mustngpny50

Q: External Hard Drive Not Showing Up

Ok so Im not sure what is going on here. I come in to use my computer yesterday and notice the external HD is not on my desktop. It is running, but not displaying on the desktop. My first step is to restart the computer. I restart the computer and still nothing. Today, I opened up disk utility. The hard drive shows up in the disk utility. I have run both Verify and Repair disk to the external HD and after the scans it says the HD appears to be OK. I restart the computer and nothing happens. I can also eject the HD from the disk utility. After it is ejected I can unplug it and plug it back in and it will display in the Disk Utility, but nowhere else. It does not show up on the desktop and does not show up in the side bar. I have also gone into to preferences to verify that the box is checked to show the external HD.

I am trying to give as much detail as I can to help diagnose the problem and I have searched through the forums but can't seem to find anything or anyone that has had a similar problem. I need pointed in the right direction to try and figure out why the HD is not showing up on the Desktop. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Jan 3, 2011 8:25 PM

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Q: External Hard Drive Not Showing Up

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  • by pootlebumtrinket1,

    pootlebumtrinket1 pootlebumtrinket1 Nov 4, 2014 7:35 PM in response to MacApple258
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 4, 2014 7:35 PM in response to MacApple258

    Hi there,

    I too have this problem. I upgraded to Yosemite to see if it might help but it didn't (I'm on a Macbook Pro). The drive (a WD passport essential) is showing up in Disk Utility but not in Devices...strangely I am still able to use it as I had a brain wave and searched for files I knew were on there and I could use them no problem.

     

    I have done as suggested in the origonal post (using Script Editor) and did a Terminal bash (the ls -laeO@ /Volumes one) and the drive was on there...but it didn't work. I have also tried shutting down etc. Can anyone help?

    thanks

  • by TradeShade,

    TradeShade TradeShade Dec 14, 2014 2:25 PM in response to mako78gma1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 14, 2014 2:25 PM in response to mako78gma1

    A slight variation of this worked for me as well. Thank you for sharing your results.

  • by chipso,

    chipso chipso Jan 23, 2015 3:22 PM in response to jsd2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 23, 2015 3:22 PM in response to jsd2

    Maybe you can help me too. I got this response

    Chipos-MacBook-Pro:~ Chipo$ ls -laeO@ /Volumes

    total 8

    drwxrwxrwt@  4 root  admin  hidden  136 Jan 23 12:12 .

      com.apple.FinderInfo   32

    0: group:everyone deny add_file,add_subdirectory,directory_inherit,only_inherit

    drwxr-xr-x  35 root  wheel  -      1258 Jan 23 07:40 ..

    lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  admin  -         1 Jan 23 07:36 Macintosh HD -> /

    drwxrwxrwx   0 root  wheel  -         0 Jan 23 17:38 MobileBackups

    Chipos-MacBook-Pro:~ Chipo$

  • by andrewintoronto,

    andrewintoronto andrewintoronto Mar 16, 2015 9:53 PM in response to MacApple258
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 16, 2015 9:53 PM in response to MacApple258

    I had a problem where my external hard drive wasn't showing on the desktop or in disk utility.

     

    - Tried it on a different mac, didn't show up in either desktop / disk utility.

    - Other hard drives worked fine.

    - Tried it with different cable, usb port, no go.

    - Tried restarting, no go.

    - Tried manually turning off computer, leaving off for awhile. Turn back on it works!

     

    Weird, but happy about it.

  • by ando232323,

    ando232323 ando232323 Mar 18, 2015 7:28 AM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 18, 2015 7:28 AM in response to mustngpny50

    hello,

     

    I am having the same problem as it is not showing up on devices but it is showing up in disk utility.

    I can not go any further as all the buttons in first aid are in grey and it will not let me mount.

    Please help!

  • by pritaminmumbai,

    pritaminmumbai pritaminmumbai Mar 28, 2015 5:59 AM in response to DrTeak
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Mar 28, 2015 5:59 AM in response to DrTeak

    It worked for me too. Kind of same thing. The hdd was not showing up in finder but was showing up in the disk utility. So, i just kept it connected for some time and went to do my work. When I came back to my mac, I could see the hdd icon on my desktop. I could access it. I quickly copied my data and formatted it. Then I plugged it out and again back in to see if it shows up immediately and it did.

     

    Now works pefrect.

  • by MrStelyio,

    MrStelyio MrStelyio Apr 30, 2015 6:38 PM in response to TTobie2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 30, 2015 6:38 PM in response to TTobie2

    I found if you go to disk utility and it is not appearing in the finder window, click crete a new image (once you make sure if it is formatted in the style Mac reads, Mac ... Journal Extended) and it should pop up

  • by mahem4DUB,

    mahem4DUB mahem4DUB May 6, 2015 3:12 PM in response to MacApple258
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 6, 2015 3:12 PM in response to MacApple258

    After all of the nonsense, application downloading, errors mounting and verifying/repairing...hours spent trying to restart my computer, redo my time machine backup, etc....all i had to do to make it work was to delete the finder plist file! After i did that, it seemed to actually make my computer run faster too. Before it was running some kernel task that wasn't anything significant but using 700% of my processor! So i wasn't able to do ANYTHING. Seems like this fixed not only the lack of drive usage, but also an even bigger issue.

