won't make any backups. The old time machine backups still work and I can see and restore old files, but I cannot create any new backups.
The problems seem to have started when I upgraded to iPhoto 11 (which would not load until the latest iPhoto update).
The drive is attempting to index for literally weeks at a time and the system becomes unresponsive.
How do I fix this? I have already brought it into the store where they fromated the drive but the problem came back.

Spotlight on my iMac running snow leopard will not stop indexing the hard drive. How can I stop this?

Spotlight on my iMac (OSX 10.6.8) has suddenly begun indexing the hard drive non-stop, causing very sluggish operation and spinning beach balls. Reinstalling the operating system has not helped, nor has repairing permissions or the disk.

One of the first things that happens when installing a new version of OS X is that the Spotlight search app is setup to index all available hard drives.
The indexing makes it faster and easier for the Spotlight Search app to find things on and off your Mac.
You can either let it take the time it needs to do this (Spotlight will only do this one time, initially) OR if you just can't or want to wait for this to complete, you need to go into OS X System Prefences panel in the OS X Dock, locate the Spotlight icon.
Click the Spitlight icon and another set of menus appear.
Find the menu item dealing the Spotlight indexing and uncheck its checkbox to disable Spotlight indexing.

Mac Not Recognizing External Hard Drive, I Want to Use the HDD to boot Windows

Let's get this stuff straight first:
The Hard Drive is from a PC that I am not using
The Hard Drive already has Windows 8.1 installed as well as all my documents and data. (from the old PC, of course.)
It does work, however after connecting it to my iMac (late 2014 / 5K Retina) it isn't recognized by Finder, Disk Utility or the (Option) Boot screen.
Yes, I understand I will need to install drivers, so I'll need help doing that as soon as we get Yosemite to recognize the HDD.
What I am wanting to do is use this external drive to run Windows from the boot up screen. But I need OS X to actually recognize the drive in the first place. Then I'll need a little help installing the drivers for Windows onto the Drive, unless those are already installed, since it was originally used in my PC? (I'm not sure how drivers work.)
Nonetheless, if it's not possible to be used as an external boot for Windows, I'd still like to use it to obtain and store files/documents on.
Thanks guys!
-Austin

How do you have the drive hooked up to your computer? Did you but an adapter? If so, is it one that is supposed to work with a Mac? Did it come with a power supply?
Some of those USB adapters don't work well with Macs and that could be causing problems. Test it on a PC if possible, just to make sure the adapter itself isn't bad.
~Lyssa

Just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??

just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??

Let's hope a couple things: that you have bootable clones of your drives also; that the backup drive for TimeMachine has over 3x capacity of the data you plan and are storing. I would also switch TM backup drives so you have a 2nd.
Fragmented free space affecting performance happens when the drive is too full which may mean there isn't enough free space for a full backup set.
1.5TB for backing up 500GB, while WD Green 3TB is $140 and WD Black 1.5TB is, about the same price.
I'd be worried about the integrity and directory, and whether you can afford to lose that drive. Defragging is also a very slow operation. the ideal: to just clone a drive, or start over with another drive and wait. cloning TM volumes has not been done or has it? SuperDuper hoped to but I don't think they or Bombich's CCC made it there.
Trouble with highly fragged is when free space gets to 20% normally, 1/3 or so though for TM volumes, and finding where and a chunk of space for the file being written. Does TM use large spare image files of like 2GB?
Best would be to ask in the TimeMachine section Snow Leopard
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard?view= discussions#/?tagSet=1009
where there are some good FAQ and tutorials, and people that know the ins-and-outs and shortcomings.

Can not get external hard drives to connect to my computer 17" Mac book Pro 10.7.5

can not get external hard drives to connect to my computer I am using a 17" Mac book Pro 10.7.5.
I have 2 iomegas and 1 LaCie. Changed cables. I can feel the external hard drives running and
I can hear them running but I can not get them on the computer any more. They did work at one time.
Can any one PLEASE help?

