mustngpny50

Q: External Hard Drive Not Showing Up

Ok so Im not sure what is going on here. I come in to use my computer yesterday and notice the external HD is not on my desktop. It is running, but not displaying on the desktop. My first step is to restart the computer. I restart the computer and still nothing. Today, I opened up disk utility. The hard drive shows up in the disk utility. I have run both Verify and Repair disk to the external HD and after the scans it says the HD appears to be OK. I restart the computer and nothing happens. I can also eject the HD from the disk utility. After it is ejected I can unplug it and plug it back in and it will display in the Disk Utility, but nowhere else. It does not show up on the desktop and does not show up in the side bar. I have also gone into to preferences to verify that the box is checked to show the external HD.

I am trying to give as much detail as I can to help diagnose the problem and I have searched through the forums but can't seem to find anything or anyone that has had a similar problem. I need pointed in the right direction to try and figure out why the HD is not showing up on the Desktop. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Jan 3, 2011 8:25 PM

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Q: External Hard Drive Not Showing Up

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  • by DrTeak,Helpful

    DrTeak DrTeak Feb 15, 2012 6:36 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 15, 2012 6:36 PM in response to mustngpny50

    i was going through the same problems. went through the above steps and got my Hard Drive to amazingly showed up, then miraculously vanished again yet showed up in disk utilities...

     

    i think what is going on is that my hard drive has a sort of sleep function cause when my computer went to sleep then woke back up my hard drive mounted and is running fine... so maybe we just need the computer to go to sleep with the hd plugged in?

     

     

    will keep u updated if i go back to invisible state.

  • by lestein,Helpful

    lestein lestein Mar 24, 2012 7:46 AM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mar 24, 2012 7:46 AM in response to mustngpny50

    My external HD iomega wasn't showing up either.

    In the end, it showed up when I connected the 2 usb for the HD to the iMac USB ports, insted of going through my Kensington USB hub ..

  • by melissaamelia,Helpful

    melissaamelia melissaamelia Mar 27, 2012 10:02 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mar 27, 2012 10:02 PM in response to mustngpny50

    I have the same problem too! the day before yesterday it would read it on my MAC, then i added some files onto the HD on my PC at work, now it doesnt show up.. I have a program installed on my MAC so it can read a Windows formatted HD. There is nothing wrong with the hard drive as when i plug it into my WD Live Media player it works & reads files perfectly. It just wont show up on the desktop to open HD and access files.

    Does anyone know how to fix this?

    Thanks

  • by melissaamelia,Helpful

    melissaamelia melissaamelia Mar 28, 2012 1:58 AM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mar 28, 2012 1:58 AM in response to mustngpny50

    So i have fixed mine, try this too.. it didnt do anything to my data but always back up

    go to Disc Utlity and click on the hard drive on the left, on the right there is an option to Verify Disc, run this and then mine said it had a minor error, so i ran the Repair Disc and once it ran it fixed it and all good now.

    hope this works for you

  • by Sam Haron,Helpful

    Sam Haron Sam Haron Mar 29, 2012 3:00 AM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mar 29, 2012 3:00 AM in response to mustngpny50

    I had the same problem. Plug in an external hard drive, any hard drive, even a USB stick, it shows in finder's side bar, but not on desktop. Solved.

     

    Sounds like a huge problem? I'm just wondering if the answer you are looking for is on this link

     

    http://macs.about.com/od/faq1/f/Drive-Icons-Missing-From-Your-Macs-Desktop.htm

     

    Its just setting in FInder's Preference. "Show these items on desktop". Voila!

     

    Not sure if this is the problems you guys are facing. Hope this helps.

  • by Simon V.,

    Simon V. Simon V. Apr 18, 2012 7:24 AM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 18, 2012 7:24 AM in response to mustngpny50

    Hello

     

    I have a problem with my external harddisk, when I plug it in my mac book pro version 10.6.8 I can't find it. When I look in my disk utilities he finds him but can't activate it anymore. I tried typing ls -laeO@ /Volumes in the terminal and then this comes out:

    ls -laeO@ /VolumesLast login: Wed Apr 18 16:10:09 on ttys000

    MacBook-Pro-van-Simon-Pierre-Verstraete:~ SimonVerstraete$ ls -laeO@ /Volumes

    total 8

    drwxrwxrwt@  3 root             admin  hidden  102 18 apr 16:00 .

              com.apple.FinderInfo            32

    0: group:everyone deny add_file,add_subdirectory,directory_inherit,only_inherit

    drwxrwxr-x  33 SimonVerstraete  staff  -      1190  7 apr 08:54 ..

    lrwxr-xr-x   1 root             admin  -         1 13 apr 12:16 Macintosh HD -> /

    MacBook-Pro-van-Simon-Pierre-Verstraete:~ SimonVerstraete$

     

    Can somebody help me?

  • by SanCarlosDad,

    SanCarlosDad SanCarlosDad Jun 23, 2012 6:43 PM in response to Simon V.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 23, 2012 6:43 PM in response to Simon V.

