Why are my external drives un-mounting themselves?

Since installing OS Lion, my external G-tech drives have un-mounted themselves at least twice. Anybody got any ideas as to why?
Also, other than powering the external drives down, then re-powering them up again, so iMac can detect them, is there a wat to refresh and detect the drives without power down and up?
Thanks, Schooner

Doing a SMC reset can sometimes fix mount and dismount issues.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.

Similar Messages

External Drive Not Mounting (iPod too)

Just got a new MacBook and when I initially attached my external drive, it mounted. I ejected it properly and when I attached it again, it no longer mounts. What happened and how to fix?
My iPod, on the other hand, never mounted.

Are you connecting the drive and iPod over firewire or over USB, Maan?
If its firewire, then it is possible that your FW port needs to be reset. To do this disconnect all devices , unplug the power adaptor and remove the battery. Wait fifteen to twenty minutes. Connect everything back up again and see if it is now working. (Mac Firewire ports are protected by a self resetting fuse. This process resets it. If possible you may want to try a new FW cable. Defective cables can often be the cause of these sorts of problems).
If it is a USB connection, try a PRAM reset - shut down the computer completely, then start up holding down the command (ie apple) option p r keys. Keep the keys pressed until the chimes have sounded three times.
If you still have no joy, post back.
Cheers
Rod

All external Drives stopped mounting after repair disk permissions

My 2.3 GhzPPC G5 10.4.11 was running a bit slow so I ran repair disk permissions and now none of my external drives will mount, can't see them in disk utility either.
Drives work fine on my macbook pro.
I've searched for help but no luck..
Thanks for any advice...

Neil, you really should repair the disk before repairing permissions.
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Tiger Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
How to reset the SMU on a Power Mac G5 (Late 2004) or Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) ...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1436

Why is my external drive nt backing up my computer???

why is my external drive nt backing up my computer??? i tried endless time to set up time machine in order to automatically back up my files. it starts backing up a few MB's of files and then i get a message that an error occurred while backing up files thus making the backing up a failure. what gives? i tried formatting the external drive. checked utility disk for restoring permissions, etc....

hi there, i'm afraid i dont know what u mean. i can copy files manually and open them in another mac, but to copy all the files will take me forever. i want to erase everything on my mac so that i can re-install the software...

[solved] External drive automatically mounted as read-only

Hi folks,
I have a strange issue with an external drive automatically mounted as read-only whenever I plug it to my laptop :
[sclarckone@archLaptop ~]$ mount
/dev/sdb1 on /run/media/sclarckone/dd type ntfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=100,fmask=0177,dmask=077,nls=utf8,errors=continue,mft_zone_multiplier=1,uhelper=udisks2)
And I can't remount it as read-write :
[sclarckone@archLaptop ~]$ sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/sdb1
mount: cannot remount /dev/sdb1 read-write, is write-protected
But of course, I'm able to mount it as read-write on other operating systems.
I have udisks and udisks2 installed on my system. I also belong to the storage group so I thought I could mount a filesystem as a normal user but I can't :
[sclarckone@archLaptop ~]$ mount /dev/sdb1 dd/
mount: only root can do that
I don't know whether it is relevant to this problem, but I have systemd and polkit installed as well... Does anybody has an idea of where the problem could come from ?
Thanks for your help !
Last edited by sclarckone (2012-12-13 21:45:04)

Check out following file :
/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.udisks.policy
Look for mount a device and It should have configuration like :
<action id="org.freedesktop.udisks.filesystem-mount">
<description>Mount a device</description>
<description xml:lang="da">MontÃ©r en enhed</description>
<message>Authentication is required to mount the device</message>
<message xml:lang="da">Autorisering er pÃ¥krÃ¦vet for at montere et fil system</message>
<defaults>
<allow_any>no</allow_any>
<allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>

Why are my external hard drives always spinning up?

