Why won't my computer recognize my external hard drive anymore?

I have an external hard drive I was using all morning. This afternoon, the hard drive isn't showing up on my desktop. It does show up in my system profiler under usb. When I go to disk utility to repair it, it isn't there. Please help!!!

No. Any other external drive I plug in works. This particular one, I was using the morning before it disappeared. I know the drive works with this computer I have been using it with this computer for months with no problems. It shows up in the system profiler (image 1), but not in disk utility (image 2) or on my desktop (image 3)

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Why won't my mac recognize an external hard drive?

I purchased an external hard drive to back up my mac. When I plug it into the USB ports, the computer does not recognize it. I've tried all of the USB ports on the computer. I know the drive is okay because my laptop does recognize it.

How do you know it's not recognized and how is it formatted?

Why won't my Extreme recognize an external Hard Drive?

Just bought a new Apple Airport Extreme (my first Apple product and not happy) and connected an external Hard drive to it via USB but I can't get my PC to recognize it. I can see it when I log into the extreme under utilities but that is it. I tried 3 different hard drives, 2 are in FAT32 and the larger one is NTFS. I followed Apple's instructions under disk sharing and still nothing.
I would greatly appreciate any advice to get this working.

Good evening.
Only drives that are formatted in FAT32 or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) will be compatible with the USB port on the AirPort Extreme. NTFS and exFAT are not supported.
Unfortunately, we have few Windows users here, and I am not one of them, but one of the Apple Support documents below provides 3 methods for PCs to connect to a drive at the AirPort Extreme. The other provides general information about format compatibility.
Hopefully, one of the PC guys will post soon to provide additional information.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1331
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2426
I believe that you have 90 days of free phone support with a new Apple product, so you might want to explore that route as well.
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/

Why doesn't my iMac recognize my external hard drive?

I updated my imac from leopard to snow leopard to lion. I plugged in MY Book external hard drive, which had been working, but now it is not recognized. I went to the disk utility but all the First Aid buttons are greyed out and I can't do anything. I can't back it up anyplace because its not recognized. What do I do??
How do I upgrade the Firmware, which is one suggestion I read in the forum? The My Book was separated into to sections, but I also upgraded my Mac Book Pro to Lion, so it doesn't work there either. Double trouble!!

Go to finder .
Apps
You see 1 app or nothing like bootcam or idisc
put your mouse behind apps and you see hide klick whith your mouse on this and enjoy.now you see idisc and
Your computer.
Greetings Hans

Why won't my MacBook recognise my external hard drive?

I've just upgraded to a new MacBook.
I have a Maxtor Mini4 external hard drive which I used with my old iBook G4 (running OSX 10.4).
When I connect the hard drive to my MacBook it isn't recognised (it doesn't appear in Finder and the MacBook doesn't acknowledge the existence of the hard drive in any way).
I've downloaded the Maxtor software and installed it successfully on the MacBook.
Any ideas on why the MacBook doesn't recognise the hard drive? (the hard drive is powered by USB - it has no external power cord).
I still have my iBook and it continues to recognise the hard drive, so there is no problem with the drive.
Thanks
Nick

Mac Medic ([email protected]) wrote:
Are there two USB plugs connected to the wire coming out of the drive? Do you see the drive in your System Profiler? Even if it doesn't mount, it should show up in there.
I second that suggestion as the first thing your should look at. I had a SimpleTech drive that worked off of one port on a certain PC, but didn't mount with a single plug on any of my Macs. It always showed up in the USB Tree in System Profiler although I'm guessing it gave up trying to mount after sampling the power output.
The USB ports are likely to be and sometimes there are enough differences in the power output of two USB ports that a bus-powered hard drive can work in one but not the other. In general it's because a bus-powered device doesn't properly work with a standard spec 2.5W USB port.

Why won't my iMac recognise my external hard drive?

I have a new 2012 iMac 27" and it won't recongnise my external hard drive. It's a Seagate GoFlex desk adapter USB 3.0 and will not come up in Finder or Disk Utility. I'm new to Macs andk unsure what to do.

Are you correctly using one of the new required "USB 3 Compatible" cables for the connection? A "USB 2" Rated cable will not work.

My Macbook Pro won't let me use my external hard drive anymore, Help!

Every time I go to time machine it has my internal hard drive as the back up drive, when it should be my external hard drive. When I tried to select my external hard drive it doesn't do anything, it goes right back to the internal hard drive. Time machine and my external hard drive had worked the night before and I havent had any problems backing it up until I loaded Mountain Lion. I dont know if that could be one of the reasons or not. Also the hard drive is almost full, however I thought that this couldn't be the problem because I have it set to automatically delete stuff when full. Also the ownership is not set and I can't enable it. I have looked around and there is not an "ignore ownership" box to check from get info... I am lost and somewhat new to macs so any help would be appreciated.

if she's not the only person with Mac and this problem - go to school network administrator, something wrong.
If there are other people with macs and without this problem - compare network settings.
Also disabling 'Stealth mode' can help sometimes.
see p8 here to find setting.

Why can't I connect to my external hard drive anymore through my AirPort extreme?

I have a WD 500 GB external hard drive connected to my AirPort extreme that I have been using just fine for some time now. All of a sudden, I cannot access the files on the hard drive and when I try to connect to my AirPort in finder, the connection fails. What can I do to fix this?

