Trying to get my MacBook Pro to recognize external hard drive

Hey everyone. I'm fairly new to the forums but I've been a Mac user for almost 15 years now. Unfortunately, on the tech side of things, I'm mediocre at best so I have a question I wanted to see if anyone could offer a few suggestions or even a small glimmer of hope.
I have a LaCie Porsche Firewire based 160 GB external drive. It was mostly used for my G4 tower running classic OS. It apparently died all of the sudden (no trauma or anything..just wouldn't show up on my desktop). I took it and connected it to my MacBook Pro and it still wouldn't show up. On System Profiler, it wouldn't detect the type of drive or size and on Utilities, it wouldn't read at all.
Knowing LaCie, I thought it was the drive case (It's a seagate inside) so I got another external casing (a USB 2 type from Circuit City).
That failed to produce any kind of detection on the MacBook Pro as well. I have Disk Warrior but since it's not detecting, it won't recover any data. And I fear the worst at this point.
But if anyone has any suggestions as to how to get that drive to be detected, I'd be eternally grateful. I've checked the firewire and USB cords and they seem fine.
I have a G4 (digital audio) tower...can I try to install the drive INTO that tower and do a target mode startup?
Can I connect it via firewire to the tower and do a target startup from my MacBook Pro externally?
Should I try a different, particular external casing?
I'm willing to try anything before sending it out for data recovery. I realize it may be my only hope but I simply can't afford the service right now unfortunately.
Any suggestions...ANY suggestion would be greatly appreciated. I would be eternally grateful if I could somehow salvage even half of the files that are super important to me personally and professionally both.
Thanks in advance and a happy new year to everyone.

It's either the drive, the case, or both. Make tests to eliminate each factor.
I assume it makes the spinning noise, and it's IDE/PATA and 3.5" form factor, and it's formatted so all your machines (Classic, OSX) can see it.
-Yes, I would try another case. Some cases require the bare drive to have a jumper set to master, slave, or cable detect. There is no telling how yours come in the Lacie, or what a new case may require. At worst, you look on the chart on the drive case, and try all 3. I make a point of having a known good case, and I prefer Firewire. Look at Disk Utility when the case is connected and note whether it even sees a case connected (which has its own interface chip), even if a drive is not seen or mounted. Ditto with System Profiler.
-Yes, you can install it internally in your G4 tower. For purposes of seeing if it works at all, don't bother with Target Disk Mode, just connect it and see if it mounts on the G4. Again, be aware of the master/slave/cable select jumper setting required.
-It may be that the bare drive is blown. For most people, a data recovery service may be the only answer. Expensive.

Similar Messages

  • Trying to copy ANY file from my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive spins for 45 minutes then fails. I hate this computer and WISH I never would have wasted my money. Any ideas? WD My Passport 2TB Drive, had to buy a program to make the POS write

    Trying to copy ANY file from my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive spins for 45 minutes then fails. I hate this computer and WISH I never would have wasted my money. Any ideas? WD My Passport 2TB Drive, had to buy a program to make the POS read files. Copies that would take seconds from a Windows based machine never complete. I have to close the transfer or shut off the machine half the time. Worst computer I have EVER owned, crashes non-stop, constantly freezes, and seems like EVERY operation is more complicated with this thing. Literally, my 1997 Compaq was FAR MORE reliable and user friendly.

    This is one of the messages I keep getting; The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in -- File Whatever -- can’t be read or written.(Error code -36)
    I have copied things to the hard drive in the past, but it has always been incredibly slow, and now just seems to freeze and fail

  • How can I backup my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive

    How can I backup my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive?

    Basic Backup
    For some people Time Machine will be more than adequate. Time Machine is part of OS X. There are two components:
    1. A Time Machine preferences panel as part of System Preferences;
    2. A Time Machine application located in the Applications folder. It is
         used to manage backups and to restore backups. Time Machine
         requires a backup drive that is at least twice the capacity of the
         drive being backed up.
    Alternatively, get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
      1. Carbon Copy Cloner
      2. Get Backup
      3. Deja Vu
      4. SuperDuper!
      5. Synk Pro
      6. Tri-Backup
    Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore.  Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files. For help with using Time Machine visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
    Although you can buy a complete external drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined.  It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.)  You can purchase hard drives separately.  This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice.  Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu.  You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
    Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available.  You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports.  I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets especially for Firewire drives (911, 921, 922, for example.)  You can find enclosures at places such as;
      1. Cool Drives
      2. OWC
      3. WiebeTech
      4. Firewire Direct
      5. California Drives
      6. NewEgg
    All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover.  Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.