     

    We will see how long this lasts for. I cannot say for sure what created the issue to begin with, nor can i say for sure that this fixed it, but for now it is all clear!

     

     

  • by Barraclough00,

    Barraclough00 Barraclough00 May 18, 2015 4:06 AM in response to jsd2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 18, 2015 4:06 AM in response to jsd2

    Hey jsd2

     

    I have been having the same problem with my hard drive, here is what it said in Terminal, hope you can help

     

    Last login: Mon May 18 11:46:08 on console

    Alexs-MacBook-Air:~ alexbarraclough$ ls -laeO@ /Volumes

    total 8

    drwxrwxrwt@  5 root  admin  hidden  170 18 May 12:03 .

      com.apple.FinderInfo   32

    0: group:everyone deny add_file,add_subdirectory,directory_inherit,only_inherit

    drwxr-xr-x  32 root  wheel  -      1156  6 Dec 12:50 ..

    drwxrwxr-x  19 root  wheel  -       986  7 Apr 11:15 Elements

    lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  admin  -         1 18 May 11:45 Macintosh HD -> /

    drwxrwxrwx   0 root  wheel  -         0 18 May 12:03 MobileBackups

    Alexs-MacBook-Air:~ alexbarraclough$

  • by Pengwon,

    Pengwon Pengwon Jul 13, 2015 4:58 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 13, 2015 4:58 PM in response to mustngpny50

    Hey, so i have a similar problem.

     

    My hard drive began to not show up on my desktop, though i did find it in disk utility. But the indented drive was shaded gray. And so i looked up this forum and saw that someone mentioned i should try verifying the disk to see if the structure of the HDD was fine, and i clicked that and i got the rainbow loading wheel on disk utility and now it doesn't show up at all. not on disk utility or the desktop.

     

    Any ideas? I bought the HDD last december so i don't think the drive is dead.

  • by Steven Alexander,

    Steven Alexander Steven Alexander Jul 14, 2015 6:35 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 14, 2015 6:35 PM in response to mustngpny50

    This may not apply but I'll throw it out there and maybe something can be gleaned from it...

    I had bought a Toshiba 3TB HDD and connected it via USB 2.0 on my iMac and mavericks would not see it.

    I have an iMac late 2009 and a MBP early 2011 and both would not see it.

    I researched and found out my Macs was too old to see HDD's above 2.2TB.

    So I purchased a StarTech.com "USB 3.0 to Dual 2.5/3.5in SATA HDD Dock with UASP".

    I plugged it in and now my Macs can see the 3TB HDD. And since it is a dual dock I am thinking of buying another 3TB to put in there.

    The device's description states it can see HDD's up to 4TB. The downside is that it moves data slow because my iMac's USB is only 2.0. But I don't need fast as much as I need the storage.

    Hope this helps

  • by vinn_g,

    vinn_g vinn_g Jul 17, 2015 3:48 PM in response to andrewintoronto
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 17, 2015 3:48 PM in response to andrewintoronto

    HAHA! im such a fool, everyone knows restarts fix everything -_____- i was trying so many unnecessary steps... but this worked!

  • by Mhkmack,

    Mhkmack Mhkmack Jul 21, 2015 5:58 PM in response to BallsDeepCharlie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 21, 2015 5:58 PM in response to BallsDeepCharlie

    Have no idea how or why, but this worked. External HD (Western Digital) was not showing up in finder, on the desktop, and would not mount through disk utility. Also tried to repair and verify in Disk Utility, but was told that it was broken and could not be repaired. Figured I'd try anything, and I'm pretty grateful that this actually worked.

  • by jaime11994,

    jaime11994 jaime11994 Aug 17, 2015 3:45 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 17, 2015 3:45 PM in response to mustngpny50

    Hello this may be a little bit off-topic but not completely and I do not know where to ask this Maybe you could help me.

     

    I have a 1TB LaCie Porsche Design external hard drive.

    Accidentally, I deleted the only partition it had an now my computer wont recognize it. Is there any thing I can do for make it work?  I have a Macbook pro running Yosemite 10.10.4 . It doesn't appear in Disk Utility nor in Finder but in the System Profiler.

    Details given by system profiler:

    P'9221 Mobile Drive:

     

      Product ID: 0x1058

      Vendor ID: 0x059f  (LaCie)

      Version: 0.06

      Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec

      Manufacturer: LaCie

      Location ID: 0x14100000 / 12

      Current Available (mA): 500

      Current Required (mA): 0

     

    Thank you in advance guys!

  • by DrDazza,

    DrDazza DrDazza Sep 18, 2015 11:31 PM in response to mustngpny50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 18, 2015 11:31 PM in response to mustngpny50

    Haven't fixed the same problem yet but I'm working on it. What I did find which may be useful was that after my hdd crashed Apple techs told me that my files were lost and unrecoverable. Undeterred (mostly due to the value of said files) I plugged my old hdd into an external case, connected it to my PC (runs

    Windows 7) and used a free HFS reader http://www.catacombae.org/hfsexplorer/

    I'm still working on recovering usable versions of my Adobe suite but I got all my music, video, photo and data files back using this method. I even managed to transfer game files originally downloaded from the MacStore.

    Not a perfect solution but it got my files back. I had to install a new hdd on my Mac and reinstalled the OS X via the internet recovery service (awesome). But if you really need to recover files the external hdd case was only a few dollars and you may be able to recovery most of your data.

    Hope this helps.

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