If I restart my Mac it notices them
This is puzzling. You should not have to restart your Mac for drives to mount.
Also I plugged the hard drive directly into my Mac and had to restart it before it noticed it
Same as above. You should not have to restart the Mac for the drive to be recognized.
Connect the drive directly to the Mac and restart the Mac if necessary to mount the drive. Then run Verify Disk using Disk Utility on the Mac. If repairs are needed, run Repair Disk. Locate Disk Utility as follows:
Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
See if the drive is recognized at the AirPort Extreme. Post on your results.

Why does my mac dont recognize the external hard drive

i log the external HD, the lights on the Hd are going on (means electricity goes) but i cant see the thing inside the HD
thank you som much for the help

There's a program in your Application's Utility folder called Disk Utility. Run it and see if the program sees the drive. If so, attempt to mount it. (There's a mount option in the toolbar.) The drive might need to be repaired. (The repair button is at the bottom right of the program window.)
If Disk Utility doesn't see the drive try another cable...and it is possible that even though the lights come on showing the enclosure has electicity, that the drive or electronics in the enclosure are dead.

MacBook pro does not recognize my WD external hard drive anymore

I use TIme Machine on my WD external hard drive. Everything was working great up until about a month ago. My MacBook Pro does not recognize my external hard drive anymore...I have done nothing differently than usual. I did search in previous discussions and tried rebooting both the hard drive and the computer.
The USB port is fine as it does recognize another external hard drive and also pen drives....Please help! I haven't backed up in a month and need to figure out how to get this to work soon. Should I call WD?

Does the WD drive show in Disk Utility?
Many times, a USB port simply cannot provide the power a hard drive needs. It is not uncommon for any electric motor to draw more power as it ages. A drive that worked before can stop working when it gets older because age has made it tak more power than any USB port can supply. There are a couple of cheap things to try:
1) A "Y" USB cable---two plugs go to the computer and one to hte drive, giving a power boost.
1 Meter USB 2.0 A to 5 Pin Mini B Cable - Auxiliary USB "Y" Power Design for external hard drives.
2) a POWERED USB hub. That takes the power delivery burden off the USB port so it can deal with data.
WD bare drives are fine but their enclosures are not very Mac-friendly. One thing that has reported helping is to get rid of the proprietary formating that WD puts on their drives. If you don't have to share the drive with a Windows computer, use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the drive to Macintosh Extended Journaled.

My notebook won't recognize my external hard drive

my notebook won't recognize my external hard drive. I can safely remove it, but when i look for it on my computer its not there?

Disable Time Machine from System Preferences.
Choose Select disk button, remove the old TM backup disk and add the new one.

I recently updated the software on my MacBook Pro. Now, my computer no longer recognizes my external hard drive. Could this be related to the software update and, if so, how do I correct the problem?

I Recently updated the software on my MacBook Pro. Now, my computer no longer recognizes my external hard drive. Could this be related to the software update and, if so, how do I correct the problem?

Ari343 wrote:
No, the external hard drive does not show up on Disk Utility. I don't have another computer to try it on.
Perform a PRAM reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
Have you tried all the ports?
Have you tried with a different cable?
Have you tested all the ports with other devices to see that they are functioning?
Ciao.

How do I get my computer to recognize my external hard drive

How do I get my computer to recognize my external hard drive?

Turning the power on definitely helps!

Why does my iMac (with Mountain Lion) no longer recognize my external hard drive I have used as a back up via Time Machine after the hard drive was accidentally unplugged?

Why does my iMac (with Mountain Lion) no longer recognize my external hard drive I have used as a back up via Time Machine after the hard drive was accidentally unplugged?

Do you mean the external hard drive is not mounted on the iMac desktop?
Check if Disk Utility sees the drive. Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility. If the external shows up in the left column, select it and click on Mount.
If it does show up this way, I recommend using DU to Repair Disk.

USB won't recognize my external hard drive!!

Greetings all,
I am having trouble gettng my PB to recognize my external hard drive through the usb port. The drive is formatted for pc but supposedly this shouldn't be a problem...as per every manual I have looked at regarding this topic. I connected it to a friend's iBook today and it picked it up right away. That just makes the problem even more irritating. The usb port works fine when connecting my camera so it obviously works. I haven't tried to reformat the drive yet because, like I mentioned, it works fine on my friends iBook.
Would someone please offer some comments or suggestions on to resolve this issue?
Thanks

Hey everybody,
Check out the Bluetooth-USB-FIREWIRE-RAM discussions......look for "external USB 2.0 problem".......there are quite a number of people who are expereincing this problem which seems to be only with the newer 15" PBs.
If anyone knows how to get APPLE techies to examine this issue and let us know that they are working on the problem......please let me know.
I have had this PB for about a month or so and in addition to the external USB drive issue I have already had the logic board replaced due to a faulty lower RAM slot.
I am loving the OS and I am new to macs......but overall I am extremely dsappointed with the quality of this $3000 machine.
I hope APPLE will wake up and acknowledge these issues.
I have talked with APPLE "SERVICE" reps who were completely unaware of these recurring issues. This just boggles me considering how easy it is to open up any discussion board and notice posts highlighted in blue with large numbers following them.....implying some sort of problem and many dissatisfied customers.

Why won't my computer recognize my external hard drive anymore?

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