DESKTOP MAC.
I came home to my Mac after a day away, and found one of my external hard drives had been running apparently all day. The only thing I had open was Camino and iTunes, and also Activity Monitor.
DESKTOP MAC.
I often find the other hard drive(s) spin up at seemingly random times, for instance as soon as I sat down and started browsing the Web, the other external hard drive also spun up.
Why? I didn't do anything which would call for them to be active.
Is there any way to tell if certain applications have incorrectly placed important files on the external HD's (i.e. Safari putting its cache there, or iTunes linking to songs on an external)?
Are there utilities which can tell me which applications are banging on which disks or volumes?
DESKTOP MAC. Not laptop. Please do not give answers which use the words "sleep", "clamshell" or "battery". Again this is a desktop Mac not a laptop.
Oh and one other thing. It's a desktop Mac. Not a laptop. External drives are USB. Also it's a desktop Mac.

If it is a desktop machine, you want the hard drives to keep running all the time; it is disastrous to their longevity to be stopping and starting repeatedly.
I have a Seagate (that is NOT a recommendation) that I bought at a local PC outlet, and it insists on stopping and starting every 35 seconds or so, when I am not using the machine.
I found the utility Keep Drive Spinning on Apple’s web site ( www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/systemdiskutilities/keepdrivespinning.html ) and I added it to my login items. During the boot process, it shows a dialogue; I click on a volume on the drive and type in 33 (seconds).
Thanks, Jon Stovell!!
p.s. There is a setting “Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible” in System Preferences: Energy Saver. This should be off, for the same reason; this is strictly for laptops, in my opinion.
p.p.s. If I leave my machine on, while I am not using it for a day or so, I put it to Sleep; under those circumstances, Keep Drive Spinning does allow the machine to sleep properly.

Why does my external drive disappear from my desktop?

I am switching from PC to Mac. I have 2 externaldrives. Both have been formatted in FAT 32 by the MAC. When I plug them in the desktop and finder see them, then with both of them they have disappeared from the desktop and from finder. Still can be seen in disk utility and system profiler. How can I find them and why does this happen?

If you daisy chained then try without. May not be enough power to handle both at sme time. Other than that read some info:
1. Shut-down your Mac, and unplug the power cord
2. Turn the power off on your external FireWire devices
3. Unplug the FireWire devices from the Mac
4. Wait for 5 min.
5. Plug the power cord to your Mac only
6. For PPC Macs: Restart the Mac while holding the Option-Apple-O-F, and keep holding until you get the ">" prompt, then release the keys
7. At the ">" prompt type:
      reset-nvram and hit the Return key
      set-defaults and hit the Return key
      reset-all and hit the Return key
the last command will restart your mac
8. Shut down your Mac
9. Connect all your FireWire devices to the Mac and turn them on
10. Restart your Mac.
All your FireWire devices should reapear, if not repeat the procedure
How to avoid the issue :
The only really proven way to avoid burning up a FireWire port is to connect all devices and to turn them on PRIOR turning on the Mac. Likely, one must unplug them and turn them off AFTER the Mac has been turned off. If you need to connect another device, then you're on for a shutdown of your machine...  It's a tad annoying but it guarantees that the FW ports won't be damaged.  Be careful when using self powered devices such as webcams, iPods, hard drives or hubs, as they can destroy the port pretty easily. Another thing is to avoid daisy-chaining hard drives.
When the FW port doesn't respond anymore :
In this case, peripherals won't be mounted upon plugging, and won't be displayed in Apple's System Profiler. The self powered devices will still be fed by the port, but won't respond either.  It happens that the PHY just hangs after a surge or a random problem. Once hung, the port will not respond any longer, it is possible to reset the component by going through the following steps :
1° boot the PPC mac in Open Firmware by holding [ Apple key - Option - O - F ] after the startup chime.  2° you'll get to a command prompt. the keyboard mapping will be QWERTY, so pay attention when you type the following :  RESET-NVRAM (enter)  RESET-ALL (enter)  3° Now the mac should restart itself and the port should function properly again.  If it still doesn't work, then it means that the PHY is damaged.
http://www.hardmac.com/articles/16/
From Kappy post:
922 is only used in dual drive cases to provide a "build-in firmware RAID support"
912 or 912+ is FW800, the "+" means USB2
911 is FW400
924 adds eSATA support along with FW400/800
MacSales, OWC Tech Support library is where I would go first, as they do tend to have or links to, firmware updates for Oxford.
From Wiebetech:
I just upgraded my Mac OS, and now I'm having trouble with my FireWire device. What can I do?
A: With nearly every OS update Apple releases, some external drives are not recognized after the update. The typical symptom is that the device will not mount but the volume is visible and grayed out in Disk Utility. This means that the device is working properly, but the OS does not recognize the volume as mountable. Sometimes the drive does not show up at all.
The first thing to do is to see if repairing Permissions with Apple's Disk Utility First Aid feature solves the problem. If not, try repairing the disk with First Aid. Another possible solution is to zap the PRAM. This is done with a keyboard command while rebooting. Restart your computer and hold down the Command, Option, P and R keys. Consult the Apple web site for details.
If this does not work, then try pushing the PMMU reset button on the logic board. Consult the Apple web site for locations of the button for your Mac. If the drive still does not show up, shut down, disconnect all peripheral devices, and boot from the Mac OS Installation CD. The later the OS version, the better. Do not reinstall the OS, but when the Installer is loaded up and ready to begin, go to the File menu and use the Disk Utility program. Connect the drive that is having problems, then start the Disk Utility application. If you see the external drive and it is not grayed out, you know the drive is okay. Run Disk First Aid on it anyway. Then run it on your internal boot drive while you are at it. When done, unmount the external drive and UNPLUG it! Then restart the Mac.
When the Mac has restarted and is running on the internal boot drive, reconnect the external drive.

