Trouble mounting external hard drive

Hello,
I'm having a problem with my external hard drive (formatted hfs+). While the hd was connected to a computer running ubuntu, the computer crashed. Since then the drive is read-only on ubuntu and won't mount at all on mac os x 10.4.
I've tried repairing the the drive with disc utility, and get:
Invalid sibling link
Volume check failed.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
I've also tried running fsck_hfs in the terminal, with no luck. when I type:
fsck_hfs -fy /dev/rdisk1s2
I end up with:
** /dev/rdisk1s2
** Checking HFS Plus volume.
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking Catalog file.
Invalid sibling link
(4, 16531)
** Volume check failed.
I also tried -r but it didn't work either.
So before I back up and reformat the drive, does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks.

Appears you need a stronger utility than Disk Utility. Sounds like you have directory damage.
The following are a few forum favorites. You must use the versions that are compatible w/your OS system & keep the utilities updated to avoid damaging/harming/trashing your system.
DiskWarrior
Highly recommended for *directory damage* repairs.
TechTool Pro
Multi-functional utility.
Drive Genius Multi-functional utility.
You will need to make your own decision on which to purchase. Read up on them on their websites because each does something a little different.

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Trouble mounting external hard drives to my Macbook after restoring it to factory settings. Solutions??

I just restored my Macbook Version 10.4.11 to factory settings because I heard that it is good to do that to clean it up. I had saved everything on a WD My Book 1110 Media, but now when I try to retrieve the stuff on there, the WD won't even mount.
The whole reason I was needing to make room on my macbook is the computer was freezing up and acting really slowly. I'm about to do a recording project using Protools and needed the macbook to be fast. I thought restoring it would help. Instead, it now won't mount my Glyph, which I need to run protools.
Then was when I tried to mount the WD hard drive and it wouldn't mount either!!!! I'm guessing the problem is with the mac, since both hard drives would not mount. The glyph is connected with a firewire, and the WD is connect by USB. I'm clueless as to what to do. I definitely need to recover the stuff on the WD hard drive.
One other thing: the drives do show up in Disk Utility, but the mount button is gray so I can't do that. Here is the info:
Name :           WD My Book 1110 Media
          Type :           Disk
          Disk Identifier :           disk1
          Media Name :           WD My Book 1110 Media
          Media Type :           Generic
          Connection Bus :           USB
          Connection Type :           External
          USB Serial Number :           574D41563530363834343732
          Partition Type :           Apple_partition_scheme
          Writable :           Yes
          Ejectable :           Yes
          Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed :           No
          Location :           External
          Total Capacity :           465.1 GB (499,405,291,520 Bytes)
          S.M.A.R.T. Status :           Not Supported
          Disk Number :           1
          Partition Number :           0
Do I need to install Mac OS 9 Driver? If so, how can I do that with out losing any data from my WD hard drive.
I'm clueless. Any help would be much appreciated.

The OS 9 Driver would only be applicable if you were to use OS X
and OS 9 from the external drive; it is not necessary for OS 9 files
to be stored on an external drive, only if you were to use Classic
or OS 9 on there.
So it would be unable to host an OS 9.2.2 system for Classic or
any applications that would require read-write on external HDD.
{What of the WD HDD's driver update, in link? Do Not update
Western Digitals 'firmware' as it also is available, & wipes HD.}
The linked driver download, for the WD drive itself, may (or not) be
installable without harming data on the drive. I read where that driver
can support back to OS X Tiger 10.4.11, so it would support Tiger final.
Do you have an original source for the Glyph & Pro-
Tools, outside of the saved content of the WD HDD?
Another idea, could be the enclosure of the WD may have failed while the drive inside is OK. Would not be the first time, so that may be something to consider. If you get another enclosure, be sure if there are any jumper changes for WD drive to be compatible, they match. You may be able to get one of those cables to use instead of the enclosure, that allows the external drive itself to run; they usually include a power adapter, but the WD may not have had an external. However the cable set to run a bare drive often includes one.
Hopefully you can restore access to the external drive
& then find a better backup scheme, in duplicate.
Good luck & happy computing!