Nothing appear on my desktop.
I did Repair and Verify the HDDs in Disk Utility>First Aid from the
Utilites App about a dozen times ans they all said everything was good
except for the last time there were erors found and I ran the
Disk Utility from the Start Up Disk and the repairs were made and everything
was subposed to te good and still Nothing on the desk top.
Ginger

Imac will not see my hard drive on start up, wants to start from network start up disk that does not exist. How to get rid of it? So there is just one choice / my hard drive.

I have a Intel duo Imac. Everything has been running relatively smoothly for a few years now. All of a sudden my computer will not start. I get the flashing folder with a question mark.
When I go to Start up disk in my system perfernces while the computer is on. I see 2 possible choices. One is my hard drive with the operating system shown. The other is a non-existant Network Start up disk with a question mark in it ( looks like a hard drive with a question mark and it say's its a "network start up disk).
All I think I want to do is get rid of the Network startup with the question mark. I can not find anywhere how one can just remove an old or non existant start up disk without reformatting.
I believe this came from a clients hard drive who had a network system on it. We no longer have that drive. It no longer exists. But a latent icon shows up in start up disk.
When I go to change the start up disk. I can change it to either the hard drive or the network with the question mark. But when I select my hard drive and then got to restart the computer. I get the flashing folder with a question mark on start up. I have also seen the flashing globe a couple times.
When I attempt to run disk utility from may install disk ( holding down "C" on start-up ). Disk utility does not see my hard drive. Just the Apple install disk with the disk utility on it.
What can I do to remedy this short of re-installing? Will a program like Disk Warrior or Tech Tool help?

Thank you. That's what I thought will need to happen.
One more question. I tried using the Apple install disk that came with the computer. It's an OS 10.5.6 disk. It does not see my 10.6.8 system internal hard drive to repair. All it see's is itself 10.5.6 disk. Do you think I can use a 10.8+ disk utillity since that is a higher system it will see the 10.6.8. Where the 10.5.6 does not?
I don't want to turn the computer off for fear I'll get the question mark again. P-Ram got me going last time but for how long I don't know? It would be nice to be able to turn the computer off for the night and startup as usual to give it a rest and try to reset itself.
Thanks for your help, I know I will eventually need to re-install. But I am in the middle of a project with tight deadlines and all I can do right now is back-up. Trying to migrate to another computer temporarily to finish the job. That's a lot of extra work in the short time also.
Just trying to put a band-aid on it for another couple weeks.

Can not fine external hard drive for time machine sence lion was installed

I can not fine external hard drive for time machine sence lion was installed, it don't reconise it at all.

I have a Mac Mini (late 2009) and I have an iomega 1TB external hard drive connected to my mini via firewire and usb (usb allows me to use the usb ports on the external 1TB drive to daisy chain other devices). Since I installed Lion, my Time Machine and this 1TB drive (and its partitions) is finicky. Sometimes it is mounted and sometimes it is not. This issue has only surfaced post Snow Leopard and in the Lion era. I am not the first to say this but the whole reason I went Mac was b/c of Vista. I am beginning to think that Lion is the new Vista. Sorry for the latter, just venting... b/c this ain't the first issue with Lion.

System Profiler will not recognize installed hard drive if drive is in use by VMWare

