External Hard-Drive not showing in Finder despite no errors in Disk Utility.

I just found this:

sudo chflags nohidden /Volumes/"Name Of Drive"

And it worked! I can see my drive and view files (locally on the server mac mini machine!). I now hope i don't mess something up with sharing it with users!

snezak: this only works if your disk is hidden. In the case of the people having the problem on this thread, I would assume it isn't hidden, it is just not being recognized by the computer anymore. I have researched this extensivly and found out that the drive itself is corupted. I am looking into solutions, but your suggestion is not one of em. You can confirm you have the same problem I do, by:

connecting your drive

• it does not show in finder
• it does not show in Disk Utility
• it does not show in Terminal -> "diskutil list"
• click on Apple (the top left icon of your screen)
  • click "about this mac"
  • click "more info"
  • click "system report"
  • on the left hand side, find and click "USB"
  • if your disk doesn't show, unplug it, wait a second, plug it back in
  • click in the window (to make sure it is the active window
  • hit refresh until it shows up under "Hub" next to your IR Reciever (if you have a MBP)
  • once it shows up, click on it there, and you will see something like the following:

StoreJet Transcend:

Product ID: 0x5106

Vendor ID: 0x174c (ASMedia Technology Inc.)

Version: 80.00

Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec

Manufacturer: StoreJet Transcend

Location ID: 0xfd120000 / 4

Current Available (mA): 500

Current Required (mA): Unknown (Device has not been configured)

Most of that really doesn't matter, the import part is the "Current Required (mA): Unknown (Device has not been configured)

Having this error, has also prevented me from recovering it from windows. I will be trying linux later tonight when I get home to my other machines.

Unforutunately i can not comment on that as honestly don't know, i was just lucky that mine was only hidden and the command i wrote above worked fine. Hope your sollutions help others too though!

Thanks for input

Ok, I figured I'd give this one an update because nobody else seems to have solutions. I have been in contact with Transcend (the manufacturer of my drive), and have contacted some data recovery guys and more importantly, the creators of SpinRite (guys that know how to talk directly to the drives headers).

First off, SpinRite is not an option. If the computer won't recognize it is a drive, then SpinRite cannot connect to it at all.

Second, Data Recovery seems to have the same idea I do, take the drive apart and check if I can connect to it directly via the SATA connections on a Linux machine.

Third, Transcend isn't responsible for the data on the drive, and only seems interested in reformatting it and/or sending me an RMA.

So, all and all, if your system profile tree shows it, and has that "Current Required (mA): Unknown (Device has not been configured)" bit, then you are S* out of luck one way or the other.

If I take the drive apart and try the Sata route, then it will void the warranty and I will no longer be able to get the RMA, if I go with the RMA then I will no longer have my data. What really ***** is that I always work with the premise that you should never trust disks. They fail, thats what they do. it isn't a matter of if, it is always and forever a matter of when (when dealing with magnetics anyhow). I was about a day or so away from making a decision on the backup solution.

So technically, the problem is solved: if you follow my last set of steps, that the drive is not recognized, and it shows up in the profile with an unrecognized error as mentioned above, the drive has failed and there is nothing you can do unless you get an RMA return from the manufacturer.

I have the same problem as others here; My Toshiba 1 TB external drive shows up in Utility (but the repair disk, and other options are greyed out), but does not show up in 'Finder'. Here are the contents of the box from the commands in Terminal:

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 749.3 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1

1: Windows_NTFS TOSHIBA EXT 1.0 TB disk1s1

What should I try?

DavidfromChiangmai, I am not exactly sure I understand your question. You do not have the same problem as I have described in detail. Your disks show up in the disk utility terminal command as you have illustrated with the paste. Your recovery partition and such "options" are not available to you directly from the finder. That is by design. If your 1TB Toshiba drive is not available to you in the finder, use the disk utility GUI tool to mount the disk. Then go into your finder, if it is still not there then try to check your settings to make sure that you have the option to display mounted devices in your finder window.

-Cheers

Thanks for the response and suggestion. I found a solution before reading yours. I downloaded and installed Tuxera NFTS for mac.

Hi AlienDev,

Just to throw a spanner in the works, I have two ext hdd's which are not even showing up in the USB system report. I formatted them on Snow Leopoard to Mac OS Extended and haven't used them for a while. No I am on Mavericks and nothing. They power up fine, there is a light and the familiar whirring sound but no connection shows up on the computer. One of them is powered and it is not showing up as well.

Any thoughts? I would really appreciate some help here.

See this section ("If a disk doesn't appear in the sidebar"), part of Pondini's excellent website: http://pondini.org/OSX/DU10.html

Since there are 2 HDs and both aren't showing up, I'd suspect there might be another issue. (Have you tried restarting your computer?)

Right, so true story I feel like a fool. I changed the cables over for something a bit more substantial and it works fine. Could not be happier. First thing I am doing is copying everything to another location then I am buying a new hard drive. Might just sack it all in and back up to a cloud service.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your time and help!

LYNC!!!!

CAn you help me with a similar issue?

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_RAID 999.9 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 134.2 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk1

1: AEFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_HFS LIQUID STATE 119.7 GB disk1s2

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk2

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1

2: Apple_RAID 999.9 GB disk2s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 134.2 MB disk2s3

/dev/disk3

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk3

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1

2: Apple_RAID 999.9 GB disk3s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 134.2 MB disk3s3

/dev/disk4

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS Raid Drive *3.0 TB disk4

/dev/disk5

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk5

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk5s1

2: 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543 999.9 GB disk5s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk5s3