Hi guys.
I am using a WD 500GB External Hard drive. It has all of a sudden decided not to show up on my desktop. I can view it in Disk Utility, however it cannot be ejected or even formatted. When I try to erase it I recieve the error message "the disk cannot be unmounted". The light on the hard drive is constantly flashing. I have tried another cable and tried to open it on other macs.
External Hard Drive-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
Have you tried a restart of the computer? I just had that happen and did restart and the external drive reappeared on the desktop.
Yes it happened yesterday and I restarted. I also left it off overnight and tried again today.
Have you gone to Finder, Finder Preferences, General and made sure the boxes for the internal and external hard drives are still check marked?
Yep, they're checked. My friends hard drive works fine as well. I have been using my hard drive for a year without any problems.
When you tried to open the drive on other Macs, were you successful? It sounds like the drive is having problems.
Since your info says you still have 10.7.3, have you considered updating to 10.7.4? I find it much better to work with.
No the same thing happened on other macs. is there a way to force format an external hd maybe using the console? I'll update to 10.7.4 now.
If this happens on other machines, it may be a controller problem in the hard drive's enclosure...not much you can do then except see if you can get another enclosure to try the drive in.
If you startup holding the Option key, does the external drive show up? You should get the normal Macintosh HD, Rcovery HD, and the external drive. If it doesn't show that way, the startup manager isn't even picking it up.
I've updated to 10.7.4,
The HD shows up in alt mode, and I can get up to the same point using disk utility (I try and erase the volume, but it cannot unmount). It seems to be stuck in limbo somewhere.
This is definitely confusing, if it is now showing up, do you mean on the normal desktop or when you start holding the Option key? If it is on the normal desktop can you open it and access material now?
It sounds as though there is a conflict between the controller of the hard drive itself and the Mac OS X disk utility.
It is still unavailable on the desktop. It is visible when I start using the option key, and it is visible in the Disk Utility, however I am unable to do anything apart from verify and repair the disk, but this does nothing, and the computer doesnt find any errors.
That really sounds like a hard drive problem and not Mac problem...do you have access to a computer repair service or organization that can work with hard drives and recover data from drives? If there is something like that in your area you could see what they have to say about the WD drive...perhaps they can extract the info on the drive and save to another drive for you, or find out what is causing the problem with the drive/controller.
Follow the below steps in the exact order listed.
1. Unmount the problem external drives using Disk Utility.
2. Turn power switch off, if there is a switch.
3. Disconnect the data wire connection at the external drive box.
4. Disconnect the power cord at the external drive box.
5. Wait at least 5 minutes.
6. Plug the power cord into the external drive box.
7. Plug the data wire connection into the external drive box.
a. If using more than one external drive, let the drives become connected one-at-time.
8. Turn on power switch if present.
9. The problem drive should appear in Finder.
10.If the problem drive does not appear, repeat the above steps with Step 5 having a wait time of one hour.
11.If the problem persist, repeat the above steps with Step 5 having a wait time of at least 24 hours.
12.If successful, please give positive feedback on this site.
You do realize this thread is two years old and there is little chance the OP is still around.
Hello,
I am having the same problem with my WD external disk.
After installing Maverick my disk would keep changing it's name every time I unplugged it - for example it started with My book, then it was My book 1, My book 2 and so on.
That was not that much of an isue for me but suddenly this same disk stopped appearing on my desktop and in finder. I can see it in disk utility and it connects just fine with another Macbook.
What could be the problem and how could I fix it? I have made some research and I still couldn't figure it out
Thank you!
External Hard drive problem
