FCX Wont recognize plugged in external Hard Drives! what tha?

Have you formatted the drive to Mac OS Extended Journaled ... you need to if not. Is it a TimeMachine drive ... it should not be. Finder will see the drives it neither of these are the case, but FCP X will not work with them. Best wishes.

stephen

Do you know if they are formatted as Mac OS Extended (HFS+) or are they PC formatted (FAT32)?

CTRL click on the drives from the Destkop and Choose Get Info:

Under Format: If you can see it's Mac OS Extended, then it's not the formatting that's preventing it from working.

Are they firewire or usb? Are you connecting through a USB hub by any chance? Just some thoughts.

I use Western Digital 2.5 TBs and down in size without issues. I was wondering if you are going through a USB hub if these are USB drives. Also do you have a Final Cut Projects and Final Cut Events folder on the top level of these drives? If so you cannot have the same projects and events in them as you do on the drive onto which you first installed FCP X. Lastly, you did not mention the TimeMachine thing. Have you turned TimeMachine off and made sure it is not using one of your two drives as a backup? Best wishes.

stephen

elikness ... sorry for asking the same stuff you are ... we both answered at the same time. You are asking the right questions, and I am sure you can help him sort this out. Best wishes.

stephen

Try selecting Get Info on the drive(s) and check "Ignore ownership on this volume".

No problem, sometimes even though it's the same, the wording is slightly different and might help someone understand, and take action quicker? More eyes, more answers, faster solutions I always say.

i have the solution, but in italian!!! translate please!! :-)

se il tuo hard disk contiene file mp4 (importati da un cellulare ad esempio), questo disco viene interpretato come una telecamera o fotocamera (lo troverai infatti disponibile quando fai click su "importazione video". per riuscire a leggere l'HD correttamente, cancella o sposta altrove i tuoi file mp4 e il disco tornerà a essere letto normalmente da FCPX. credo sia un bug del software e spero lo risolveranno alla prossima release. fatemi sapere se risolvete così il vostro problema.

bye 🙂

Google Translate delivers the following result:

if your hard disk contains mp4 files (imported from a mobile phone for example), this discis interpreted as a camera or camera (you'll find it available when you click "importvideo". to be able to properly read the HD, delete or move elsewhere for your mp4 filesand the disc will return to be read normally FCPX. i think it's a bug in the software and i hope the next release will solve it. so let me know if you solve your problem.

i writed in italian because i don't speak english. i don't know you can understand this traslation. i try to write in english: move o delete your file .mp4 imported from camera, and your HD will be readed from FCPX. are you understand my english???? :-) bye

Grazie mille!!!

It solved my problem. I had my events and projects on an external HDD (Firewire800). Everything went well. Then I copied the original stream folder from my SD card an the same HDD (called Private on Sony cameras).

From that moment, the events on the external disk showed up for a moment, as they should but disappeared and none of the events and projects were shown.

I followed mausfromsicilys tip: I deleted the Private folder (I did not really need it, as I already had it imported to an event). Next time I started Final Cut Pro X: all the events showed up, as they should and did not disappear.

It seems to be an important issue: do not copy camera folders on the same HDD where you have your Final Cut Events folder.

Mausfromsicily: it was not just .mp4 files, but evidently this also refers to any other original movie datas.

Herwig Niggemann (Germany)

Well, backing up to the save drive as the media sort of defeats the purpose of an archive. You should keep the whole folder structure. Two easy ways to do that: one is to make a folder with some useful name, maybe the name of the event it's going into, and put the whole folder structure in there; the other is to make a disk image of the memory card, and mount the memory card when you want to import from it.

I have an oppostie problem here, where I'm trying to get .MP4 files to be recognized as a camera in the import from camera folder

I have footage that was copied directly from the digital camera and now sits copied on my harddrive in the original folder structure as it was on the camera card. When I open the import from camera window, this folder containing the footage in its original camera fomat IS NOT visible.

Importing as files doesn't work as Final Cut says it is an unsupported format. How can I get this footage to be recognized as a camera so I can import the clips into final cut?

Exactky what camera are you talking about. It may not be a supported format. Is this HD or SD?