Disk Utility and DiskWarrior trouble with external hard-drive.

I got an external hard-drive that doesn't show up on finder. On both Disk Utility and DiskWarrior it keeps mounting and unmounting. Disk Utility when trying to repair, spits this out when it unmounts...
2011-07-28 22:43:43 -0700: Problems were encountered during repair of the partition map
2011-07-28 22:43:43 -0700: Error: Some information was unavailable during an internal lookup.
2011-07-28 22:43:43 -0700: : Some information was unavailable during an internal lookup.
2011-07-28 22:43:43 -0700: [DUDiskController mountDisk] expecting DUDisk, but got nil
On DiskWarrior it simply says 'Directory cannot be rebuilt due to disk hardware failure (-36,2747)
Earlier today it would stay mounted and Disk Utility would spit out...
Verify and Repair volume “Back-up Hard Drive”
Checking file systemChecking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Invalid sibling link
Rebuilding catalog B-tree.
Invalid node structure
The volume Back-up Hard Drive could not be repaired.
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
while DiskWarrior would try to fix it, but on
Step 5: Locating directory date...
Speed reduced by disk malfunction: 339,474, er make that 340,239, er make that 341,327
and I finally gave up there.
I try to fix the Invalid sibling link error via Terminal and I get this...
imac-2:~ Migrated$ fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk2s2
** /dev/rdisk2s2 (NO WRITE)
Can't open /dev/rdisk2s2: Resource busy
Is there ANY THING I can do to get it to stay mounted and possibly fix this? This is my back-up hard-drive!!

It's the cord that's being used that decides if it shows up, or if it shows up and then goes away over and over. Using a cord where it stays on in the programs, when I run Disk Utility of the darked out part of the hard-drive, it spits out...
Verifying and repairing partition map for “MICRONET”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Reviewing boot support loaders
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Updating Windows boot.ini files as required
The partition map appears to be OK
while the part of the disk just below it that's light spits out
Verifying volume “Back-up Hard Drive”
Checking file system
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Verify and Repair volume “Back-up Hard Drive”
Starting repair tool:
Checking file system
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
Disk Utility stopped repairing “Back-up Hard Drive”: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
while DiskWarrior tries to rebuild it and spits out a memory error.

Mount external hard drive on boot

I have a Mac mini run on SL, I want to set it up as a samba server with a external hard drive which formatted in NFS format.
I tried to write a plist in LaunchDaemons to call a script to mount the hard drive, but it does not work.
Here is my plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.kg.mount</string>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/System/Library/script/com.kg.mount</string>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>
It get loaded at the start, if I user command 'launchctl list', I can see the service is loaded, but the disk is not mounted. If I run the plist manually after boot, the disk will be mounted.
Does somebody know how to mount a disk at boot time?
Thanks

The OS automatically mounts storage devices when they come online. If that doesn't happen, you need to fix the problem.
First back up the disk, if you haven't already done that.
Get rid of the script and the launchd item. Unload it first -- I assume you know how to do that.
Launch Disk Utility and select the "EX" volume, then run "Repair Disk." If any errors are reported, repeat until there are no more.
If the disk is now mounted, unmount it. Check the /Volumes directory for any empty subdirectories named "EX", "EX-1", or some such. If present, delete them.
Unplug the drive, then plug it in again. If it still doesn't mount, plug it into a different port (if it's USB.) If it still doesn't mount, try it on a different Mac.

Mount external Hard drive in Single user mode

Do any know how to mount an external hard drive in single user mode:
I've issue the following command:
/sbin/mount -uw /
mkdir /Volumes/ex1
/sbin/mount_hfs /dev/disk2s3 /Volumes/ex1
(I've checked my external hard drive using df -k showing the device is disk2s3)
Result:
Permission denied

I seem to remember the "Permission denied" or "Device busy" coming up in some situations but not others when attempting to mount drives at this early stage in "single user" mode...
It might be worth trying to run:<pre>sh /etc/rc</pre>This is actually present among the "Tiger" messages in "Single User" mode, as the procedure to continue booting but remaining in "single user" mode. Indeed, it seems to start up the usual "services" like starting disk arbitration (so you can eg. use 'diskutil' to repair permissions, or loading "NetInfo" so you don't need to work in '-raw' mode - in the past, people had posted complicated procedures for doing these things manually.
After running the 'rc' script, try creating your mount point and and running 'mount_hfs' as usual...