  • I cannot find videos (not movies) that i have transferred to my macbook pro from an external hard drive, these files used to be on my windows PC!

    I cannot find videos (not movies) that i have transferred to my macbook pro from an external hard drive, these files used to be on my windows PC. Photos and a few of the videos came over but i am missing the majority of the videos. Help please!!! I have tried omnidisksweeper with no success in finding them.
    in my Usage it says i have over 40 gb of movies when i only have about 9gb which i can see using spotlight search. i really hope the other amount is my missing videos! these are videos of my kids as babies.

    Read this post and do the migration again, putting the library in a portable shape first if necessary.
    tt2

  • Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's

    Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB external hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's update. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    My guess would be it has created an entirely new backup of your drive when you upgraded to Mavericks.
    See Here: http://pondini.org/TM/1.html
    And here: http://pondini.org/TM/9.html
    Peruse the whole site. There is a lot of information there.

  • How to transfer data from macbook pro to an external hard drive, im using (WD 1TB 3.0) ???. I cannot copy anything from my mac to it not a single file.

    how to transfer data from macbook pro to an external hard drive, im using (WD 1TB 3.0) ???. I cannot copy anything from my mac to it not a single file.

    ok - since you'll be sharing it with a PC - connect it to your windows pc - then format from there - instead of NTFS format - choose exFAT.
    or, you can read the link below on how to do it in dos mode.
    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/how-can-i-forma t-external-drive-in-exfat-not-in/0f6bf19a-19d6-4470-ae05-53ddf26bb476?msgId=1860 eae3-3488-4eea-8326-f87b89d9851b
    once you've formatted it - you can now use it in both your macbook and windows computer.

  • Just baked up my macbook pro to an external hard drive. my computer died on me and i plugged it in and rebooted it ,started time machine and finished backing up but. just wondering if thats good or should i delete and restart

    just baked up my macbook pro to an external hard drive. my computer died on me and i plugged it in and rebooted it ,started time machine and finished backing up but. just wondering if thats good or should i delete and restart

    I wouldn't trust that backup.
    Make sure the system is connected to AC and Do Over.

  • I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine)  Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what?

    I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine)  Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what?    I need to know what to highligh, what to click on. 

    hirogliffix,
    take a look at this Apple page — in particular, the “Restoring data from Time Machine backups” section and its “Restoring your entire system from a backup” subsection.

  • How do i back up my macbook pro to an external hard drive?

    how do i back up my macbook pro to an external hard drive?

    schmunzelmonster, greetings;  Your suggestion is a good one.  CCC does create a boot drive which as you point out can be most useful at times. Time Machine does not have that capability but it retains a history of activities and transactions that CCC does not.  CCC only retains information as of the last update.
    Neither individually is the 'perfect' backup solution individually, but if both are utilized it becomes that.  There is no harm in backup redundancy.
    My only complaint about CCC is that is is very slow in performing updates compared with Time Machine.  Just a nit on my part.
    Ciao.

  • Window 7 on macbook pro not recognising external hard drive

    Hello
    I have windows 7 installed on my macbook pro.My new external hard drive,western digital black caviah 2.5' 1tb with cradle is not recognised.I want to use it to back up my windows side of my macbook pro.Does anybody have any ideas?
    Thanks
    John

    canofsoup,
    in Windows 7
    press start, find computer > right click on computer and then  in the drop down menu select manage
    in the Computer Management window:
    Select> Disk Management by click on it in the left menu
    Right click on your External Drive > select mark partition as active
    Format and enjoy
    Cheers,
    Sidonsoft

  • Macbook won't recognize external Hard Drive and issues with Time Machine

    Hello everyone,
    I have just bought a new Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion and I am currently having problems with Time Machine.
    The issue begun in Snow Leopard: Time Machine was taking too long to backup, and would often not finish the backup because the external hard drive would be unwillingly ejected.
    Now with Mountain Lion I have reformated the drive (Mac OS Journaled) and about a third of the way through had the same issue: the drive was ejected before the backup could be finished. I restarted the machine and it happened again. However, now the computer won't even recognize the external drive when I plug it in. I have also tried to power off/on the drive itself to no progress.
    I have tested the USB port with another drive and the port is fine. I have also tested the usb cable and it is fine. And Disk Utility does not recognize the drive (even when I try the >diskutil list command in terminal).
    Now, I can hear the drive humming normally when I turn it on, and it is not usb-powered (my electricity current does fluctuate).
    Could the interrupted backup procedures have damaged the drive? And if so, wouldn't the computer recognize it anyway?
    It is a 4 year old WD 1 TB that is used exclusively for TM and has never left the house.
    Thank you for your time reading this and let me know if you need any more information that could help out.
    Cheers!

