Why doesn't my external hard drive mount anymore?

Hi Apple genius'
I need some help here to avoid having to pay $$$ to send my hard drive off to be recovered. I was using it and deleting some old photos I'd not accessed in a long time and then the drive froze and crashed the computer. I had several apps open at the time and didnt think anything of it until I restarted the mba and the external drive didn't show. It doesn't appear in disk util, but does show in systen profiler (see attached pic). Is there any way I can get this drive back or does it need to be in the hands of the pros in a lab?
It's a western digital passport 1TB with a usb3.0 connection which has worked solidly since I bought it in Feb this year. I called the "tech support" who asked me to switch my mac off and on again then plug the drive in. Thanks WD! How helpful.
Can you guys out there help me?

Do you have a backup of your disk? If not, proceed at your own risk.
I would try to repair the disk using Disk Utility?
If that doesn't work... try DiskWarrior to repair the drive directory.
Beyond that you will need professional help to recover your data.

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Why won't my external hard drive mount?

Hi
I am having problems getting my new iMac to recognise an external hard drive. It is a 40gb Western Digital hard drive that I copied over photos and music from my old computer (not an Apple) on. When I plug it in to the USD port it recognises the hard drive but then drops it after about 2 minutes and then it won't recognise it again until I restart the computer at which point it recognises it again for 2 minutes.
The hard drive work's fine on my Thinkpad and my Dell desktop.
Can anyone help?
Thanks.

It doesn't make sense.
Anyway, I found the solutions. Download software for solving this problem.
Here is the link:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g

Why won't my external hard drive mount in Disk Utility even when it shows up on the list?

Hey all,
For the last few years I've used a Samsung S2 1TB external harddrive to back up all my files, this includes photos, music and a vast amount of resources required for Uni. However I plugged it in for the first time in about two months and discovered that neither my Macbook Pro (late 2011) or my Mac Mini (early 2013) are able to mount the hard drive.
It shows up in Disk Utilty however the harddrive is greyed out and when I manually try to mount it I get an error message saying that it can't be mounted and to use the first aid 'Repair disk permissions' feature which would be all good and well were that not also greyed out.
I've read a fair amount on this forum that suggest that Mavericks has caused quite an issue with harddrives and although I don't know for sure, the harddrive did stop working at a very similar time to when I updated. I've sinced used the basic version of 'Disk Drill' on the harddrive and all the files show up perfectly which leads me to believe that perhaps the issue isn't with the harddrive itself but perhaps a compatibility issue.
I was just wondering whether anyone had any advice or had suffered a similiar issue, preferably in relation to the Samsung S2 harddrive. The partition type is a Windows_FAT_32 and it's a USB hard drive.
Thanks in advance!

Because there's a problem with the disk's directory structure; these are often the result of improperly unplugging drives or forcing a computer to shut down. Proceed as instructed, or try using a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior to repair it.
(111975)

After installing Mountain Lion doesn't external hard drives mount or stay mounted. Anybody else with this major problem?

After installing Mountain Lion doesn't external hard drives mount or stay mounted.
I have tried resetting my Mac's PRAM but the problem still remains.
Even USB memory sticks are unmounted efter a few seconds.
Anybody else with this major problem?

I have the same problem, although mine has not been solved by ESET update, finder settings, PRAM & SMC resets or anything else.
Don't get it, my external hard drive still works on both my housemates computers - one macbook pro (with snow leopard) and one dell, just not on mine with mountain lion.
Any ideas for me guys?

Why won't my external hard drive show up anywhere? Something wrong abt NTFS.

Why won't my external hard drive show up anywhere? Something wrong abt NTFS. After my OS turn to OS X Lion, this problem occur. I couldn't solve it, anybody?

It doesn't make sense.
Anyway, I found the solutions. Download software for solving this problem.
Here is the link:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g

Why do my two external hard drives require "ejection" prior to shutdown?

Why do my two external hard drives require "ejection" upon shutdown?

Problem solved. I had plugged in my external hard drives into a USB card. I switched my two printers to the USB card and plugged in the two hard drives into the computer's USB outlets and now NO improper eject messages. What a relief!!! Thanks again.

TS1550 Do external hard drives mounted on my Mac get backed up by time machine on a time capsule wireless Apple external back up disk? How can I see what folders have been actually stored in the wireless back up disk?

Do external hard drives mounted on my Mac get backed up by time machine on a time capsule wireless apple external hard disk? How can I see what folders have been actually backed up in the external wireless disk? any help would be appreciated

They can provided you remove them from the Exclude list. Normally, Time Machine does not automatically backup external drives.

External Hard Drive Mounting Issues

Hi everybody!
Problem:
My G Technologies external hard drive mounts inconsistently since the Pro Tools session I was working on today crashed. When it does manage to mount my Trash Bin on the dock fills up with trash automatically and this trash cannot be emptied.
In addition I have been unable to even open up my external hard drive on the desktop once it has mounted--I get the infinite pinwheel of death! If it does open, I'll eventually get to a folder that upon opening also brings up the pinwheel of death. Each time this happens I am forced to manually shut down my computer. Any suggestions? You help would be GREATLY appreciated! Thank you in advance.
I'm using a MacBook Pro with OSX 10.4.11 and it has a Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The ports I'm using with the external hard drive is Firewire 800.

