Why won't my external drives show up on my desktop?

i have tried going to the disk utilities and remounting my external drives and checked for an option in system prefs, but my external drives (both flash drive and hard drive) just won't show up on my desktop. My computer isn't even a week old!

Go to Finder Preferences (Preferences in the Finder menu).
On the General tab, make sure the items you want shown are checkmarked.
Ditto on the Sidebar tab, for items you want shown in the Sidebar of Finder (folder) windows.

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Why won't my external drive mount in Lion when it will mount in Snow Leopard?

Hello,
I have an external hard drive, a Rocstor Arcticroc 4T, that will not mount on my Mac Pro running OS 10.7.4. It will mount when I connect it to my other system running OS 10.6.8, or when I boot to an alternate partition on the same system running OS 10.6.8. I've tried using the latest versions of Disk Warrior and Drive Genius to repair/rebuild/reformat the drive with no success.
When I boot to OS 10.7.4 the disk shows up in Disk Utilities, but the volume is grayed out. When I select the volume and try to mount it I get the following error: "The disk "Media 3" could not be mounted. Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting." I've run repair disk numerous times, with no errors reported.
There is no media on the drive, so I can re-partition, reformat or change the RAID configuration with no consequences.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-Jim

the drive case needs drivers and or firmware. Happens all the time esp. with many makes and vendors due to the bridge it uses, that does the SATA drive <=> to FW/USB/etc to your Mac and whether you use FW800/400 or USB2 or even eSATA (w/ a PCIe SATA controller).
If you are using native SATA and an PCIe SATA controller.... tell us! and the vendor needs to provide drivers that are not included with Lion. Lion just 'broke' support it has had with Snow Leopard.
As for RAID - a RAID created with SL will not always support Lion for booting or mount. Happened with 10.3.9 too. And SL would not install on a RAID created with Leopard. See the pattern emerging?

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Is the OS on your daughters system where the drive works the same as on the iMac where it causes the OS to crash? You used the same cables when you ran it on the other system, correct? If you still have access to your daughters machine it would be interesting to se how the drive is formatted. Not sure it would tell us much but it would be nice to know.
At this point if it were me I would reinstall the OS and see if that makes a difference. It's relatively easy and to be honest if you had Apple look at it it is most likely what they would do first. We could go back and forth with crash logs and all but an OS reinstall is really your next best step. As long as you do not do an erase of the disk before the reinstall you'll not affect your data, only the OS bits will get rewritten.
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regards
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It doesn't make sense.
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Turns out it was nothing to do with the OS update, it was just a loose cable plug connecting my FireWire/USB hub to the computer. But your tip is a good one -- I'd been wondering why the external drives (even when mounted properly) weren't showing up in the sidebar. Thanks!

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I have an external hard drive that I have been using for years. All of a sudden my mac will not recognize the external as a "save as" device location. But the external does show up on my desktop and I can open it to drag and drop items. Help.

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Hi,
Check Finder>Preferences>Sidebar, is it checked there to show external drives?

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So I downloaded mavericks when it came out and now one of my external hard drives will not open but disk utility Will recognize the hard drive but I cannot access the lights on the hard drive work you can feel it spinning but it just won't access I've tried everything I know the hard drive fine why won't my Mac read my drive?

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually login automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

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I have an iPhone 4 running IOS 4.3.5 and a Macbook Pro running 10.7.1 and iTunes 10.4.1 (b10).
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I've tried multiple iPhone cables, tried rebooting the machine.
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When I plug in the phone it goes to charging mode, so I know that a connection is being made.
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I have a Mybook Studio Edition external drive that I am using to store files and as a backup for my macbook leopard using time machine. I wanted to add files from my imac tiger but it does not show up in disk utility and the system profiler says unrecognized drive. I don't remember formatting it - it was just plug and play out of the box. Does this mean it is formatted for Leopard and won't work on tiger?
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The imac is:
2.4 ghz
3gb ram
300gb drive
10.4.11
the macbook is
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300gb drive
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Hello,
On the iMac ... Try repairing disk permissions. Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select FirstAid, then click: Repair Disk Permissions. Quit DU when it's finished and reboot.
Carolyn

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I have a FANTOM external drive where I keep my music and photos, but recently I've been having a problem. I accidentally downloaded photos to my computer when the drive wasn't connected, and my computer seems to have created it's own directory (or partition, or something, I don't know) called FANTOM and put the photos there, but I can't find any way to access it.
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I finally tried exporting one of the photos from iPhoto, and the default location it comes up with to export the photo to is XXX's Computer/Macintosh HD/Volumes/FANTOM/Pictures/iPhoto Library. If I click OK, it seems to save the photo to that location - when I go back and export another photo, the first one I exported shows up in that folder. The only problem is, my FANTOM drive isn't actually connected. So where is it putting the photo?
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Has anyone experienced this before? The best explanation I can come up with is that my computer looked for my external drive, and when it didn't find it, it created another imaginary drive with the same name - but that doesn't explain why the ONLY time it actually shows me this directory is when I'm trying to export a photo from iPhoto (it doesn't show up as a drive in Finder), or why the files in that directory don't show up when I search "Everywhere" on my computer.
Thanks for your help.
iBook G3 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

HI
If you want to use match when your hard drive is not attached, I suggest that you create a new blank library then turn on match, you will see all your music in cloud. Hold option key whilst launching iTunes and select create new library. You can switch between libraries as required.
Jim

Why won't my external drives show up on my desktop?

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