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Q: Not recognizing external hard drive

I have a 1 terabyte seagate external hard drive that I used to back up my PCs and tried to connect it to my Macbook Pro to transfer the files over from my old computers, but the Mac won't recognize the external hard drive at all. Any suggestions?

Macbook Pro 15" 2.66 ghz, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Sep 5, 2010 1:58 PM

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Q: Not recognizing external hard drive

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  • by Apple_1983,

    Apple_1983 Apple_1983 Jan 11, 2012 3:37 PM in response to crmfyi
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 11, 2012 3:37 PM in response to crmfyi

    Western Digital Drives Only.  1 Terrabyte My Book FYI  Had to go to bottom of last menu, Support Menu, Legacy Products.  I suggest that user's go to your own MFG's Website and search.  Align Product, OS, and antiviral software recommendations while doing installs and reboots.  Unblock applications seeking Internet access.  Go!

     

     

    http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1164/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvd GltZS8xMzI2MzIzMjUwL3NpZC82dmo0blZOaw%3D%3D

  • by onyxj,

    onyxj onyxj Feb 9, 2012 9:15 PM in response to Weeblerock
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 9, 2012 9:15 PM in response to Weeblerock

    OK, how about this:

    I have a '97 Macbook connected directly via Ethernet cable to a brand new iMac (both running Lion 10.7.3)... Connected to the Macbook via Firewire is a WD 500Gb hard drive (own power supply, FAT32) and connected to the WD hard drive via Firewire is an 80Gb Macally HD (powered from USB on Macbook, Mac OS Extended (Journaled)).

     

    The problem is... I can see both the WD and the Macally hard drives on the Macbook, but I can only see the Macally hard drive on the iMac.  Both computers are set up to share and I login to the Macbook using the same profile I have logged into the iMac with (from the Finder window).

     

    It is not a cable problem as both external drives are visible on the Macbook and the Macbook and Macally HD are visible on the iMac. 

    It is not a low power problem as both external drives have their own power sources.

     

    Is it a driver problem?  The iMac is basically a copy of what was on the Macbook (I used Migration Assistant to copy the entire computer) so why does the iMac not "see" the WD?

     

    Please help?

  • by Funkin,

    Funkin Funkin Feb 9, 2012 10:07 PM in response to onyxj
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 9, 2012 10:07 PM in response to onyxj

    Why does the iMac not 'see" the WD?

     

    You are not going to believe me, because I didn't believe it either, but if I can

    tell you, you at least will have something to work with that may help you.

     

    First, let's dispell one thing that you are holding dear, and it's this:

     

    "It is not a low power problem as both external drives have their own power sources."

     

    Ready?

     

    One of the power sources is not the correct one, or is and oldie and moldy one and needs to be renewed or refreshed with a new one.

     

    What? 

     

    I did this myself. I spent a day and a half installing drivers, reinstalling software, switching cables, mildly pulling my hair out until at last resort, I called WD.  The prompts got me through to the

    right person for my product.  Very nice, cooperative, understanding, sympathetic even.

     

    I was out of warrantee over four years, but the technical support guy told me he's been approved to send me a new power supply, no charge.

     

    After exhausting every techincal trick I knew in the book, reading the correct support sites, and ending up doing the suggestions at the WD website, installing things, and checking cables and connections more than once, I finally surrendered and called technical support.


    Please allow three to five days for delivery.

     

    As it was being shipped, I muttered to myself I had the right power supply connected. I kept all of them in a container with my other cameras, digital tablets, old computers and video cameras.  I could see the device in the trouble shooter software I used, and the light was on, on the drive.  I knew it was fine in there.  What would a power supply have to do with it?

     

    It had a whole lot to do with it, as I found out when it arrived..

     

    Five days later it showed up.  I plugged it in, booted it, it reinstalled the usb driver and presto change-o, the thing came up without me doing anything. (Did I mention, I rebooted several times, in an order manner, earlier?).

     

    I don't know why, I had a 12v power supply on the external drive, but the tech seemed to have a suspicion that this was the problem, and it was.  Maybe they have product support calls and cases on the computer there, and he read that with my product, it turns out to be ninety nine percent of the time, the faulty power.

