Why won't my macbook air recognize an external hard drive?

I have a new 2011 (August) Macbook Air and when I plug in any external hard drive to either one of my USB drive ports it does not recognize. Doesn't matter what device, doesn't matter what USB port it just will not recognize.
Help please!

Start a Finder window and on the menubar, Finder > Preferences > General Tab > check External disks.
Regards,
Captfred

Similar Messages

New macbook air recognizes my external hard drive, but cannot read it

I recently bought a new Macbook Air about 3 weeks ago and I'm trying to access files that I have on my external hard drive. The macbook recognizes that there is an external drive, but when I click on it, the finder window is empty and it shows that there are no files on the drive. When I plug it back into my old Macbook pro (purchased in 2007, running Lion 10.7.5 ) I can access all of my files just fine. Also, a little while ago, while the drive was connected to the new laptop it ejected itself and gave me the prompt saying that the disk had been ejected incorectly. I'm wondering if there is something wrong with the disk because I did have to run disk repair on it once since it bricked. Or is it not compatible with this new macbook? I don't really want to shell out more money to buy a new disk, are there any programs I can install or new USB cables I can try? the disk is a Seagate 500GB portable expansion drive.

Hi Beth!
1) You need to plug the phone in with your USB cable. If for some reason it doesn't sync automatically, try clicking on the name of your phone in your lefthand menu of iTunes, and it'll bring you to a homepage of sorts for your phone.
2) From there, you should be able to click on "sync" at the bottom right of the page. Or you may have to go to the individual parts of your phone (where it says "music," "apps," etc. at the top of the page), and enable those to sync on each individual page.
3) That should do it, but you can always go back to that homepage from step 1 and click "sync" or "apply" once more to be sure everything syncs over.
If you've done this already, can you explain where you're seeing a red circle on your iPhone? Usually those red circles let you delete something if you click on them. For instance, if you want to delete an app, you hold your finger down on it for a moment and then the red circle appears so you can click again to delete.
Hope this helps you!

Why won't my Macbook Air access a network hard drive?

I have a BT Home Hub 3 and have connected a Western Digital hard drive into the Home Hub's USB port.
I have an iMac running Snow Leopard, and a Macbook Air running Lion. When I open Finder on both machines I have "bthub3" appearing under the Shared heading in the sidebar.
Clicking on the bthub3 on the iMac enables me to access the WD drive without any problems at all.
However, when I click on bthub3 on the Macbook, it shows a folder called "USB_Disk", but when I click on that I get the message "The operation can't be completed because the original item for "USB_Disk" can't be found."
Searching the Apple support pages there is a page headed "OS X Lion: If you see "The original item cannot be found" when using a remote disk" which goes on to say that I may be attempting to do something which I can't do with a remote disk."
This makes no sense to me, especially as I am can't access the hard disk from the iMac with no problems.
Any thoughts on how I can access the hard disk from the Macbook?
Thanks very much.

Connecting to legacy AFP services

Why can't my macbook pro / macbook air read FAT32 external hard-drive?

I have a USB external hard drive that's formatted as FAT32. It worked fine under Windows and Ubuntu Linux.
here is what it shows under ubuntu:
Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3a39bfa1
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id System
/dev/sdc1            2048   976773119   488385536    b W95 FAT32
As you can see its file system is FAT32, and as I understand FAT32 read/write is supported on all MACs.
However when I plug it to either a Macbook pro or a Macbook air, it said:
The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
Why is this?

I have a USB external hard drive that's formatted as FAT32. It worked fine under Windows and Ubuntu Linux.
here is what it shows under ubuntu:
Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3a39bfa1
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id System
/dev/sdc1            2048   976773119   488385536    b W95 FAT32
As you can see its file system is FAT32, and as I understand FAT32 read/write is supported on all MACs.
However when I plug it to either a Macbook pro or a Macbook air, it said:
The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
Why is this?

Why cannot my macbook air read my external hard drive?

First of all, I have an external hard drive (Western Digital - WD5000H1U-00). I went to their website, downloaded the WD driver installer, and then installed the drivers. I even had restarted my MBA but when i plug the usb cable of my external hard drive, MBA can't read it. Why is that so? In my other computers, the external hard drive could be read.

