Trouble Rebooting, Multitasking, Mounting to External Hard Drive

I have an iMac G5 from 2007 that I use primarily for photography work in Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop and occasionally in other Adobe products. I also use it for iWork, and standard web browsing.
Lately, it seems that the computer is dying, and resetting the PRAM hasn't helped. Here are the symptoms:
1. Pre PRAM reset – no applications would open, either from the dock or applications folder. Icon would bounce, computer would do nothing, not even make a processing sound.
2. Also, the external hard drive (LaCie 1TB) would start making processing sounds, get hung up, and then not be capable of ejecting/dismounting from the desktop.
3. Post-PRAM reset – freezing up, unable to force quit or access dock.
4. Upon reboot, gray screen appears but computer does not load ... requires manual shut down.
5. Upon reboot with another PRAM reset, external hard drive icon appears in Finder window, but ejecting the disc does not happen.
I'm curious if there are any other resets I can do to try and clear this problem up. Thanks.

Will it work with the external drive disconnected? Have you replaced the PRAM battery?

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My MacBook Pro won't let me mount my external Hard Drive. Just trying to restore my iTunes library.

My MacBook Pro, less than a year old, started acting weird. I backed everything up, took it in to Best Buy, who sent it out to Apple Repair and they put in a new motherboard.
It's running on Mac OS X Version 10.7.4
Now I am trying to put everything back on the computer from my external Maxtor 80GB Hard Drive. MacBook Pro won't recognize the external drive.
I tried Disk Utility. I can see the external drive, and did a repair disk and verify disk. Several times. Each time it says "This partition map seems to be ok."
However, I am not able to mount it, as that option is greyed out and i can't select it.
Also, under the Icon for the external hard drive, it has the Macintosh HD Icon (essentially my computer). I tried to restore this way, didn't work.
I need this to mount, as it has all of my itunes stuff on it; dozens of my sons movies, and my entire iTunes library.
PLEASE HEEEEELP!! HOW CAN I MOUNT THIS EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE? Thank you in advance

Try things in this USB/Firewire faq.
DALE

Laptop no longer can mount my external hard drive

After updating to Mavericks, my laptop no longer can mount my external hard drive. What on earth is going on here and how can I fix this?

The drive is spinning and I was using it the night before I updated my macbook. It is viewable in disk utility but not in finder, and attempts to mount it are thwarted. The problem is literally coincident with updating the mavericks. When I click verify it didn't appear to have any problems but I will retry when I am back at home and report the findings.
It is a Toshiba 1GB external hard drive and has adequate power. Lights are on, etc.
I have not checked on another computer as do not have one available, but that will be my next step.

I mounted my external hard drive to a pc and now I don't have edit or write permissions on my Mac (read only). How do I get them back without erasing the drive?

Hello all, I am a photographer and have my portfolio, edited and raw images backed up on a Seagate Free Agent External Hardrive. I mounted my external hard drive to a pc recently and now I don't have edit or write permissions to it on my Mac (read only). How do I get them back without erasing the drive and loosing my valuable work?

If you re-format it you will lose all the data on it!!!!! So make sure you have backed up the drive or moved all the data on it to another external HD or the internal HD on your iMac.
Below is an Apple Advice letter that explains how to format an external HD, it's written for Aperture but you can use the instructions to formate any external HD.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3509