Trouble with external hard drive. help.

I was formatting my hard drive to allow larger GB files with a lot of trouble so I got my other hard drive which I have previously formatted to find the program that worked. It was formatted with NTFS so I downloaded NTFS 3G and restarted my computer (iMac intel) after trying to format my portable hard drive to ntfs the software didnt work so I uninstalled it. Now my external hard drive will not read on my iMac but it will on my TV and Windows computer. When I installed the software a little error message popped up but i made no changes to the external hard drive and now it wont read on my mac.
The hard drive is a Western Digital My Book 1TB

Did you read this section of the ntfs 3g website? I don't use the program but it may have left pieces of itself on your mac causing your current problems.
You can type the following in a terminal window to see what "non-apple" drivers are still loaded on your system.
kextstat | grep -v com.apple
Post the results if you need to
2.2 Uninstalling Tuxera NTFS for Mac
Tuxera NTFS for Mac can be easily uninstalled using the Uninstall Tuxera NTFS... button in the Tuxera NTFS preference pane, which will be available in System Preferencesonce you have installed the package. See section 4 for a description of the other features in the preference pane.
If this should fail for some reason, an uninstall script exists at the following location:
/System/Library/Filesystems/fusefs_txantfs.fs/Support/uninstall-package.sh

Macbook pro, trouble with external hard drives

I just got the drive on my mid-2010's macbook pro replaced at Apple. I am now experiencing a new problem.
My macbook is having trouble with ALL my external hard-drives. After a few minutes of being plugged in I click on them to open and the finder window is blank. Its not allowing me to veiw the content stored on the drive. If I keep trying my computer will freeze. I try to 'Force Eject' the drive and it doesnt eject so I have to unplug then start over.
This seems to happen roughly about 5 minutes after I plug them in. They work fine the first 5 minutes. Its becoming extremly annoying. All my drives are different makes, sizes, etc.. so I pretty sure its the macbook.
What might the problem be?
Thanks,
Shane

Start with SMC and PRAM resets:
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT3964
http://web.archive.org/web/20140711222006/http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
These are external HDDs that worked prior to the install of the new internal HDD?
Ciao.

Proper way of mounting external hard drive - fstab rules?

I have an external hard drive with all my music on it, and I want MPD to play this music. Now I was wondering how best to mount my external, such that MPD can actually access the music.
I was told to create an fstab entry with the UUID of my external to have it being mounted to a fixed spot. But this only works during boot up, correct?
What should I do, if I plug in the external after boot up? Is there a way to have it automounted to the same fixed spot as defined in fstab (maybe even using fstab)?

As iBertus mentioned, you can use the automount features of different desktops. XFCE includes the Thunar file manager which can also be used in other lightweight desktops.
If on the command line, pmount will let you mount the drive as a normal user, and without any fstab entries. This command will mount USB device sdb1 to /media/Stalafin.
pmount /dev/sdb1 Stalafin]
The cool thing about pmount is that if the drive/partition is encrypted with LUKS, you can throw other options at it and it will decrypt and mount at the same time.

Trouble connecting external hard drive to AirPort Extreme

I now have my AirPort Extreme set up for my wireless network. But I have tried to connect my seagate 1TB powered external hard drive to the AirPort Extreme for file sharing via the USB port. But for some reason even though there's power to the hard drive it doesn't show up in airport utility or in my finder. Do you know how to fix this? It works perfectly fine and normal when I just plug the hard drive into one of my USB ports on my iMac. Can anyone help? Thanks

Connect the hard drive directly to your Mac and launch Disk Utility. Select the drive and click on the Repair Drive button. Once this has finished try connecting the drive again and then launch AirPort Utility and see if the drive shows up.
One thing I've noticed is that if the external drive has any directory errors it won't mount in AirPort.

