I recently bought an iMac. I have an external hard drive which was formatted to my old MacBook Pro. Initially it worked fine on my new iMac, but all of a sudden it is not being recognised by it. Any ideas what I can do?
iMac, iOS 6.1.4
Sorry I accidentally put the wrong OS, the iMac is on Mountain Lion (10.8.4)
Hello,
Is it USB?
Is it bus powered or does it have it'ss own AC power?
Does it show in Disk Utility or Systemn Report?
It does not have it's own AC power supply and it does show up in disk utility. And it is USB. When I insert it into a USB port now it says it's not readable when it was reading it fine for a couple of weeks, and I've plugged it into no other device.
The drive is probably probably starved for power. As electric motors age, they can demand more power. Get a powered USB hub and I suspect your problems will go away.
If you purchase another hard drive for a desktop Mac in the future, consider one that is self-powered. Much less troublesome.
Some people have reported that, if they reformatted the external drive for Mac (most are formatted for Windows), the existing drive may work without a hub. You can refomat the drive with Disk Utility. Select Macinstosh Extended (Journaled) as the format. This is a great strategy if you do not have to share the drive with a Windows computer.
As Allan says, try a good AC powered USB hub, this one has a high power port even...
Thanks for the advice. I will try buying a power hub and see if it sorts out the problem. Have some important stuff on that drive so hopefully can find a way to get it off there without re-formatting it.
External hard drive which used to be recognised by my new iMac is no longer being recognised?