External Drive not mounting anymore. HELP!

I was messing with permissions. I was trying to restrict others from using my external drive. I do know that I never removed myself. Now I see that my external LaCie 250GB drive will not mount. Both 'Disk Utility' and 'Disc Warrior' see and 'repair' the hard drive, but it still does NOT mount on the desktop. What can I do? Please help!
Robert
Dual 2.5 GHz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 60GB Video iPod

I opened a 'Terminal' window and discovered that it appears I changed the owner. My username is bobbysteele. I changed it from 'admin' to my username (it's truncated - bobbyste). The permissions on the external drive are as follows:
d---rwx--- 16 bobbyste bobbyste 646 Jan 7 08:01 Jukebox01
It appears the permissions should be drwxr-xr-x because that is the setting for all other drives and folders. How can I change the permissions? Please help.

External drives not mounting

My external drives are not mounting on my desktop. When I chekck my about this mac, more info, system report, firewire the message is Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices.
Just out of the blue my FireWire 800 externals don't mount? Have mounted all of them to my MacBookPro no problem. Not daisey chained simple front and back worked just fine now nothing.
Anyone have a solution?
Thanks in advance,
Mark

Mine take a very very long time to mount then they will not sleep even when unmounted. The firewire driver in Mavericks needs some work. If at all possible, I would use USB until the driver get's resolved.

What are best external drives for Leopard Time Machine?

Would appreciate advice. I'm getting a MBPro with Leopard. I notice a discussion says Maxtor is not formatted for Time Machine. Is there a list of external drives that are ready to go?
Many thanks, I'm not too swift at my age at this stuff.
Ralph

<pre>
Name : WD
Type : Disk
Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partition Table
Disk Identifier : disk2
Media Name : WD 5000AA External Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : FireWire
Connection ID : 40718544432098240
Device Tree : /PCI0@0/PCIB@1E/FRWR@3/node@90a94ce8a56bc0/sbp-2@c000/@0:0
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : External
Total Capacity : 465.8 GB (500,107,862,016 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 0
</pre>
and
<pre>
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk2s2
Mount Point : /Volumes/G5iMacTimeMachineBackup
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : FireWire
Device Tree : /PCI0@0/PCIB@1E/FRWR@3/node@90a94ce8a56bc0/sbp-2@c000/@0:2
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : 2BEBF1BD-2C4A-344A-A86F-B3B426205A66
Capacity : 465.4 GB (499,763,888,128 Bytes)
Free Space : 338.0 GB (362,963,013,632 Bytes)
Used : 127.4 GB (136,800,874,496 Bytes)
Number of Files : 1,380,202
Number of Folders : 152,237
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : No
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 2
</pre>

Why does the external drive not show up on the desktop.

My wife has a G5 (iSight). When we turn on the external drive it does not mount. We have tried restarting the iMac with the external drive on and it still does not show up. What is the problem and what is the fix?
Thanks

Is it by chance a WD MyBook? They are known for problems like that. Could be the cable -- try a different one. Or it could be the Firewire port on the computer. Try a different port on the computer or on the external, if it has one. Have a look at this Apple article with other troubleshooting steps.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Message was edited by: WZZZ

ExFAT formatted external drive not mounting in Mavericks?