System Information will not recognize installed Hard Drive (Boot Camp) when in use by VMWare.
I work in IT for a School District and I am creating a Script that system information about the computer. I am testing this on a Mac Pro with two internal hard drives. One drive is Mac OS 10.8 and the other drive is a Boot Camp Drive that is used by VMWare Fusion.
When I run System Information via the GUI or system_profiler via Terminal, both drives show up just fine. However, if I launch VMWare Fusion and run Windows from my Boot Camp drive, then run System Information via the GUI or system_profiler via Terminal, the Boot Camp Drive is no longer listed as an installed drive.
Example:
In the Terminal, I enter the following command.
system_profiler SPStorageDataType
Then it returns this information.
Storage:
    Lion Client:
      Available: 217.84 GB (217,836,306,432 bytes)
      Capacity: 639.28 GB (639,275,270,144 bytes)
      Mount Point: /
      File System: Journaled HFS+
      Writable: Yes
      Ignore Ownership: No
      BSD Name: disk0s2
      Volume UUID: CCB501BF-AF24-30E7-A938-5A4E52DF14D7
      Physical Drive:
          Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 Media
          Medium Type: Rotational
          Protocol: SATA
          Internal: Yes
          Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
          S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
    BOOTCAMP:
      Available: 255.58 GB (255,575,560,192 bytes)
      Capacity: 319.79 GB (319,790,510,080 bytes)
      Mount Point: /Volumes/BOOTCAMP
      File System: NTFS
      Writable: No
      Ignore Ownership: Yes
      BSD Name: disk1s2
      Volume UUID: D4B39D4E-E244-403C-AE4D-4D58397130DE
      Physical Drive:
          Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 Media
          Medium Type: Rotational
          Protocol: SATA
          Internal: Yes
          Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
          S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
Then I launch VMWare, which uses the Boot Camp drive. The once again run the same command from the Terminal Command and I get this.
Storage:
    Lion Client:
      Available: 213.39 GB (213,392,244,736 bytes)
      Capacity: 639.28 GB (639,275,270,144 bytes)
      Mount Point: /
      File System: Journaled HFS+
      Writable: Yes
      Ignore Ownership: No
      BSD Name: disk0s2
      Volume UUID: CCB501BF-AF24-30E7-A938-5A4E52DF14D7
      Physical Drive:
          Media Name: WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 Media
          Medium Type: Rotational
          Protocol: SATA
          Internal: Yes
          Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
          S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
The Boot Camp Drive is no longer listed.
I assume this is due to the the fact that the drive is "In Use" however is seems odd since the Mac drive is also in use and it appears without problem. I assume there is no "fix" for this, I was just wondering if someone may have an explaination why?
Also, I do realize that I can query the various interface types like system_profiler SPSerialATADataType to get all the properly installed phycial drives, but then I would have to query all possible interface types, isolate only devices containing Volumes, then consoldate the information to just the information that I need. I was hoping for a cleaner query.

Thank you for your response.
VMWare may be the cause, but the actual issue I am having is with Apple's System Information. I anticipated resistance from VMWare if I went to them with a question about an Apple software issue (even though VMWare software is part of the equation). I was trying to avoid the inevitable finger pointing game. I thought I would try with Apple Forums first since the issues presents itself within the Apple Software. However, you are correct that VMWare may have an explanation on why Fusion might be interfering with System Information. I will check with them next.
To answer your question. Yes, In most cases I do use Fusion to run Windows side-by-side with the Mac OS. However, that is not always the case. There are a few reasons why I have it setup using a Dual Boot configuration.
One, in some cases, due to the intense programs I occasionally run (graphic applications), I prefer to simply boot straight into Windows via Boot Camp so I may allocate all hardware resources to Windows. Additionally, some graphic applications like to have direct access to hardware and the extra layer of the VM environment can cause problems when an application is trying to directly access specific hardware like a graphics card.
Second, I often use either side, both Mac and PC, for testing. There is an advantage to not having to rely on the Mac OS to run Windows. If, for whatever reason, my Mac becomes unstable due to testing, I can still jump right into Windows to do work if necessary.
Third, I love the Mac OS, but I work in a PC centric organization. If there is a "problem" with my system, it is too easy for other system admins to say, "it's because it's a Mac". Having the definitive separation of the OS's allows me to prove that the Mac OS is not a factor.

IMac Not Recognizing External Hard Drive

Hi friends,
I recently upgraded my MacBook from 5 years ago to the newest iMac. In doing so, I transferred my computer using Time Machine & my external hard drive. The hard drive is partitioned to allow for storage as well as Time Machine backups. I plugged my external hard drive into a PC to try to access these files and it didn't recognize the hard drive, so I didn't think anything of it and unplugged it.
Now I can't get my iMac to recognize the hard drive at all. I have gone into Disk Utilities to see if it's listed there, but nothing. It usually makes a lot of noise when it's first plugged in (whirring and sounding like it's about to take flight, etc.) but no sound today. However, the white light that indicates it's on is lit. This could be due to being plugged into the wall, however, and not having to do with being plugged into the computer. (This is a decently old hard drive in terms of technology, probably 4 years.)
I should have known better than to infect my hard drive with PC cooties. But that wouldn't have wiped everything clean, right? I'm wondering if my hard drive just happened to bite the dust coincidentally around this brush with fate.
Does this sound like something that is wrong with my hard drive, or with the connection? Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have quite a few files I would hate to lose on the hard drive.
Thanks!

