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

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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.
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dakine2403 wrote:
Thanks a lot. I am sure I am doing somethign wrong but since the external hard drive can not be seen any more, I don't see it either in any one of my back ups. It does not show anywhere.
Also, my external drive gets detected sometimes, I run Repair Disk, it says it is fine, then it works for a while and then it stops working. I need to turn it off, then turn it back on and again it works for a while. I have run disk utility everyt time when the hard drive works and still says it is ok, then it stops working again after a while. Any ideas with either one of these problem ( or both)?
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I have an external hard drive (2T Newertech ministack). We had a power outage the other day. Even though the drive is on it no longer appears on the desktop. I went to Disk Utility and see if it could be repaired but the drive is not even showing up there. Does this mean the ministack was fried by the outage or is there another way I can save it? And yes, the finder preferences are on for external drives to show up on desktop.

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

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