Mount external hard drive

My Mac crashed and when I restarted it I can only see 1 partion of my external hard drive.
I have tried going to disk utility to load the partion but it wont load
Please can anyone advise how to mount an unmounted drive?
This is what is in the log
Starting Restore…
Starting Restore…
An error (19) occurred while copying.
Mount of “Mac” succeeded
Mount of “Mac” succeeded
Starting Restore…
Starting Restore…
An error (2) occurred while copying.
Thanks for your help

If this is not the drive you are booting from, you should be able to run Disk Utility's "Repair" function without booting from the CD. Otherwise, boot from the Installer CD, but do not install. Instead, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu.
Since you booted from another Drive or the Installer CD, when you select the drive, you will be able to use the "Repair" button. Run it repeatedly until there is no change between successive passes, then (if Mac OS X is present on it) run "Repair Permissions" once. Report any unresolved errors from "Repair" here. "Repair Permissions" chatters on forever about nothing, and its messages can generally be disregarded.
Error (2) is a Bus error. It is a very serious error, which should have crashed your Mac. Error (-2) is an invalid queue element, which can be caused by directory damage.
Error (19) can be caused by a damaged System Folder. Error (-19) is a color-manager error.

Mounting external hard drive at start up

Hello, I have a G5 and I recently purchased an ethernet external hard drive. I also have a PC and two powerbooks. Since I have so many computers and so many different users I want to be able to centralize my music collection and also all the files like pictures and movies. The problem is that the other users at my house hate mounting the external hard drive each time they turn their computer on, or bring it back from sleep mode. In windows I have the HD mapped and each time the computer starts the drive is mounted automatically. I would like to do the same thing on OS X. As soon as I start any of the mac computers and they finish booting up, I want to be able to see the external HD mounted without having to click any buttons or type in any passwords. Anybody knows how to do this? Thank you so much for your help
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

sounds like you should set up a file server with OSX server software...

Can I mount external hard drive to Time Capsule and use it as external storage?

I have a 500GB external hard drive that I'd like to use on the Time Capsule as a hard drive to store mp3 and mp4 files. Can I attach it to the Time Capsule and use it like this? Or does it just give an additional 500GB worth of back ups from my iMac?

Can I attach it to the Time Capsule and use it like this?
Yes, if the drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)...preferable....or FAT32. Access to the files will somewhat slower than if you had the drive attached directly to your computer.
Have you given some thought as to how you will keep this drive backed up?
Time Machine will not be able to back up the drive that is attached to the Time Capsule's USB port.
But, it would be able to back up the drive if you connected it directly to your Mac and the drive was formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

New Apple User - Trouble with External Hard Drive

I am not very good with computers so hopefully this is a simple task. I just purchased my first mac, a MacBook for college. I bought a Seagate FreeAgent 160 GB drive with the intent of using it for time machine back ups and also for storing my music. I am wondering how or if this is possible.
So far I have:
- Transferred all my music from my PC to the hard drive no problem.
- I tried to set up Time Machine it said I had to delete everything from the Seagate drive in order to use it.
- I then copied all my files off of the hard drive to my Macbook's HD.
- Found out I also need to reformat my Seagate drive to Mac format.
Now I am wondering how to go about all of this and find out if its possible to store my music files on my hard drive as well as use it to for TM. I was thinking I can just move all my music back to the Seagate after TM erases it...would that work or is TM back-ups the only thing you can have on a drive?
Thank you!