Zap the PRAM and Reset the SMC; then, hook up the ext HD, fire it up, and see if that fixes things.

Not recognizing external hard drive after upgrading to mountain lion

I recently upgraded to mountain lion. While my external hard drive originally showed on the desktop it does not anymore, The hard drive is partitioned between my wife (laptop) and my desktop. My wife's part does show on the desktop but mine does not. From reading some of the issues on the Support Community I did a disk repair as it does show up under disk utility. Although the disk repair was performed successfully, it still does not appear. I read some other comments about Fuse but I don't understand what this is about. Any suggestions to get my external hard drive back so I can keep my computer backed up. Thanks.

It is powered (the light is on). I was uploading photos from the drive yesterday, so it worked perfectly fine before the upgrade to 10.6.8 (which I did during the night). Is there anything else to try before I move it to another computer to see if it works? Again, thanks.

My iMac suddenly can't read the backup hard drive I've been using for Time Machine. I did NOT just upgrade the OS or anything. The external HD is an OWC Mercury Elite All Pro. It's worked fine since I got the iMac 4 years ago.`

My iMac suddenly can't read the backup hard drive I've been using for Time Machine. I tried unplugging the cord that connects the HD to the iMac and plugging it back in, but I still get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" below which are buttons for Initialize, Ignore and Eject. I was using a cord that went from larger square plug to larger square plug. So then I tried one that went from smaller square plug to what I think is USB (thin rectangular plug) of the sort that connects the keyboard and mouse. It's the type that my printers and scanners use to connect to the iMac. I did NOT just upgrade the OS or anything. The external HD is an OWC Mercury Elite All Pro. It's worked fine since I got the iMac 4 years ago. What else can I try before just trying to initialize and

Thanks, Michael! I do hear it at times spooling up and running. Just after I bumped the thread I looked for troubleshooting for this drive online and found the manual which suggested using Disk Utility which I've seen before accidentally (if I hit Command Shift U instead of Shift U to type "Unit" on a new folder for a student's homework ) but had never really noticed. Disk Utility does see it and also a sub-something (directory?) which might be the Time Machine archives on the disk, called disk1s2), sort of the way that my iMac's hard drive shows up as 640.14 GB Nitachi HDT7... and has a sub-something titled DB iMac, which is what I named my iMac's hard drive.
Anyway the owner's manual just shows the image under the formatting section, not the troubleshooting section, but as soon as I saw it in the manual I remembered seeing it accidentally a few times, went to it, and am now verifying the disk. Right now it's telling me that it will take 2 hours to complete the verification, so I guess I have a bigt of a wait. :-)
Does that fact that Disk Utilities can see it mean it's not failed, or just that it hasn't completely failed?
I can see the virtue in having multiple redundant backups, or at least two backups. What do you suggest? Two external hard drives? I had this one linked by ethernet, and but I also have a cord that could link it by USB (like a printer), so if this one is reparable I could get a second one and link it by USB. If this one is not reparable I could get two and do the same thing. I do have an Airport so I suppose it's possible to get some sort of Wi-Fi hard drive (my new printer/scanner uses only the network and not a cable, although it has a cable that I used for the initial installation), but I'd suspect a Wi-Fi hard drive might have a higher price.
What hard drives, if any, do you recommend? I seem to recall that when I was looking at external hard drives 4 years ago, Apple's were substantially more expensive, which is why I got the OWC Mercury Elite All Pro.

Spotlight is not indexing my hard drive? Mail won't search for anything.

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