    From your description, I'd suspect a failing drive. Maybe time for a new external, especially as you've already re-formatted and it's still playing up.
    I had a similar problem with one of my clone backups a few weeks ago - it failed, I erased it, re-cloned, worked a couple of times and then it failed again. Disk Utility didn't throw up any errors after re-formatting. I guess all disks die at some point.

  • How do I transfer my data to my new macbook pro using an external hard drive?

    I've already set up my new MacBook Pro is my issue. It asked me if I'd like to "Migrate" my stuff or use an external hard drive etc but at the time I didn't transfer my data from my old MacBook yet. I was going to manually do it later as I had to wait for my External hard drive to back my old Mac up. Now it's that time and I have no idea how to do it. I believe I've researched best of my ability.
    I feel like I'm asking a pretty dumb question. If I were to just drag all my programs out like my Adobe Suite on to my new macbook pro would that work? I feel like that's just too easy and incorrect. Please and thank you.

    The Adobe suite can be downloaded free, you dont have to copy it at all, under standard CS6 Adobe rules, if you own the suite, you get 2 computers "activated at any one time"  Make sure, if youre not using the older computer, you deactivate the software under the HELP menu in Adobe.
    format the new drive in disk utility ......APPLICATIONS.....UTILITIES.....DISK UTILITIES.......select the external drive and format (if its new and empty!!!) under the ERASE button with Mac OSX extended journaled
    copy all your important stuff from older computer , pics, files, documents, personal anything.
    most of you apps, i ASSUME you bought in the (other than Adobe software, or Office suite, etc etc,..... obviously) in the MAC APP store, so you can reload them on the new computer without copying them , makes things very easy......just open APP STORE, and download what you already bought.
    really the only important things , is copy all important work files, documents, pictures, personal ABC...XYZ......  obviously.
    the migration is about emails, contacts, etc etc etc, also data, just because you passed it by at the time doesnt mean you still cant do it,    go to the SEARCH at menu at top and type in MIGRATION ASSISTANT  to do it again , since you passed it by at first .
    the only thing you NEED / SHOULD copy is all your personal stuff........Applications need to be reinstall from either ONLINE download,.......or from the MAC APP STORE,........  you cant just copy the apps over (in most cases) and toss them onto the new computer
    Nahh, there are no dumb questions, just dumb mistakes because you DIDNT ask any questions, and we all make those here and there. 

  • Macbook No Longer Recognizes External Hard Drive

    Recently I bought an external hard drive (Toshiba Automatic Backup Portable Hard Drive) to backup my Macbook (Mac OS X 10.6.8). I found that in order to have my Mac recognize the hard drive, I needed to partition it by formating it to MS-DOS (FAT). I had no problems after that and began to back up my computer. However, the next day, I plugged my external hard drive back in and the icon no longer shows up. I went to Disk Utilities and found it there, but it said that it was not mounted. Then I went to System Profiler to see if it was under "USB" but it did not show up. I have tried shutting down and restarting my computer a few times but each time is no different. I even added a USB 2.0 Hub but even that didn't work. Is there anything else that I could do? I have files already on there and some I do not really want to lose. Is there any uncomplicated way that I could be able to make my mac recognize my hard drive again?

    ellybook7,
    In OS X you can read from an NTFS disk but not write to it - at least not without thrid-party software such as Paragon's NTFS for Mac.
    I'm not sure what was working FINE in Mountain Lion that wouldn't work in Mavericks.
    Clinton

  • 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.

  • Why wont my macbook pro boot with external hard drives connected?

    After two years of uninterrupted success running my MBP with five external hard drives attached (two USB, two eSATA with LaCie Expresscard 34, one FireWire 800), my MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion 10.8.2 installed will not boot with the drives attached. Starting up with the option key depressed does not work. Anyone have insight? This didn't happen until I upgraded to 10.8.2, so is there a bug fix needed in that update?

    Update, I reset the PRAM (i think) and now the chime is back as I start up... small win but thats all it does.
    So I decided to dload a copy of Lion and burn to a disc, then try and boot from there. When i boot holding option and select the dvd it sounds like something is happening, contstant turning or reading of the disk, but nothing is happening on screen, just my old friend the apple logo and his mate the spinning wheel. Starting to concede now, just hoping to get my data back, its mostly photos and some files i cant duplicate.
    I am going to purchase Mountain lion on my current apple ID using a friends macbook and try and reinstall from there. Although i never had Mountain Lion installed in the first place (just lion) there isnt an option to buy lion on the app store (i dont think)  This is prob my last spin of the dice i think before handing it in, unless anyone on here has some ideas....

Maybe you are looking for