V.K. wrote:
do you have other external drives you can try with the same computer? the fact that this drive doesn't mount with either USB or firewire would indicate a problem with the drive.
Agreed, but the OP states the drive mounts fine on another machine. I suspect that it actually isn't a real problem with the drive, but the OS may think there is a problem. This can happen if the drive was disconnected at some point without ejecting/unmounting the drive properly. The next time the drive is connected, the OS will run fsck in the background on the drive before its fully mounted. This can take quite a while depending on the size of the drive and amount of data on it. When its done, the drive should appear. The catch-22 is, if its fsck'ing the drive and you disconnect it, you make the problem worse. The bug, IMO, is that the OS doesn't tell you whats going on and you end up thinking there is a problem with the drive.
Try this. Before you go to bed, turn the machine on (make sure its set to never go to sleep) and plug the drive in. Make sure it spins up etc. Let it sit overnight. In the morning, if the drive hasn't mounted, then there is something else going on... Goodl luck...