Try booting in safe mode and emptying the trash. Try doing a Finder - Secure Empty Trash deletion....
I believe your problems are related to large files that were marked for deletion not being deleted...

Time machine doesn't see external hard drive on network

I have a pair of external hard drives connected to my iMac, which is connected to my 2WIRE modem/router via Ethernet. I'm using one of them as a Time Machine drive. For the past couple years, I've been backing up the laptops in the house to that Time Machine drive without fail.
Now none of the laptops (a MacBook and an iBook) won't see either external drive connected to the iMac, even though the iMac has file sharing turned on (as it always has) and both laptops are connected to the iMac via the Finder. Both laptops can see the iMac and the external drives connected to it via the Finder, but in Time Machine, when I try to select my Time Machine drive, nothing appears in the window.
I was having a problem with the Time Machine drive and had to wipe and reformat it, but I don't understand why Time Machine won't see the other external drive either, even if there is a problem with the TM drive. I recall Time Machine picking up all available hard drives as possible backup destinations, as long as they're also seen in the Finder.
The iMac has been having some OS X issues. The Finder will crash sometimes, and I have no choice but to hold down the power button to shut it down and then start it up. When it starts, it takes longer than it normally does, I assume because it's checking and/or fixing some things. However, those issues have been going on for a long time (I think I need to reinstall OS X in it, since Disk Utility finds nothing wrong; also, the hard drive in the iMac crashed about 2 months ago and I put a new one in; I then restored the TM backup to it, and the OS X issues have persisted, which tells me it's software-related, not the drive).
Also, the iMac backs up to the Time Machine drive just fine. Of course, the TM drive is connected to it locally, whereas the laptops have to get to that drive via wireless file sharing.
I did try plugging one of the external hard drives on the iMac into my MacBook, and Time Machine saw it immediately, so my guess is the issue must lie with my router and/or the iMac, but I don't know what to check next. I've restarted the iMac, I've restarted the laptops, I've turned TM on and off on the laptops, and I've turned file sharing on and off on the iMac; none of those things reestablished the connection.
I suppose I could just go with external hard drives for the laptops, but my wife moves her iBook all over the house, so I know hers won't get backed up regularly. That was the nice thing about the system I had in place, which I realize wasn't as elegant as a Time Capsule.
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

That should say "Now none of the laptops (a MacBook and an iBook) will see either external drive..." I hate typos.
Anyway, after rereading my post, I'm starting to think I just need to reinstall OS X on the iMac, given the other issues it's experiencing. Any advice for doing that would be appreciated, if that's indeed the solution. Thanks.

Finder window in internet doesn't show external hard drive. But it's connected and shows up in normal finder window.

Mac OX X 10.6.8. My mac works great with my external hard drive (my passport). When I go to attach a file to facebook, email, or upload anything directly from my external, the finder window that pops up no longer shows my external as being connected. But when I go to finder on the macbook, it shows that my external is there and I can access files no problem. This JUST started happening. What's wrong?

The hard drive won't show up in finder or disk utility, however i can see it in airport utility.
You would not expect it to show up in disk utility .. it does not work on network drives.
Finder may or may not be able to see it.
If the airport utility is showing the drive you have some possibility.
Did you GUID partition the drive .. or is it still MBR.. ie if it was originally formatted for PC it will be MBR and won't work.. so put it on the Mac again and change the GUID partition.. I would also set a smaller partition size.. the internal drive of the TC is partitioned though you cannot see them.. put a first partition less than 1TB and see how it goes.
In finder.. don't forget ML has issues with network drive.. make sure you tick all the extras in finder preferences.. and if the drive won't mount try to do it manually.. go .. connect to server.
AFP://TCname or TCIPaddress.. where you use the actual name or IP.
Also is the power supply for the hub at least 2A preferably more.. so the hub is powered but the disk is not powered??

Why won't my external hard drive connect to my mac anymore

I have a 1 Terabyte external HD that I use for my timemachine back ups. I eject it whenever I need to use my laptop away from my desk and re-connect it so it will do an automatic back up. the other day, it would not eject at ALL, so I ended up having to shutdown my laptop and disconnect it. Later, when I went to reconnect it to the laptop, my Mac doesn't recognize it. I have rebooted the laptop and the external hard drive multiple times, but when I plug the HD into the laptop, the Mac still doesn't "sense" it. I can't do any backups at the moment.