     

    Funny thing, they sent it to me gratis, free.  If I can ever, ever, say a nice word about WD I will say it here:

     

    WD knows what they are doing.  Their phone system got me to the right guy.  I kept a case number. 
    Shipping was fast.  I called them back and thanked the same guy too.

     

    He was happy.  I was happy.  Change your faulty power supply with a new one; you'll be happy.  

  • by robertofrombc,

    robertofrombc robertofrombc Mar 22, 2012 7:51 PM in response to Funkin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 22, 2012 7:51 PM in response to Funkin

    My issue:

     

    Wife's laptop wouldn't reboot after updating Safari, iTunes, and some other things. Latest updates. 13" 2011 Macbook Pro with Lion upgraded from Snow Leopard some time last summer. Screen would go grey with a revolving graphic and a progress bar, then the computer would shut off.

     

    Tried booting to console recovery and do an fsck -fy. Couldn't repair volume. Tried graphic recovery boot with same result.

     

    Decided to reinstall from Time Machine backup. Couldn't see how to get network connected. Got external drive off of Time Capsule that had backup and connected it to laptop and booted to recovery partition. Time Machine couldn't see hard drive. Frustrating.

     

    Inserted Lion install disk that came with computer. WiFi, external drive both worked. Re-installed from backup.

     

    It seems you need the install disk to have your graphical recovery console work properly.

  • by MINIMAC23,

    MINIMAC23 MINIMAC23 Mar 24, 2012 3:03 AM in response to Funkin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 24, 2012 3:03 AM in response to Funkin

    My generic hard drive also failed to work, having read through this and several other threads as the cheapest and least disruptive, ie reinstalling op system (this is apple guys) the fault had to be with the external drive

    I came across Funkin's response re their WD drive.

     

    I took the part number from old power supply transformer and google soon found me a replacement under £9.00 arrived in two days and Hey presto my external drive now works.

     

    Cheap resolution to a failed external. Under £9.00 to replace on a 5 year old external.

     

    Thank you Funkin.

  • by l_echeverri,

    l_echeverri l_echeverri Apr 7, 2012 2:14 PM in response to Weeblerock
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 7, 2012 2:14 PM in response to Weeblerock

    Well i was having the same issue i have a wd 1 tb my passport i use as my time machine well like a week ago it just stoped working my mac book pro wouldn't recognise it so i tred and tried odd thing was that it was showing on disc utilityes but not in the finder so after reading this section y plug it in one more time and just unplugged it without unomunting the drive and bamm i got my drive back..weird..

  • by Talchu,

    Talchu Talchu May 29, 2012 1:58 AM in response to l_echeverri
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 29, 2012 1:58 AM in response to l_echeverri

    l_echeverri, and others, just for the record, I diconnected my Wester Digital (WD) external Passport drive again and again, and even without a Y cable (USB booster cable), it suddenly was recognized by my MAC (OSX10.6.8).

     

    I guess it has something to do with me skyping WD Support, or vudoo. To support that, WD support guy said to me that it can take time for some macs to recognized the drive and assign proper power to it. Here's a snippet from WD Knowledgbase, too, which supports that:

     

    Mac OSX can read FAT32 drives, however it may take up to 10 minutes (usually much less time is needed) for the OS to evaluate the volume and determine how to interact with it upon initial installation. If you wish, you can wait for the drive to be recognized, at which time the drive will function correctly. The advantage of this format is that the drive should also work on a PC.

     

    I believe formatting the drive in Mac format and using Time Machine could help too, but I'm not willing to loose the compatibility with my PC, yet.

     

    Supplemental: I recognize this problem as something which occurs after diconnecting the drive for long periods of time from my mac. I'll examine this issue further, and will update if I have new info.

     

    Bottom line: Never loose hope.

  • by Talchu,

    Talchu Talchu Jun 7, 2012 1:51 AM in response to Talchu
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 7, 2012 1:51 AM in response to Talchu

    Supplemental #2: Again not recognized. disconnected & connected a few times. I noticed that the leds showed reading/writing from External HD occurs, so I let it wait... and HOP(!) after a few minutes, it's there, and the backup continues smoothly.