Hi all,
I'm wondering if anyone is experiencing this issue. I have an external usb drive (WD MyBook) that was formatted to the ExFAT filesystem under OS 10.8. The problem is that the drive is no longer readable by systems that have been upgraded to Mavericks. Disk utility on these systems can see the volume, but cannot mount the ExFAT partition. Disk Repar returns an error to the effect that the drive is faulty. Mind you, I can still mount this drive on any machine that is not running Mavericks, so it makes me sceptical that the drive itself is soley at fault.

peacedotnik
I'm wondering if anyone is experiencing this issue. I have an external usb drive (WD MyBook)
You should NOT connect any WD MyBook right now under Mavericks, you have a high likelihood of severe data corruption
WD is telling its customers to REMOVE WD SOFTWARE especially on WD MyBook
keep your WD MY BOOK unconnected right now until a resolution unless you have a backup of ALL DATA on your MyBook stored elsewhere
http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/bd-p/passport_mac
Also,..
If you have a RAID setup, data corruption is possible. Exact source determination has not been made yet.
Until there is resolution, keep all RAID setups unconnected and consider other means for backup, such as simplex USB non-RAID backup.
Bill_S
Community Manager WESTERN DIGITAL
External Drives for Mac Experiencing Data Loss with Maverick OS (10/30/13)
There are reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). Western Digital is urgently investigating these reports and the possible connection to the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications.
Until the issue is understood and the cause identified, WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications on their systems before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading. If you have already upgraded to Mavericks, WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer. WD has removed these software applications from our web site solely as a precaution as we investigate this issue.
Wait for resolution of this occurance.
Peace

WD external drive not mounting

I just purchased a brand new WD My Passport 500GB external drive to go with my wife's new Macbook Air, which we recently updated to Mavericks 10.9.
However, the drive will not mount and is not even recognised in Disk Utility.
Any suggestions?
Ironically, her old PC formatted drive that's 5 years old mounts with no problem.

You are powering the drive from USB?
That's a terrible idea, except for travel drives.
The power consumption is at or above the maxiumum safe output for USB plugs. Its dicey for reliability and can overheat things and do damage.
So yes, either get a powered USB hub or buy a real, full-sized, plug-it-in-the-wall drive, or see if your WD drive as a power connector and yu can buy a wall adapter.
Grant

MyBook External Drive Stopped Mounting

I recently unplugged my external drive so I could move my laptop. I have done many times before without issue. When I plugged the firewire cable back into the computer, the drive did not mount. I rebooted, then rebooted pressing option + command + p + r, then I unlugged, took out the battery, held down the power for 10 seconds and rebooted. Nothing -- in system profiler, it says unrecognized device under firewire. This has happened before, but rebooting a few times usually solves the problem. Any ideas?

I spent about an our turning the drive off for five-ten minutes, then rebooting the drive and the computer. Eventually it just showed up again and appears to be working fine. I think this is an apple thing -- I have had the same thing happen with other drives. The computer just stops finding it. I suspect this is why they offer no support for use of external drives. Anyhow, thanks for the help.

I am migrating to a new iMac via TimeMachine back up. My iPhoto libraries are on external drive. I'd like to migrate only the internal hard drive data to the new internal Drive then just plug in iPhoto library drive. Is this going be a problem?

I am migrating to a new iMac via TimeMachine back up. My iPhoto libraries are on an external drive. Both drives are backed up on Time Machine. I'd like to migrate only the old internal hard drive data to the new internal Drive and then just plug in iPhoto library drive to the new iMac. This would save having to transfer several hundred GBs of data. Will this work using Set Up Assistant?

Your user account on the new Mac must have a different UID than on the old one. See the pink box in Problems after using Migration Assistant for an explanation.
You'll need to change the permissions on the iPhoto library on the external HD. Do a Get Info on it, click the padlock at the bottom of the Sharing & Permissions section of the Info window and enter your Admin password.
Then click the plus sign, select the user account you want on the next screen, and click Select. Then change Read only to Read & Write for that user via the little arrows. Finally, click the "gear" icon and select Apply to enclosed items. That may take a few mintutes on a large library.

Why are my external drives un-mounting themselves?

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