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Q: Seagate External HDD won't show up.

Hi.

I have a 1TB Seagate Back up Plus external harddrive, and it wont show up in my Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro is the 2006 Intel Xeon model running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. The System requirements for the external HDD are snow leopard or higher, so I don't know why it isn't working.

P.S. When I plug in the USB cable into the computer, the HDD starts to spin, but it never shows up in the finder or on the desktop. Also, this HDD works in my MacBook Pro, but not the Mac Pro.

If anyone has any useful information, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Mac Pro 1,1

Posted on Apr 16, 2014 8:27 AM

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Q: Seagate External HDD won't show up.

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  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,Helpful

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Apr 16, 2014 8:34 AM in response to DisneyWorld
    Level 9 (60,667 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 16, 2014 8:34 AM in response to DisneyWorld

    External drives do not show an Icon on the dektop unless you have changed a setting in Finder preferences:

     

    Finder > Preferences > General

     

    FinderPrefs.png

     

    .

    Note that this setting is not in  System Preferences, but a setting on the Finder Menu.

  • by DisneyWorld ,

    DisneyWorld DisneyWorld Apr 16, 2014 2:15 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (62 points)
    Apr 16, 2014 2:15 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Yes. Thank you, but I did make sure this was checked on, but the HDD still won't show up.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Apr 16, 2014 4:05 PM in response to DisneyWorld
    Level 9 (60,667 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 16, 2014 4:05 PM in response to DisneyWorld

    Does The drive appear in the sidebar of Disk Utility?

     

    If it does, what kind of drive does it say it is?

     

    PS: there is no software incompatibility reason, in general, for it NOT to show up.

  • by MacSooozl,

    MacSooozl MacSooozl Aug 15, 2014 5:40 PM in response to DisneyWorld
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPhone
    Aug 15, 2014 5:40 PM in response to DisneyWorld

    One day my external drives stopped showing up under "Devices" -- all of them.  They showed up in Disk Utility, thank goodness.  I worked around it by going into Finder Preferences / General / Show these items on the desktop (checked the box next to "External Disks").

     

    I tried turning computer on and off.  No luck.

     

    Figured it out -- In the Finder window, if you roll and hover with the cursor over "Devices," to the right, in grey, the word "Show" will appear.  Click on "Show" and those external drives show up again.  If you hover with your cursor over "Devices" again, the word "Hide" appears in grey.  Click on "Hide" and the drives disappear.

     

    I had accidentally clicked on "Hide."  Duh...

  • by rwraysmith,Helpful

    rwraysmith rwraysmith Feb 7, 2015 11:00 AM in response to MacSooozl
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 7, 2015 11:00 AM in response to MacSooozl

    I have this same problem, too.  For weeks this drive kept giving me occasional error message like "Disk failed to eject properly, etc., etc." even when I didn't even touch it and was still using it!  It is one of those Seagate wireless jobs with bluetooth, 500GB.  Now it won't work, mount, show up, or even pretend anything on any computer it's connected to.  It doesn't show up in Disk Utility, or my Finder to the left, and I've tried the Hide/Show trick.  No luck.

     

    Can anyone help?  I have that little HD packed to its 500GB gills with stuff.

  • by pmiles,

    pmiles pmiles Feb 8, 2015 8:05 AM in response to rwraysmith
    Level 6 (15,951 points)
    Feb 8, 2015 8:05 AM in response to rwraysmith

    rwrarsmith -

     

    Does your computer have another means to connect to a computer besides wireless?  Most hard drives offer more than one method of connectivity.  Try using an interface that doesn't require a wireless connection.  This will eliminate wireless connectivity from the equation and test to see if the drive portion is working properly. 

     

    Next, do you have access to another computer to test the drive with?  If it won't mount onto any computer system, you've probably got a malfunctioning drive.  If it won't mount onto any system you can't really do much with it.  All troubleshooting approaches require the ability to talk to the drive in some form or another.

  • by rwraysmith,

    rwraysmith rwraysmith Feb 16, 2015 8:54 AM in response to pmiles
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 16, 2015 8:54 AM in response to pmiles

    Pmiles - sorry it's taken so long to get back to you.  I wasn't using wireless to connect in the first place.  The way I use this drive is wired to transfer files, and wireless to consume media, if that makes sense.  I did finally get it to work, though.  My solution was to connect it to electrical power while it was connected to the laptop.  This drive should already have a charge AND should draw power from the computer, so normally this is not how I would use it.  Why it worked, I have no idea.  Perhaps the charged power had run out (it HAD been a long time since I'd charged it), and maybe it wasn't drawing enough power via the USB to work.

     

    In any event it works now, though frankly, the experience has made me trust the drive less.  I'm disappointed in the quality of the wireless connection because it tends to drop the connection mid-movie or TV show, even though it is only inches away from my iPhone or iPad.  I may sell it in favour of a larger drive without wireless connectivity.  I've discovered that I don't use it that way anyway.