It's probably formatted for Windows. Plug the hard drive into your MacBook Air. Open Disk Utility (User Name>Applications>Utilities). Go to the Partition tab. Select 1 under Volume Scheme and also click on options and choose GUID. Click Apply. That's it. But if you have any files on that drive, back it up because this option is going to erase your drive.

How do I put all my music and pictures from my macbook air to an external hard drive ?

My macbook air is already full - I transfered everything from my desktop as soon as I got home with my new laptop. As it is already full, I would like to put all my pictures and all my music on a external hard drive. I am unsure how to do that. I've 'slide' the file to the external hard drive, but now, my computer is bizarre. If I'm in iphoto, I can see photos, but they then dissapear, etc. It's just bizarre and I feel this is not normal.

To transfer your music to an external drive see this knowledgebase article from Apple. For iPhoto, see this article. This is doable but the downsides are (1) you can only use iTunes or iPhoto when you are connected to your external drive. If you forget and launch the program without the drive connected you'll see nothing. Even worse, if you aren't careful (2) you might forget and download photos or music while the external drive isn't connected and then you have a mess.

Need help exporting from lightroom 4 on my Macbook Air with an external hard drive.

After importing photos to my new Macbook Air (2014) from external drive, it made me reformat my external drive. After reformatting, I tried to export edited images back to my external drive and it says "photos missing or offline", even when external drive is connected. How do I get my edited images back onto my reformatted external drive?

Ok, so at least you haven't lost the images.
The catalog knows "about" the images but not where they currently are. You cannot import them again because they have already been cataloged.
If the images are on the external drive in the location you want, the the procedure to re-connect is as follows.
Select one of the thumbnails. It should have an "!" or "?" on it (upper right). Click whichever it is and you will be asked to Locate the file. Navigate to the file to re locate it and make sure the check box "Find nearby images" is checked.
Lightroom will now relink all the images.
Note:
I usually just import from my external hard drive and then export them back to the external hard drive when I finish editing them.
this is not a "correct" workflow when working with catalogs. The files remain on the external drive. The act of importing is only necessary once to catalog where the files are and to allow quick access to them via the Library. Editing them either in or outside of Lightroom via Photoshop does not require you to move the file.

HT1449 After moving music and movies from my MacBook Air to an external hard drive, do I create a new iTunes music and media folder on my computer then add more music and movies, then will I be able to move the computer music/media to the hard drive musci

I need to move the music and movies from my MacBook Air (original) to an external hard drive, after I do this, do I create a new music folder and media folder on my computer to load music/movies in via the dedicatd external drive and then would I be able to move the newly imported to the external drive which would be my main site of storage?

No, do it all in one go and henceforth only use the library located on the external drive.
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option (shift on Windows) key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.

How do i back up a macbook air to an external hard drive

I want to back up my macbook air. How do I back it up to an external hard drive?

You must first partition and format the drive for use with OS X. If the drive is at least twice the capacity of your MBA's drive, then you can use Time Machine if you wish. Or you can simply clone your drive to the external drive so you can boot from it. Use Disk Utility:
Clone Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

How do I put my pictures back on my macbook air from my external hard drive?

i have a macbook air and i put all my iphoto library on a toshiba external hard drive and i can not get them back onto my computer. can anyone please help me, i also dont want to do anything that will make me lose the photos that i now already have on my computer. if any body knows anything please let me know asap i really need the help.

hook up your Toshiba USB external to your AIR.
Open the Toshiba and drag your file with photos back to a file on your Air.
A: are the files on the HD in a time machine backup? Or are they just stored there as archived data?
B: Can you or can you not access your HD when you hook same to your Air? ....or is the case that you cannot SEE to open it?

Why can't my Macbook Air startup after formatting hard drive?

Hello fellow apple users,
I recently decided to restore my macbook air to factory settings. I held command + R at startup and from there went to disk utilities and formatted the hard drive. I have done this several times in the past. I restarted my computer before anything else over curiosity (which was a stupid mistake). My computer restarted and nothing happened. Just a blank black screen. The sound from when it turns on was there but nothing else. I tried literally all of the start up commands but none of those worked. I tried internet recovery but it could not connect to the internet and it gave me an error saying 2013f. Does anyone know how i can fix this? I am on a wifi connection with a proxy. Does that have anything to do with it unable to connect?