     

    Conclusions for External Hard Drive without addition power source:

    • Make sure your External Drive is Formatted in FAT32.
    • Connect it to the main USB ports (e.g. back of mac mini; not to the keyboard USB hub);
    • If it used to work, connect, verify that reading/writing occurs from/to HD
      (e.g. blinking-running dots in WD Passport)
      • if not, and just in standby mode, disconnect and try to connect again;
    • Then, wait a few minutes.
      • if failes, diconnect and try again.

     

    I hope this solves the issue for some of us.

    Good luck,
    Tal

  • by miguel24,

    miguel24 miguel24 Jun 19, 2012 12:53 PM in response to sbvet1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 19, 2012 12:53 PM in response to sbvet1

    I had the same problem with the Time Machine partition, after installing Tuxera. Tried to make the repair of the disk in disk utility and it wasn't succesful, said it couldn't repair.

    Any way, after that my time machine partition appeared on Finder!

     

    Thanks Mac, bad experience with tuxera solved by apple!

  • by krismi,

    krismi krismi Jul 2, 2012 12:39 PM in response to Weeblerock
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2012 12:39 PM in response to Weeblerock

    Hopefully this can help someone who lands here...

     

    We were editing videos and had a lot of footage on our 1 TB Go-Flex Seagate hard drive.  Part way through the project after unplugging the hard drive and taking a few days break, my macbook pro would not recognize the hard drive anymore.  Not in Desktop or Finder.  I could see it on the HD Disk Utility but it was not picking it up when we attached the USB.

     

    On a chance, I downloaded NTFS paragon software, installed it and restarted.  Now it is working perfectly again.

     

    I think we got NTFS paragon software as a trial with the hard drive and when it must have expired quietly. So be sure to check this. There is a free trial on the website so you won't be out any money if it turns out not to be your issue.

  • by sfapplefangirl,

    sfapplefangirl sfapplefangirl Aug 3, 2012 9:59 AM in response to Talchu
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 3, 2012 9:59 AM in response to Talchu

    this happened to my Toshiba imation drive as well. So glad I found this thread. I was patient. Waited almost 30 minutes and it showed up mounted in Finder. However it had turned "Read Only" so I had to repair it in disk utility and now its fine.

  • by Gibson_BirdsofParadise,

    Gibson_BirdsofParadise Gibson_BirdsofParadise Aug 3, 2012 3:23 PM in response to Weeblerock
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 3, 2012 3:23 PM in response to Weeblerock

    Mine came with a trial program that runs NTFS.  When It ran out it no longer showed up on the desktop, so I got Tuxera; worked for me.

  • by matinthehat,

    matinthehat matinthehat Oct 6, 2012 3:10 PM in response to Funkin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 6, 2012 3:10 PM in response to Funkin

    Thank you so much for posting the suggestion to swap out power supplies. I had to remove my old MacBook hard drive and connect it to my iMac to access a backup on an external drive.  When I connected the MacBook drive to one of several identical external power supplies it just sat there 'ticking' and wasn't seen by the iMac. Reading your post gave me the 'what the heck' idea to swap the power supply and that did the trick.

  • by manon33,

    manon33 manon33 Oct 20, 2012 9:42 AM in response to Weeblerock
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 20, 2012 9:42 AM in response to Weeblerock

    First post ever of any kind. I spent most of the day trying to solve this for Lacie 1tb external drive, and then stumbled upon this solution for Lacie external hd users. http://claytron.com/blog/lacie-big-disk-fail.

     

    Bottom line, when I switch the power supply for my Lacie to the one that came with my Seagate, issue dissappeared. Annoying that this isnt better communicated by Lacie

  • by jims86,

    jims86 jims86 Nov 7, 2012 3:46 AM in response to Weeblerock
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 7, 2012 3:46 AM in response to Weeblerock

    My problem is from the other end. I have a toshiba 1tb external hard drive on which I back up my Toshiba lap top. This morning when I tried to do this both USB ports on the laptop died. Thats a very short explanation for what has taken some time to establish. To get them working again I have to reboot the laptop & then I can use my wireless mouse & keyboard etc. Attach the harddrive again everything dies.

    Now the point that got me to this board is that I gave my hard drive to a colleague to copy some files (which he did) but he runs a bloody mac! Has his mac killed my hard drive & done something that somehow means when it plugs into my laptop it kills that too?

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