     

    Thanks for your help!

  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Feb 16, 2015 9:00 AM in response to rwraysmith
    Level 10 (187,749 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 16, 2015 9:00 AM in response to rwraysmith

    Sometimes USB 1.1 and 2 ports do not provide enough power for USB accessories.

  • by The hatter,

    The hatter The hatter Feb 16, 2015 9:36 AM in response to rwraysmith
    Level 9 (60,935 points)
    Feb 16, 2015 9:36 AM in response to rwraysmith

    Thread hijack

     

    Too many problems with bus-powered drive devices, and you would be better served in the MacBook Pro forum.


    MacBook Pro


    Networking Issues

    MacPerformance

  • by RAK_125,

    RAK_125 RAK_125 May 18, 2015 12:07 AM in response to rwraysmith
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 18, 2015 12:07 AM in response to rwraysmith

    Thanks for this rwraysmith. Mine WAS plugged into the electrical socket, and with the blue light on the drive showing I assumed it was all good. I also tried connecting it to my older macbook pro which worked. But after reading your post I tried the electrical cord in another power outlet and discovered that was the problem. The blue light must have only been from the usb power which is obviously not enough to power the drive correctly! Still don't understand why it worked on the 2011 mb pro but not on the 2013 mb pro though. ?!

  • by gobsmacker,Helpful

    gobsmacker gobsmacker May 26, 2015 1:28 PM in response to DisneyWorld
    Level 1 (5 points)
    May 26, 2015 1:28 PM in response to DisneyWorld

    If you're a Mac user setting up or erasing this drive up with your computer is super easy follow these steps.

    1. Plug in the the drive
    2. Open up disk utility found in your applications folder inside the utilities folder
    3. Next select the newly plugged in a drive and on the right-hand side you should see partition click on that.
    4. Then inside that screen on the partition layout drop-down choose how many partitions you'd like to set up. I generally go with one partition and just use folders to organize my files.
    5. Then on the right-hand side you can name the partitions and select the format. If you are transferring video files I highly recommend you choose Mac OS Extended (If you want to use it with Time Machine this is the choice you need to make) as it can handle files over 4GB. Sometimes it's good to make two partitions and one using "MS-DOS fat" or "ExFat" if you might be transferring files to and from a Windows machine. The reason is Windows machines and Macs can read and write to the "MS-DOS fat" format but your files will need to be under 4 GB each as that's the maximum file size it can handle.***
    6. One thing you need to do though when you re-formatting the drive is go to the option button under partition In the disk utility application. You need to select GUID partition table. That way it will be bootable by Mac OS.
    7. Then click apply and your Mac will create all the partitions you wanted and you're good to go.

    *** The ExFat format is new to Mac OSX 10.9 Mavericks and doesn't have a 4gb file size limit the "MS-DOS fat" or Fat32 does but not all devices like cameras & digital devices can't read or write to it.

    I hope this helps and be sure to always have backups of your important data. Take it from somebody was lost a lot of data to hard drive failures always backup and Time Machine is so transparent if you're using a Mac you should be using Time Machine.

  • by speckie70,

    speckie70 speckie70 Jul 21, 2015 2:52 PM in response to gobsmacker
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 21, 2015 2:52 PM in response to gobsmacker

    Thank you gobsmacker, this totally worked! Now I do not have to throw my Seagate Backup Plus 1TB in the trash or buy another one (would definitely be a different brand). I WILL NOT be using it as my Time Machine Backup anymore though!

  • by t_underscore_19,Helpful

    t_underscore_19 t_underscore_19 Jul 23, 2015 7:03 PM in response to DisneyWorld
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jul 23, 2015 7:03 PM in response to DisneyWorld

    Hello,

     

    I seem to be having trouble with this too. But I looked in Disk Utility and the drive won't show up there either. There is no place where I can find my Seagate drive on my Mac (2014 Retina Pro, 10.10.3). It happened when I just jostled the cable a little by accident and I got the error message saying that I didn't properly eject the disk. So I replugged the disk back in all the way and nothing showed up. Over the next week I plugged and unplugged several times but nothing ever showed up or happened. The device's light goes on and I can feel it working, though. I don't know what to do.

  • by lllaass,Helpful

    lllaass lllaass Jul 24, 2015 1:50 AM in response to t_underscore_19
    Level 10 (187,749 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 24, 2015 1:50 AM in response to t_underscore_19

    - Go to Apple icon in upper left>About This Mac>System Report and look under USB. What is listed for the drive? You should see both the enclosure chip and the hard drive listed.

    - What if yo connect it to another computer?

    - Can you try another cable?

    - Is the drive powered by the USB bus?

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