USB 3.0 external hard drive won't stay connected

Hi,
I'm not sure whether this is a problem with my Mac (late 2009 21.5 inch iMac, OSX 10.10, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Due, 8 GB RAM) or my exernal hard drive, but I am having issues keeping my hard drive connected (WB digital passport, 500GB).
My hard drive will turn on when connected via USB 3.0, and will work for about 1 minute before disconnecting. In this time I am able to read and write, until the message pops up saying it was abruptly disconnected.
When the hard drive disconnects, I can still hear it spinning, and the indicator LED is still on. If I physically disconnect it, I have to leave it for 30 minutes or so before reconnecting, otherwise my Mac won't recognise it, which indicates to me that is might be something with the hard drive itself.
I have some large files that I'd rather not lose, and so bought a new hard drive but, of course, the old one doesn't stay on long enough to transfer them across.
Any thoughts, or ways to possibly salvage my files?
Cheers

I just tried this, no luck...
I connected a different USB cable, still the same problem. Tried both cables with the problematic hard drive on two different computers, still the same problem.
At this point I assume I'll probably need professional help in saving the files, thanks for the assistance.

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USB2.0 PCI cards that use the NEC chipset seem to give the least amount of problems for Mac users.
OWC have a few different ones for sale.
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Do you also connect the external USB drive to the AC power as well while you use it ?
Sometimes USB external drive problems are resolved simply by plugging them into the mains power and trying again.
Stewie
Message was edited by: stewiesno1

My USB 2.0 external hard drive won't mount

Hello fellow mini mac people. I just got my mini mac and am trying to access my harddrives from my pc. I have a USB 2.0 enclosure with a power supply, however it's not mounting. the read light shows for about a minute after I turn the switch, then nothing. I'm wondering what I can do to access my HD's. I have three, a 6G western digital, a 20G quantum, and a 160G western digital. Is there a jumper issue that I should be aware of or something else. Any help would be useful...and appreciated.

Dustin Helm...
External enclosures (single bay) do require a Single/Master setting. Be careful and do not confuse that with a Duel/Master setting as the term "Master" by itself may be elusive.
Another thing is not all USB-Enclosures are Mac Compatable and some may even require a driver. That is dependent on the USB bridge manufacturer of which can vary even from brand name enclosures. It is important to do ones homework to avoid disappointments with enclosures.
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External Hard Drives Won't Stay Open on Desktop

Greetings all! I have a strange little issue to share with the assembled.
I have one Seagate (USB) and two LaCie (FireWire) external drives. Both appear on my MacBook desktop just fine, but that's where things go astray!
Clicking on either of the drives icons leads to the drive opening briefly, then it immediately closes after what looks like a complete finder, or screen, refresh. Both drives are still visible after this rapid little process, but I just can't get the little fellas to remain open on my desktop. I can still access the data when going through an application - e.g. opening Photoshop, then using the open file command to browse and finally open a file.
Both drives have their own power source, and I have used disk utility to confirm that there are no obvious issues with either drive.
Your thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Does the problem exist if you only connect firewire with no USB attached? Or reverse that scenario.

I have a Seagate Slim Portable 500 GB USB 3.0 external hard drive that worked great with my Macbook Pro 13" Retina but gets ejected and won't show files on any iMac.

I have a Seagate Slim Portable 500 GB USB 3.0 external hard drive that worked great with my Macbook Pro 13" Retina but gets ejected and won't show files on any iMac. My Macbook Pro and the two different iMacs I tried it on were all using Mountain Lion, so the only difference was the iMac versus Macbook Pro.

I just tried this, no luck...
I connected a different USB cable, still the same problem. Tried both cables with the problematic hard drive on two different computers, still the same problem.
At this point I assume I'll probably need professional help in saving the files, thanks for the assistance.

Powerbook G4 won't detect USB 2.0 external hard drive

I recently purchased a Toshiba USB 2.0 portable external hard drive. I have both 15' and a 17' Powerbook G4s that are running on OS X 10.4.11. When I attempted to connect the new hardware to each of the computers neither recognizes that anything has been connected. The external drive does not appear on the desktop, in disk utilities, or TechTool. Both computers have 2.0 USB ports and the external hard drive is compatible to a Mac, but I cannot figure out why it will not show up. I have tried all of the suggestions I could find in forums discussing similar problems such as trying to repair the permissions with the Disk Utility First Aid feature, resetting the PRAM, as well as resetting the PMU, but to no avail. When I connect the device to a Windows based PC it shows up immediately; however, when I try to see it using the Virtual PC side of my Mac I am still unable to visualize the drive. This problem is only occurring with external hard drives and not particularly just this brand--I have tried others and had the same problem. All of my other USB devices that I connect to these computers work fine. Can someone please help and tell me why my Powerbooks will not detect USB external hard drives. Thanks!

