vyvafc

Q: Cannot connect to external HDD with El Capitan

I have a mid-2011 iMac. I have just installed El Capitan, having been running Mavericks.

 

A few weeks ago I purchased a Seagate Personal Cloud external HDD and set it up - it worked fine. But since installing El Capitan, I cannot access it.

 

Specifically:

- In Finder, the drive appears in Shared/All section, but has a question mark next to it.

- If I click on the drive in Shared/All, it says 'Connection Failed', and if I click on 'Connect As' a window appears stating, 'There was a problem connecting to the server "Personal Cloud": the server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again'.

 

The set-up is that the Seagate drive is connected by ethernet to an Apple Time Capsule, which is my wireless router.

 

The Seagate drive appears and works without problems on my Samsung TV and iPad, so I know the drive is ok.

 

I read some other threads about this and it was suggested to update the Seagate drive (Paragon driver) - I did this but not it didn't change anything. I couldn't find any other solution.

 

I tried restarting the Time Capsule, and this actually resulted in my being able to see the folders on the Seagate drive on Finder - but as soon as i clicked on them the drive became unavailable again.

 

Any advice most welcome - with thanks

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011)

Posted on Dec 12, 2015 9:53 PM

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Q: Cannot connect to external HDD with El Capitan

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  • by vyvafc,

    vyvafc vyvafc Dec 12, 2015 10:11 PM in response to vyvafc
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    Dec 12, 2015 10:11 PM in response to vyvafc

    Forgot to say: external drive does not appear in Disk Utility

  • by eightyearmarineveteran,

    eightyearmarineveteran eightyearmarineveteran Dec 12, 2015 11:27 PM in response to vyvafc
    Level 1 (93 points)
    Apple Watch
    Dec 12, 2015 11:27 PM in response to vyvafc

    All NON Apple externals should be reformatted. Try this https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201909

     

    Hope this helps.

  • by vyvafc,

    vyvafc vyvafc Dec 12, 2015 11:59 PM in response to eightyearmarineveteran
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    Dec 12, 2015 11:59 PM in response to eightyearmarineveteran

    Thanks for replying. But are you sure? Are you saying that El Capitan only recognises Mac OSx Extended File System drives?

     

    I've 1TB+ of material on that drive that I would need to move elsewhere. Further, since I can't access the drive I can't move it elsewhere.

     

    (I do have a back-up, but ... it's a long story, it would be much better not to have to use that at this point if at all possible)

  • by eightyearmarineveteran,

    eightyearmarineveteran eightyearmarineveteran Dec 19, 2015 8:58 AM in response to vyvafc
    Level 1 (93 points)
    Apple Watch
    Dec 19, 2015 8:58 AM in response to vyvafc

    vyvafc,

     

    Sorry for the long wait to reply. I'm not saying you need to erase your external. What I'm saying is that Apple computers are formatted differently then drives not made by Apple, therefore if you're drive is not formatted correctly it could be the reason. Sorry for any confusion I've caused or am causing.

     

    If you are able to relocate the files and reformat the drive I would highly recommend doing so OR you could call AppleCare (8006927753). Since you just upgraded your software you have complementary phone support for I think 90 days. They would be able to assist you in the very least giving you another option even though I do believe relocating and formatting is the best option... I could be wrong.

     

    Again sorry for any confusion caused.

     

    Hope this helps.