Unable to mount External Drive

Does the drive spin up? Does it show up in either Disk Utility or Disk Warrior?

Ladon wrote:
Alright, this is very frustrating.
I have an external drive that won't mount. There wasn't any cause that I know of, I just plugged it in one day and it wasn't mounting. There's no clicking or anything, and the disk spins up. It just doesn't do anything after that.

The problem is that it's fully loaded with data that I need, almost 80gb worth. I tried the freezing recovery method, it had no effect. I've tried plugging it into several different computers, and the best I've gotten is a momentary recognition on a pc, where it said the drivers were uninstalled.

Suggestions?

A drive brand and perhaps model name/number would help, as well as the type of interface you're using, and whether or not it's bus and/or external powered. Does it show up in System Profiler for the relevant interface (FireWire or USB)? An underpowered bus-powered device could definitely show signs like you described.

I suggest you try it with another computer and if it doesn't read there, it's probably toast.

Macaby wrote:
I suggest you try it with another computer and if it doesn't read there, it's probably toast.

My experience is that underpowered bus-powered devices won't show up in System Profiler. A malfunctioning interface chipset probably means the same thing. If the internal drive is malfunctioning, it'll show up in System Profiler, but make all sorts of sounds and even take a while before it sort of mounts (if it can). I had a LaCie d2 external FW drive that suffered a head crash. After reformatting and quarantining the bad sectors, it lasted four years before it finally bit the dust. Even then, I was able to pull off data even though it didn't reliably mount. My iBook G4 1.42 would take it after about a minute or two of grinding noises, but an older PC couldn't figure out what to do.