External hard drive enclosures can be connected to computers in any of several ways. USB is one; FireWire is another. Some enclosures offer several different connection options: they may have any combination of USB2, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and eSATA ports. All G4 And G5 Macs have FireWire 400 ports, and can start up from an external hard drive that is connected to one of those ports. No G$ or G% Mac can be depended upon to start up from any external drive that is connected to a USB port, though it may happen in a few cases. Because a FireWire-capable drive is bootable, it's much more useful than a USB-only drive in any situation where a primary hard drive has failed or has become temporarily unbootable because of file or directory corruption.
Bare hard drives nowadays come in two platter sizes: 2.5" for notebook computers and 3.5" for desktop computers. The sizes and shapes of their outside casings are tightly standardized to make them highly interchangeable. They also come in two types: Parallel ATA, also called IDE, PATA, or ATA-5, ATA-6 or ATA-7; and the newer Serial ATA, or SATA drives.
External enclosures are made to accept either PATA or SATA drives — rarely both types. If you have an external drive with only a USB2 port, and you can see how to open the drive enclosure to reveal the bare drive inside, it may be to your advantage to order an empty FireWire enclosure and "transplant" your bare hard drive into it to get the benefits of higher speed, bootability, and adequate power that come with FireWire.
External hard drive enclosures are designed to hold standard-sized bare hard drive units — the same units that can be mounted inside a desktop or notebook computer. An enclosure contains a place to mount the drive, a circuit board or two that mediates between the drive and the port to which you'll connect a USB or FireWire cable, and in the case of a 3.5" drive, sometimes a fan for cooling.
Portable FireWire-connectable external hard drives seldom or never have the problem of insufficient power that plagues so many portable USB hard drives when they're used with Powerbooks. For whatever reason, Powerbooks' USB ports just can't put out enough juice to run most portable USB drives, while their FireWire ports are able to do so comfortably.

External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

Hello Everyone,
I am hoping that one of you fine mac experts may be able to assist ~
Problem: External Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB external hard drive
won't mount on desktop=ie: no access to my important files.. Please Help!
Details:
External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
(using for document / file backup-not as a startup disc)
on my Mac G3 350 MZ Blue & White Tower /768 ram/ running OSX 10.1.5 & OS9.2~
~
Problem: Started using the external 500 GB HD 2 months ago -with no problems-until this morning. Tried to double click to open it to access files
and got the "beach ball of death" and needed to restart.
My trusty G3 started up fine, however, the external HD was now
not showing up on the desktop as normal. I troubleshooted -by restarting,
trying different a/c plugs/ different USB ports , ran disk utility..called
seagate -not much help . Seagate said to try the HD on another mac-which I did-
a G5 tower- same problem.
~
The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
and when click "mount" same two messages keep showing:
message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
mount.please use disk utility to check the disk"
~
message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
restart:" you have inserted a disk containg no volumes that mac osx
can read to use unreadable volumes,click initialize to continue with the disk inserted ,click continue"
~
( I really need access to these files- and do not want to re-initialize the HD!!)
I ran Disk Utility /first aid "verify & repair , the following info came up:
Repairing disk "main backup 2007 ".
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length ( <<<IN RED )
Repair completed. "
~~
Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
still comes up when re-running disk utility...Hard drive would still not
mount on desktop-even after restarting .
~~~~~
If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
appreciated. I have tried to call seagate several times in the last several hours-
1st time-they disconnected me after being on hold 10 minutes-2nd call
I was put on hold for 40 minutes ..Finally spoke to someone ( they are not mac users or mac experts!)and he said I would need to send it to Seagate's Data Recovery-... for a fee of course!
~~~
At this point, I am hoping to just get the files and photos off
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what version?
Thank you very much!
L

Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
If you boot from the CD and run it from the CD, absolutely yes. If you attempt to INSTALL it from a download or a CD, probably not.
Have you ever used Disc Warrior and is using it complicated?
I own and use Disk Warrior. You select the drive to be rebuilt, it builds a proposed new directory from the information and file fragments available.
When complete, it will provide a list of problems encountered, tell you what files have been placed in the "Rescued Items" folder, and allow you too look at your drive using the proposed new directory. Your only decision is whether the new directory seems to be an improvement over the old \[in your case, hopelessly corrupted] directory. You then tell it whether to replace the old directory with the proposed new directory, or to abandon its work and leave your Hard Drive unchanged.
Is there a good chance that the ext HD will still have my files on it- or do you think from what I've described that they are gone ?
From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
My other thought was to take the external HD there and have them try to recover the files.
Make sure you completely understand the costs involved. File recovery using a service like DriveSavers can run into many hundreds of dollars. They are prepared to disassemble your drive in a clean room and replace controller boards and read/write heads to achieve success. Your drive has serious, but not fatal, Directory damage. The Hardware, and most of your files, are likely just fine.

External hard drive won't mount, even after disk repair.

My Toshiba external hard drive won't mount on my MacBook Pro 10.8.5. I can see it in my disk repair, and when I repair, "the partition map appears to be ok." But I can't access the icon to be able to open the hard drive contents on my desktop. Help!

Hello maccynicwhoalwayshasmacs,
Thanks for the question. After reviewing your post, it sounds like trouble with an external HD mounting. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you resolve or isolate the issue.
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Have a nice day,
Mario

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Hello all.
I have a MacBook Pro mid 2012 (specs below) which has two USB 3.0 ports. I have a Kingston USB 3.0 stick and a Toshiba 1TB USB 3.0 external hard drive. With Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks, both stick and hard drive worked fine, but since I updated to OS X 10.10 Yosemite, both work as USB 2.0 devices, with slow transfer speed and, in the case of the hard drive, it has a blue/white LED that indicates the mode (blue = USB 3.0 / white = USB 2.0) and it only lights up with white color.
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Hi jesusbet,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
It sounds like the USB 3 ports on your MacBook Pro are not operating at the expected speed.
The first troubleshooting step I'd suggest in this case is to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your MacBook Pro using these instructions:
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Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.
From:
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
If the symptom continues, you can also reset the PRAM:
OS X Yosemite: Reset your computer’s PRAM
These two hardware resets can resolve many unexpected behaviors that affect hardware on a Mac.
All the best,
Jeremy

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-mj
[email protected]

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Snow Leopard's Startup Disk pref can’t see Yosemite volumes. So the only way to switch from Snow Leopard to Yosemite is to do what Niel mentioned. Doesn't matter whether it's connected by USB or Firewire, although performance via FW would be faster.
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USB 3.0 external hard drive won't stay connected

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