Larko,
Generally speaking, you'll need an external hard drive with a capacity that is at least twice the size of the space being used on your internal hard drive. So, if you only have around 30 GBs of data on your new Macbook, you'll need at least 60 GBs for Time Machine. I'm going to state, though, that you'll probably end up using something more like 50 GBs on your Macbook's hard drive, so plan on using around 100 GBs for Time Machine.
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If you want to store additional files on the external, that's OK. However, it is recommended that instead of storing both your Time Machine backup and your "personal" files on the same volume, that you partition the drive with 2 partitions. This will allow you to store the Time Machine backup in isolation on its own volume, and your "personal" files on the second. Disk Utility will handle this, too. Instead of erasing, switch to the "Partition" tab, use the pull-down menu to select 2 partitions, adjust the sizes according to your needs, then click "Partition."
I recommend that you size the first partition (for use with Time Machine) at 100 GBs, and the second with the remainder (which will end up being about 40 GBs).
You can certainly store that 10 GBs of music separately, but wouldn't it be best to import it into iTunes? If you do import it, or if it is kept on your Macbook in some other place, it will be backed up by Time Machine.
Scott

Trouble with External Hard Drive

I recorded some saved programs on my Dish Network DVR 622 to an external hard drive that formatted it for that purpose according to their instructions. Can the external hard drive now be reused by being hooked up to my HP notebook computer and reformatted or have I lost it because of that use? If so, how do I do it? I do not want to save anything on the drive--just format it and use it for a different purpose. I no longer have the Dish DVR. When I connect the external drive to my desktop I do not even see an icon for it in My Computer.
Thanks for any help.

OK with a little googling around I discovered the DISH DVR formats its external drives for Linux using the ext file system. Windows cannot natively read ext formatted drives. If you plugged it into a machine running Linux you could read the drive. There is also a Windows program that will allow you to read ext formatted hard drives right from Windows.
http://www.ext2fsd.com/?page_id=16
This may also be kind of a fools errand because I am also seeing that the movies on the hard drive may be encrypted and can only be read by a DVR running your account anyway. If you just want to wipe the drive right click on each of the rectangles in Disk 1 and select delete volume or delete partition until the whole box is blank then create simple volume and format it ntfs and you have a useable external drive.
You could also just delete one of the partitions like say the last one on the right which is 396.26 gb and then create a new partition in it and format it ntfs and give it a drive letter and then you would have a storage space for your laptop files. You could then keep the movies on the rest of the drive for when you get a new DVR. As I understand it from the DISH forums, when you plug the hard drive into a new DVR it will give the option to set it up to work on that DVR. Also I am not 100% clear that the external drives have encrypted movies. That may only apply to people who pull the hard drive out of the DVR and try to get movies from it.
This is an interesting project. The real easy way to see if the movies can be played from a PC is to make a Linux Live disk like ubuntu, boot the system from it and plug in the hard drive while you are running Linux from the Live disk. You could then see if you can see the movies and if they will play in the Linux media player program and it would not cost anything or change anything on your computer. Post back if you want more info on how to try that.

Trouble with external hard drive and disk repair

So I save my music and photos to an external hard drive. The drive is partitioned to also be the back up for my Time Machine. I live in an old house with the electricity for my MacBook Pro and the external hard drive coming from a wall plug which drapes scrape over when opening and closing, occasionally moving the plugs to the point of cutting off the electricity. Sometimes when that happens, the MacBook Pro won't read the external hard drive and I have to restart the computer for it to read the HD.
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Can anyone out there give me a "for Dummies" overview of how to get the Disk Utility to repair things?
Thanks.

What I was trying to tell you is that all the music and photos that are on the same drive as your Time Machine backup must also be backed up elsewhere. Unlike all the stuff on your primary (internal) hard drive, those photos and music are not backed up at all unless you have copies of them on a different drive. If your Time Machine hard drive should fail before you do that, they'll all be lost. So copy all the music and photos to your second external hard drive as soon as you are able to do so.
I generally consider the nuisance of backing up extra hard drives to other extra hard drives burdensome and annoying enough so that I always upgrade my primary (internal) hard drive whenever I begin to run short of space on the one I'm using. Now that it's possible to get 750GB and 1TB internal drives for MBPs, I'll get one of those as soon as my present 250GB drive fills up to about 80% of its capacity. I don't want to lug around an external drive in order to have all my stuff with me when I'm away from my home or office — I want it all on my internal drive, and I want to be able to back all of it up at once to an external drive of the same or a larger size. At least until I outgrow a 1TB drive, and I think that will be a while.

Trouble mounting external hard drive

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