Because by formatting the hard drive, you erased the operating system... You need to re-install OS X.
You're probably going to have to connect to a different network. The proxy server is probably interfering with your ability to download and re-install.

Why doesn't my macbook air recognise my external seagate drive, why doesn't my macbook air recognise my external seagate drive

I used to be able to use Time Machine with my Seagate but all of a sudden it has stopped working and doesn't recognise the external drive anymore.

1. never ever have a single choke point of data failure as a single ext. hard drive. always 2 copies off-computer at all times minimum.
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
2. DiskWarrior can repair hard drive issues that Disk Utiity can't.
http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/
3. There are 2 possibilities fundamentally, SATA card failure (unlikely) in the ext. HD, or you corrupted the filesystem in yanking the HD while it was arranging itself (very likely).
youre not out of luck no.
Does the HD spin up at all (listen closely) ? If it doesnt , its SATA card failure.
if it does its a corrupted file system from yanking the HD
FIRST try reconnecting the HD again a couple times, often this does in fact work.

Why won't my iMac 27" boot from external hard drive?

I have a new 27in Intel i5 dual core 3.6GHz iMac. It works wonderfully.
My question is this. I have a Pleides Ice Cube external hard drive with a USB 2.0/Firewire enclosure with a 500GB hard drive. I used diskutility to format the hard drive as a GUID Partition Table. I then used SuperDuper to clone the iMac OS 10.6.7 and Apps over to it.
I can select the external drive in System Preferences/Startup Disk to boot from, but when booting the iMac gets as far as the white screen then just stops loading.
I have tried both the USB connection and the Firewire connection (with a Firewire 800 to 400 cable).
I have run Disk Utility and repaired the disk and the preferences.
I have used Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory as well, but the iMac will not boot from the drive.
It does boot from the original DVD's and its own hard drive.
My old 24" iMac had no trouble booting from this hard drive or any of the others I have collected over the years, so I am reluctant to think it is the external drive. It is something to do with this particular processor Snow Leopard and external drives.

It sounds like something in the SuperDuper clone might not have copied well. To get the full answer on that I would check with Apple or SuperDuper to see if they support each other.
As a quick test, if you restart and immediately press and hold "option" on your keyboard do you see your external HD as an option to boot from? If so, click it and see if the boot runs any differently, but if you don't see it at all that could show that the problem is more deep rooted.
Personally, if looking in to either of those didn't give me any other info to go on, I would reformat and start the clone again. BTW, do you know for sure GUID Partition is the format you'd want to do this on? Generally macs use "Mac OS Extended" and some external HDs can use "FAT32" (if you want them to work well with Windows)
Hope that gives a little direction
Alex

How can I get my MacBook to recognize my external hard drive again?

Hi,
I own a 500GB Toshiba external hard drive, and I've been using it for months now, and up until today it's worked flawlessly. I never formatted it, I just used it as a mass storage device so that I wouldn't have compatibility issues with PC's because of the formatting. For some unknown reason, today the hard drive decided it didn't want to work; I can't see it in the Finder. However, I tried it on a PC today and it's just fine there. I've never disconnected it without ejecting it first or anything else that I can think of that might damage the drive. I'm at a total loss, though admittedly I'm a novice, so maybe there's something I'm overlooking here. What can I do to fix this problem?
Another thing: I just upgraded from 10.5.7 to 10.5.8... could that cause issues?
Thanks! If this is a topic that's already been discussed, please link me to the thread or article.

Does it appear in Disk Utility? (located in utilities folder of applications)
If so is it mountable from there?
And just to check- you are using the same connection (USB or firewire) to connect the PCs and the Mac?

Why doesn't my Macbook Air recognize my wireless printer Canon MX 870

I have a wireless Printer a Canon MX 870. Why doesn't my Macbook Air recognize it?

OS X: Connecting a Wi-Fi printer to your Wi-Fi network

Why won't my macbook air recognize an external hard drive?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for