Mount an 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

Hi leung wai,
   I wouldn't mind knowing the answer myself. I think the problem with doing it in the manner you attempted is that the device tree hasn't been created yet so the mount command is certainly not going to work. I assume that the answer is to start up enough of the system to have the device tree created. Unfortunately, I don't know where in the startup process that occurs. You could try the following command after making the boot volume writable:
/usr/libexec/registermach_bootstrapservers /etc/mach_init.d
Then check to see if the /dev virtual filesystem has been created. Of course it wouldn't surprise me if that didn't also mount your disks. If not, try the following:
/sbin/SystemStarter
It should have been created after that because at that point almost the whole system has started.
Gary
~~~~
   You've been telling me to relax all the way here, and
   now you're telling me just to be myself?
         -- The Return of the Secaucus Seven

Can I mount my external hard drive which will be compatible with both Mac and Windows?

Hello,
Can I mount my external hard drive which will be compatible with both Mac and Windows? If yes, then please let me know, because I intend to use my hard drive for both Windows and Mac, without losing any file.

Yes. By default, Mac OS X and Windows can read and write drives which are formatted as FAT32 or exFAT; NTFS drives aren't writable from Mac OS X without additional software.
(124553)

Since upgrading to Lion I can no longer mount my external hard drive

I backed up about 10 minutes before installing Lion when I was on Snow Leopard. I know my drive works fine and there are no issues with it.
However, when Lion was installed, I wanted to perform a Time Machine Backup, but it said my backup disk was unavailable. I checked in the Finder and it wasn't showing up in the side bar, even though it was connected to my Mac and the indicator light on the hard drive itself was flashing - suggesting drive activity. I can also hear the drive spinning.
I opened Disk Utility and the external hard drive appears in the side bar and it says 'WD My Passport 071A Media'. Underneath that is the 'Time Machine Backups' drive which is greyed out. I have tried right clicking on it and choosing Mount but it won't mount, and I have also tried Repair Disk which doesn't finish, but also doesn't report any errors either. If I run Verify Disk and Repair Disk on the 'WD My Passport 071A Media' drive (which is the same drive) it does not report any problems and says the drive is working fine.
I have tried updating the drive's firmware and using different ports but neither have worked. I have also tried rebooting my Mac.
I really need to use this drive to backup and I can't format it because I can't afford to lose any data on there. Could someone please give me some advice or tell me how to fix this? I would appreciate it so much.
Thanks,
Nathan

Nathan Miah wrote:
Is there absolutely anything else I could do to sort this such as phone Apple Support
If you want.
or maybe install Snow Leopard using the disc it came on with my Mac and just set it up from a Time Machine Backup on my external hard drive (since it works under SL)?
Did you install Lion on an empty partition, or did you upgrade Snow Leopard? If you upgraded, I'd not recommend erasing it, since your backups are apparently gone. It's doubtful Snow Leopard will recognize them.
It's not just backups on the drive either, there are other important things on there, so why won't they show?
Mixing Time Machine backups and other data is not a good idea. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. It sounds like the whole disk is corrupted.
I just really don't understand how this happened. Could it not be an issue with WD because they haven't issued firmware to support Lion yet?
If this is a simple external HD, connected by USB or FireWire, no, unless you installed some of WD's software on it. That shouldn't prevent it from being seen at all, but anything's possible.

How can I mount an external hard drive via command line

I have an external hard drive that's been formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" (the default option from Disk Utility). I'm in single-user mode and want to mount the drive. I noticed that when I plug in the drive to the USB port I get some new items in the /dev/ directory, namely:
disk3, disk3s1, disk3s2, rdisk3, rdisk3s1, rdisk3s2
I imagine I'm only interested in the disk3*, but I'm not sure which one (or what the differences are, there's only 1 partition on the drive).
Also, I'm not sure which mount command to use, there are several in the /sbin/ directory. I tried the "mount" command and got a message that noted: "Incorrect super block." Any ideas?

/usr/sbin/diskutil mount /dev/disk3

My G5 will no longer mount any external hard drive

I am running a G5 Power PC on OS10.4 and am recently unable to mount any of my 4 external hard drives via firewire 400, 800, usb on either front or rear buses. I have tried multiple cables, power supplies, and have run disk utility but still cannot see any of my external drives. I have disconnected everything and shut down my computer for 15 minutes, restarted with one drive at a time, and still nothing. Any other ideas before I lug my desktop in for repair?

I have disconnected everything and shut down my computer for 15 minutes....
Don't just shut it down, shut it down and disconnect it from wall power for 10-15 minutes.

Can't mount WD external hard drive after upgrade to Mountain Lion

I have two external hard drives on my iMac. One for Time Machine and Aperture Library Files (My Book Essentials formatted Mac OS Extended Journaled) - this works fine.
The other is an older WD 500Gb drive which is partitioned Windows_Fat_32. (Keep in mind, I'm not even sure what this means exactly). It contained my iTunes library and a lot of photo backups. It worked fine on my iMac with Snow Leopard, but since upgrading to Mountain Lion, it won't mount. I get an error that says "this drive is not readable by this computer" and I get options to "intialize", "ignore", or "eject". Disk Utility sees the drive but won't let me do anything with it. Is there a way to salvage this data? I don't mind reformatting after I move the data or getting a new drive, but I don't want to lose the data. My iTunes music files are extensive and they are on the good external drive, but the "library" is on the bad one...
Sorry if I haven't explained well..

hi,
it is kind of late, but I wonder, did you manage to solve the issue?
