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?

Similar Messages

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

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      I would greatly appreciate any advice to get this working.

    Good evening.
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    Hopefully, one of the PC guys will post soon to provide additional information.
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    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 won't my computer recognize my external hard drive anymore?

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

    I've just upgraded to a new MacBook.
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    Nick

    Mac Medic ([email protected]) wrote:
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  • Why won't my iMac recognise my external hard drive?

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    I can't see the external drive by pressing command + shift + c in Finder?
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  • Why doesn't my iMac recognize my external hard drive?

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    Go to finder .
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  • Why won't my MAC recognize a DVD with JPG...HELP!!!

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    A friend of mine turns out a lot of DVD's for and organization that he does photo work for and he has found
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  • Why won't my Mac recognize Verbatim Dual Layer blank DVDs?

    Why won't my Mac recognize Verbatim Dual Layer blank DVDs?
    I've just completed a 140 minute project in FCP. I've encoded an MPEG2 file that is 5.75GB in size. Brought into DVDSP and am trying to burn the DVD.
    I have Final Cut Studio 1, latest updates and everything.
    Because of the 5.75GB size I need to burn to Dual Layer DVD. I have Verbatim 4x 8.56GB dual layer DVDs.
    When I click buld/burn and pop in a dual layer DVD I get an error saying "please insert compatible disc".
    Even with every app closed. If I put one of these DVDs in my Mac it simply spits it out after about 20 seconds.
    For some reason the Mac won't handle or understand these Dual Layer DVDs.
    I bought this Mac Pro about 4 months ago and it is the 2 x 2.66Ghz Dual Core Intel Xeon machine and the DVD drive (according to system profiler) is a Pioneer DVD-RW DVD-111D. In system profiler it says "Pioneer DVD-RW DVD-111D"
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    In System Profiler under Revision it says: AB09 and under Protocol it says: ATAPI
    Can anyone advise please?

    If you have access to a pc into which you can install the 112, or if you have bootcamp, you can replace the Apple supplied firmware with Pioneer firmware. This should restore full functionality to the drive. The latest Pioneer firmware for the drive is version 1.21 and can be found here: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Firmware/SingleModel.aspx?DriveId=1426
    mac pro, dual 1.25 g4 - Pioneer 111d, LG H10, Plextor 716UF, LG 4163,Pioneer 112   Mac OS X (10.4.10)   dell 9200, dell xps 400 Benq 1650, Plextor Premium

  • Since I upgraded to 10.9.5, my macbook no longer recognizes my external  hard drive. How do I fix this?  External hard drive is a 1TB Toshiba formatted for mac.  Worked fine until latest upgrade.

    Since I upgraded to 10.9.5, my macbook no longer recognizes my external  hard drive. How do I fix this?  External hard drive is a 1TB Toshiba formatted for mac.  Worked fine until latest upgrade.

    Solved the problem by dumping my external HD onto another computer. Re-formatting and re-installing the data.  Not what I wanted to do but it solved the problem.

  • 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.

  • 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 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.

  • Can I boot mac from an external hard drive (internal hard drive hard drive closure)

    Model: Macbook Pro 2010 mid
    OS: OSX 10.9 Hard Drive: WD5000BPKT 500GB
    For some reason I need to change my perfectly working internal bootable drive to external bootable drive.
    I took out my internal hard drive, put it into closure, and then connected it to mbp with USB. But my mac cannot even recognize my external hard drive. It displays a folder with a question mark with grey background, which means it cannot find executable boot drive. I tried pressing option key during start up and nothing showed. Also, I tried resetting parameter RAM but still no luck. Any help will be appreciated.

    The reason is somehow complicated and most likely be related to the question itself, so I did not write it down. But here is the situation.
    I bought a new SSD to update my HDD. I found a software called carbon copy cloner, which could do a bootable clone. I tried to clone my original hard drive to SSD and turned out the SSD only worked when it was connected externally. After I seeking a while, I found a solution from CCC website: do the clone again with putting my original drive externally and the SSD internally (I think it is a bug of CCC.)
    You may say, "why not use time machine" instead of using a third party software. My answer is time machine is too slow, and I have to reinstall the OS. My focus is why my internal hard drive does not work externally since it should work.

  • Powerbook G4 won't detect USB 2.0 external hard drive

    I recently purchased a Toshiba USB 2.0 portable external hard drive. I have both 15' and a 17' Powerbook G4s that are running on OS X 10.4.11. When I attempted to connect the new hardware to each of the computers neither recognizes that anything has been connected. The external drive does not appear on the desktop, in disk utilities, or TechTool. Both computers have 2.0 USB ports and the external hard drive is compatible to a Mac, but I cannot figure out why it will not show up. I have tried all of the suggestions I could find in forums discussing similar problems such as trying to repair the permissions with the Disk Utility First Aid feature, resetting the PRAM, as well as resetting the PMU, but to no avail. When I connect the device to a Windows based PC it shows up immediately; however, when I try to see it using the Virtual PC side of my Mac I am still unable to visualize the drive. This problem is only occurring with external hard drives and not particularly just this brand--I have tried others and had the same problem. All of my other USB devices that I connect to these computers work fine. Can someone please help and tell me why my Powerbooks will not detect USB external hard drives. Thanks!

    External hard drive enclosures can be connected to computers in any of several ways. USB is one; FireWire is another. Some enclosures offer several different connection options: they may have any combination of USB2, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and eSATA ports. All G4 And G5 Macs have FireWire 400 ports, and can start up from an external hard drive that is connected to one of those ports. No G$ or G% Mac can be depended upon to start up from any external drive that is connected to a USB port, though it may happen in a few cases. Because a FireWire-capable drive is bootable, it's much more useful than a USB-only drive in any situation where a primary hard drive has failed or has become temporarily unbootable because of file or directory corruption.
    Bare hard drives nowadays come in two platter sizes: 2.5" for notebook computers and 3.5" for desktop computers. The sizes and shapes of their outside casings are tightly standardized to make them highly interchangeable. They also come in two types: Parallel ATA, also called IDE, PATA, or ATA-5, ATA-6 or ATA-7; and the newer Serial ATA, or SATA drives.
    External enclosures are made to accept either PATA or SATA drives — rarely both types. If you have an external drive with only a USB2 port, and you can see how to open the drive enclosure to reveal the bare drive inside, it may be to your advantage to order an empty FireWire enclosure and "transplant" your bare hard drive into it to get the benefits of higher speed, bootability, and adequate power that come with FireWire.
    External hard drive enclosures are designed to hold standard-sized bare hard drive units — the same units that can be mounted inside a desktop or notebook computer. An enclosure contains a place to mount the drive, a circuit board or two that mediates between the drive and the port to which you'll connect a USB or FireWire cable, and in the case of a 3.5" drive, sometimes a fan for cooling.
    Portable FireWire-connectable external hard drives seldom or never have the problem of insufficient power that plagues so many portable USB hard drives when they're used with Powerbooks. For whatever reason, Powerbooks' USB ports just can't put out enough juice to run most portable USB drives, while their FireWire ports are able to do so comfortably.

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