    The above thread put me on the right path, and I hope my experience helps others.

     

    Problem: iMac suddently stopped showing two 2TB iomega hard drives that store our videos, photos, etc. (reformatting was not an option...)  I tried different USB ports, firewire, restarting, connecting to my MacBook, etc. and message always said drives cannot be read by either iMac or MacBook.  It seemed too coindicental for 2 drives to have failed at once...

     

    Solution:

    1) Based on above thread, I went to System Profile in my MacBook with one drive connected via USB.  The drive was seen there.

    2) Next, I went to Disk Utility, where the drive was seen.  Icon showd up as "2TB External..." and underneath and indented there was a gray name that was NOT the name I had given the drive.

    3) I hit "Verified Disk" -- and it said "Invalid Index Key. ...(drive name I HAD given drive)...found corrupt and needs to be repaired.  Error... Click Repair Disk."
    4) I clicked "Repair Disk" a first time. It failed with message "Disk Utility Stopped Repairing..." -- not sure why.

    5) I tried "Repari Disk" again, and this time it took longer, gave many more lines in the window as it did it's job, had messages in green instead of red, and the file was repaired!

    6) Disconnected drive, turned off MacBook and drive, rebooted MacBook, connected drive via USB, turned on drive -- and there it was on the desktop with its correct assigned name!

     

    I hope this helps.

  • by Omniasoft,

    Omniasoft Omniasoft Mar 1, 2013 4:23 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 1, 2013 4:23 PM in response to mustngpny50

    For me the problem was much more simple than any of this... the 4-port USB hub I was using suddenly went bad.  If you're plugging your external HD into a USB hub you may want to ensure that other things can connect to the hub okay before thinking something happened to your HD.

  • by ZamirasDAD,

    ZamirasDAD ZamirasDAD Mar 16, 2013 5:37 PM in response to jsd2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 16, 2013 5:37 PM in response to jsd2

    hey dude...... i need your help...... if i copy my terminate log to you can you tell me what i need to do to have my Mercury harddrive up.

    i updated because my Java was messing up and after restart my mercury never showed bak up

  • by ZamirasDAD,

    ZamirasDAD ZamirasDAD Mar 16, 2013 8:20 PM in response to jsd2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 16, 2013 8:20 PM in response to jsd2

    if i send you my terminal log can you tell me...im having the same problem of ext harddrv hidden or not showing up..

  • by ZamirasDAD,

    ZamirasDAD ZamirasDAD May 7, 2013 1:17 PM in response to jsd2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 7, 2013 1:17 PM in response to jsd2

    robert-collinss-imac-2:~ robert$ ls -laeO@ /Volumes

    total 8

    drwxrwxrwt@  3 root  admin  hidden  102 May  7 07:26 .

        com.apple.FinderInfo      32

    0: group:everyone deny add_file,add_subdirectory,directory_inherit,only_inherit

    drwxrwxr-x  44 root  wheel  -      1564 May  7 07:43 ..

    lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  admin  -         1 May  7 07:26 Mac OS -> /

    robert-collinss-imac-2:~ robert$

    @@@Cn you check this out for me too

  • by mako78gma1,

    mako78gma1 mako78gma1 May 31, 2013 11:29 AM in response to ZamirasDAD
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 31, 2013 11:29 AM in response to ZamirasDAD

    I followed the various tips and tricks and ran into the same roadblocks found by all of the above.  The solution I discovered falls under this makes no sense but it worked:  With the Disk Uility open, and displaying the USB external drive with options faded/grayed out and unmountable, I connected another external USB drive to another USB port just to see if this drive displayed...it not only displayed in the Disk Utility and on the desktop and the Finder window list, but also the non-recognized drive also displayed on the desktop and Finder window list though no change in the Disk Utility accessibility...I then did a proper eject from the finder window list (just in case it might disappear) of the now displayed drive (before it did not display).  Restarted the computer, connected the drive and now all works.  Go figure.

  • by anarKaliG,

    anarKaliG anarKaliG Jun 29, 2013 10:50 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 29, 2013 10:50 PM in response to mustngpny50

    Do this:

    FRom the Finder Menu:

    click "Go to Folder"

    then type the path from what appears under Disk Utilty e.g.

    /Volumes/slimdisk

     

    Then magically in Finder, you will be in the root folder of this invisible drive! (this worked for me)

  • by natassa22,

    natassa22 natassa22 Jul 26, 2013 4:52 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 26, 2013 4:52 PM in response to mustngpny50

    The same happened to me.

    For me worked this:

    - go to disk utility - there you will see your disk

    - click on it - click on repair disk - wait

    - the you will be able to see your disk on the left panel of the finder

  • by machusker,

    machusker machusker Nov 7, 2013 5:22 AM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 7, 2013 5:22 AM in response to mustngpny50

    My Iomega HD won't mount on either of my macs,  I ran disk verify and disk repair and get the following message. Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I can't reformat(erase) disk.  I need to recover the files.

     

    Thanks

    Screen shot 2013-11-07 at 8.15.00 AM.png

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