I have lacie drives, and the firmware upgrade is apparently required, but I cannot find the appropriate one at lacie's website... the ones i tried do not recognize my drive...
my lacie quadra d2 250 GB (USB, FW 400, 800) goes to sleep, and does not wake up....
I'm still searching for help...
ps: lacie's support page is quite hard to pierce, they require one to sign up, but no support for latinaamerican countries... so I could not sign up, therefore could not reach their support

Can't Mount 2 External Hard Drives at Once

I have two external hard hard drives, both Western Digital MyPassports, and when I connect both disks at the same time to my MBP, I encounter all sorts of problems. One will usually start making clicking noises and then randomly mount and unmount. This problem only occurs when I have both discs connected at the same time. If I connect each disk separately, they both function perfectly. Is there a reason why 2 external hard drives cannot be hooked up at the same time?

It sounds as though the two drives together are requesting more power than is available through the USB bus. I can't explain why this is manifested the way it is; it seems to me that if each drive works properly by itself when connected to one of the computer's USB ports, then both should operate properly together when both are connected to the computer's ports. Nevertheless, the disk behavior you describe is exactly what we saw for years and years with Powerbook G4s, whose USB ports were always notoriously underpowered. Buying an AC-powered USB hub and connecting one or both of the drives to that instead of directly to the computer should alleviate the problem.

Connecting and mounting an external hard drive on 10.5.2 Fusion/Mac

Hello I'm french and speak a bad english sorry
I recently installed Fusion on my laptop to watch PC avi video and I connected an external Hard Drive formated in FAT. When plugging the drive to MacBook Pro this message occured: initialize, ignore or eject.
I push the IGNORE button and the volume then mounted to my desktop.
It was possible to read the volume informations and then I launched Fusion and using Windows Player it was really good to watch avi video.
Actually, and I do not know why? plugging the drive on my Mac and pushing IGNORE results unmounted disk or volume. I used Disk Utility and expecting to mount the volume called disk3s1 occured IMPOSSIBLE.
As well, in Fusion when the disk icon appears , trying to double click results NOT fORMATED DISK
I own a lot of photos of family and musical video on it and this make me sad.
Where would be the problem? soft or hard?
I disconnected the unity, plugging, and unplugging the USB cable, changing port, removing DC cable and so on and so on ........... My external LED 's drive is correct and indicates that the unity is still working.
May you HELP ME to SOLVE this PROBLEM , GOD ALWAYS WOULD BLESS YOU
THE drive name is SEAGATE extenal USB and I do not know the actual partition card but it worked very well yesterday.
They suggested to me to type /etc/hostconfig using Go TO on text edit and verify -REMOVABLE- but on 10.5.2 this file doesn't exist, does it?
EXPECTING FOR A MIRACULOUS ANSWER
THANKS THANKS AND THANKS
LOT OF LOVE

Hi smike;
I had a simular situation with a hrad drive back when I was still using Norton. Everyone was saying dump and put in a new one. I used Disk Warrior on it. It took forever ( over 16 hours) but Disk Warrior was able to recover it for me.
Immediately after that, I got rid of all things Symantec from my Mac.
Allan

HT1338 cannot mount my external hard drive can anyone help?

I was using an external hard drive to store my photos and had set up mac to upload pictures to the drive. was fine for 3 years suddenly its just gone. I've run disk Utility and it says everything is fine but the drive will not mount even after repair.

Odd, it seems. In the Finder "Get Info" display, you are seeing something like this?
Click the "Details" triangle and then the little padlock, and you should be able to change the permissions. Click the lock when you are done and close the Info window.

Reboot Required when attaching external hard drive

I recently purchased a seagate 1.5TB external harddrive. It as been working fine with just one partition. The need arose for two partitions and I started the process using disk utility. My macbook froze during the process and now every time I connect this external hard drive, the gray window appears requiring a hard reboot. I can not reformat the external hard drive since it freezes every time I connect it. Help!

All usb hard disk with usb 3 are backward compatible to usb2.. but of course they still go at usb2 speed.
Very few routers have usb3 even with usb3 for a few years now.. the router chips are often underpowered so they simply cannot support the transfer speed.. usb 2 even goes at half the speed of usual usb2.. which is mainly a function of the underpowered processor on the router.

IBook G4 won't mount LaCie external hard drive

A friend of mine, with a new iBook G4 with 512MB of RAM, is having some problem with an 80 GB bus powered external hard drive from LaCie. The problem he is having is he can't see his drive when he plugs it into his machine. He has tried plugging it in with a firewire cord and a USB cord, and neither have worked. In addition to not showing up on the Desktop the drive doesn't even show up under Disk Utility, however, the drive does show up under System Profiler. When it's plugged in with the firewire cord it says:
FireWire Bus: Max Speed up to 400 MB / sec
When it's plugged in with the USB cord, the computer says it sees a LaCie HD.
He has also tried plugging the firewire drive into another computer, that machine is also running 10.4, and the drive mounts without a problem. He has recently run software update and updated everything that was recommended, repairing permissions before and after each update.
Any ideas on how to fix this? Or, since it's a new computer should he just take it to the Apple Store he bought it at and have them replace it? Thanks so much.

Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 15 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that did'nt work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try.
If that still did'nt get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
For those of you with Macs that are not PowerBooks or iBooks, a bad internal battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Good Luck!
Cheers!
DALE

Trouble Rebooting, Multitasking, Mounting to External Hard Drive

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