From reading similar threads, and from my own experiences, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that:
* the drive must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journal), not FAT32, NTFS or other
* the drive must not be currently used as a time machine disk
* (theory) the drive must not have previously been used a time machine disk
From my own experiences, I had 3 externals that worked w/ iMovie 11 but not w/ FCP X. With some experimentation, I was able to confirm the above items.
- one drive was a TM disk, and just wasn't ever going to work. Annoying, but at least an identified issue (or bug)
- one drive was once a TM disk but I'd stopped using it as such. I'd manually deleted the backups on it, but suspect that TM likely leaves invisble files around to identify meta on file lists, exclusions, etc. Showing invisibles in finder listed a plethora of files that I wasn't willing to research. Went into disk utility, formatted as Extended Journaled, and the disk started to appear in project and event windows in FCP X.
- one drive was formatted as NTFS. I use Tuxera to read/write NTFS and this seemingly caused no problems in iMovie. With numerous threads discussing FAT32/NTFS incompatability, I opted to format this disk and then restore my old iMovie events and projects. Again, this resulted in the drive being visible in FCP X.
One note, as mentioned above, in the case of the disk wehere I restored old iMovie events/projects, the disk didn't immediately show in the events window (but did show projects immediately). The solution was to insure that the events window was grouping events by disk. The default layout hid away my external disk until I did this--and once grouped properly, I was able to then import my iMovie events into FCP X successfully.
Good luck...the support for exernal drives (and likely NAS) seems really poorly documented. I lost at least two days to this.

Time machine doesn't recognize external hard drive

Recently I went to the apple store to get help to switch from Mavericks to Mountain Lion (I had some problems with Mavericks). They used time machine to bring back my applications (from my external hard drive, LaCie) on the Mountain Liion software. They said my time machine/external hard drive should work the same when I got home. Now, when I go to back up my computer, time machine doesn't recognize that I've backed up my files before. In the past, when time machine was working, every time I plugged in my hard drive the icon for it would turn blue, time machine recognized it, and it would back up my files. Now, the icon for the hard drive shows up, but time machine doesn't recognize it.
Some other things:
- when I open my external hard drive on finder, it shows all of my previous back ups
- I used disk utility to check my hard drive and macintosh HD - both are OK
How can I use time machine to continue backing up files? Or am I going to have to partition or erase the hard drive and start a new back up?
Thank you in advance

nevermind! time machine suddenly recognized the disk after half an hour. sorry, I don't know how to delete this post!

External Hard Drive mounts, but can't be selected or opened

I have a 1 TB Western Digital external hard drive. When I plug it into the Firewire 800 port of my 13" Unibody MacBook Pro (running Snow Leopard), the drive shows up on my desktop and in Finder windows, but when I try to access the drive, or "select" it, I get the message "The alias "[name of drive]" can't be opened because the original item can't be found". If I select the fix it option, it gives me a finder window to identify the item to which I want it to refer (the hard drive), but when I select the hard drive in this window I get the same message. I've used Disk Utility to verify the disk and it says that it is fine. Also, I have two other external drives, a smaller WD drive and a smaller Seagate, and they both mount and are accessible. Any thoughts?

having the same issue with a mounting a hard drive that drovers is. any solutions? funny thing as that the drive will mount on a G5 running 10.5.8. have spent several hours on the phone with apple help to no avail. final suggestion was to wipe drive and reformat. cant't do this as I do not have enough space to back-up to. Would appreciate any suggestions.

[Solved] External Hard Drive mount point in fstab crashes launch

Hi there,
I have an external hard drive that I'd like to automount when I plug it in. Sometimes it seems to work, but other times I have to manually mount it. In order to make this a little easier, I copied the mounting info into my fstab file so that I could just run:
mount /dir/to/mount
However, now I can't actually boot up my machine unless the external drive is plugged in. I get some error from systemctrl saying one of the drives couldn't be loaded.
An obvious work around would be to write a one line script that mounts the drive for me, however, I'd like to learn how to do this correctly. I think the rules have changed a bit with systemd, as I didn't have this problem a few years ago.
Thanks for the help!
Last edited by B-80 (2015-05-17 08:14:08)

B-80 wrote:
Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
Add "nofail" to the options section.
EDIT: ...in /etc/fstab
Thanks for the answer, that fixed it.
You're welcome but I think Mr.Elendig's post gives the actual solution (my proposal is just a workaround -- using fstab for a filesystem that is not permanently attached is sub-optimal)

Why won't my external hard drive appear in Finder?

I have an Iomega 320GB SPHDU external hard drive which I was using as my backup disk for Time Machine and also to store other files (documents, photos, etc.). I have been using for some time now and never had any problems, however this morning, I plugged the hard drive into my MacBook Pro, which is from early 2011 and on operating system OS X 10.9.4, using the USB ports and the hard drive did not appear in Finder. I checked to see if it had appeared in Disk Utility which it does, but Disk Utility is telling me that the hard drive needs repairing. When I try to repair the hard drive, I get the message 'Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed up files.' As I said I have never had any problems with it before, but this has just occurred this morning and I'm unsure why it has happened.

Because there's a problem with the disk's directory structure; these are often the result of improperly unplugging drives or forcing a computer to shut down. Proceed as instructed, or try using a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior to repair it.
(111975)

Why doesn't my external hard drive mount anymore?

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