External HDD shows on PC but not Mac

Question

Level 1

9 points

External HDD shows on PC but not Mac

So I was a bit stupid and didn't eject my external hdd (a 2tb WD My Passport) properly last night. Instead I shut the lid of my mac (2013 13 inch retina) and then just pulled it out for some reason.

Anyway I turn on my mac this morning and get a notification saying it didn't eject properly. I then go into Disk Utility and try to eject it - failed. Try to mount it - failed. Try to verify - needs repair. And tried to repair - needs formatting.

Now this would seem to be a simple case of I've mucked up a disk (which is, by the way, about 3 weeks old). But then I plug it into my Windows desktop (it's FAT32 format) and everything is fine. Absolutely fine. So right now I'm kinda unwilling to format it, until I've at least verified that I won't be losing anything at all.

I've restarted my Mac 3/4 times and plugged it in each time to no luck. It just doesn't show on the desktop and then when I go into Disk Utility it is there but the same happens.

I'm pretty new to Mac (ie I have had mine for about a month) so I don't know what my next options are.

Any suggestions?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Apr 20, 2014 3:20 AM

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Answer 1

tug-

Level 3

685 points

Apr 20, 2014 3:58 AM in response to jep51

if you need the drive for use with your mac then it will have to be formated to "mac extended journaled" the drive cannot operate on the osx platform with any other format.

it might be an idea to purchase another ext.drive for use with the mac and save your data for use with your windows machine.

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Answer 2

tug-

Level 3

685 points

Apr 20, 2014 3:33 AM in response to jep51

when it was connected to your mac were you able to open anything on the drive or did it just show up on the desktop?

was it preformated for mac, mac extended (journaled)? your post is a little unclear.

however if the drive does in fact need to be formatted for mac then yes, you will lose everything on it.

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Answer 3

jep51 Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 20, 2014 3:46 AM in response to tug-

Up until today everything was fine, it showed on the desktop and was in use, read/write etc.

It was originally NTFS but I reformatted it as FAT32.

I'm currently thinking I might have to try it on another mac as it works perfectly on windows (hence why I am at the moment reluctant to format it).

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Answer 4

tbirdvet

Level 6

13,635 points

Apr 20, 2014 4:13 AM in response to tug-

If the drive was formatted as FAT32 the Mac should recognize the drive and read from it. I would check the drive on another MAC if possible before reformatting. I guess not being ejected properly could have messed up the format some how so now not recognized. If that is the case I would copy all the files off using a Windows PC then reformat and then can copy back the files.

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,536 points

Apr 20, 2014 6:03 AM in response to tug-

tug! wrote:

if you need the drive for use with your mac then it will have to be formated to "mac extended journaled" the drive cannot operate on the osx platform with any other format.

That's a load of cow dung.

You can use an external drive formatted as FAT32, exFAT, or even NTFS (read only) on a Mac.

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Answer 6

ssls6

Level 4

2,879 points

Apr 20, 2014 6:06 AM in response to jep51

You can try running chkdsk on it from windows. You won't loose anything and you could have orphaned a file while on the mac that windows won't care about (at least until things get really bad).

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Answer 7

tug-

Level 3

685 points

Apr 20, 2014 6:14 AM in response to Barney-15E

Barney-15E wrote:

tug! wrote:

if you need the drive for use with your mac then it will have to be formated to "mac extended journaled" the drive cannot operate on the osx platform with any other format.

That's a load of cow dung.

You can use an external drive formatted as FAT32, exFAT, or even NTFS (read only) on a Mac.

not if you want to use it for backup purposes, that is what i was trying to offer as a solution.

so why is it cow dung?

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Answer 8

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,536 points

Apr 20, 2014 6:45 AM in response to tug-

Because you can use an external drive formatted as any of those formats on a Mac. Your first absolute statement is wrong. Your second statement supplanted with the caveat of using it for backup purposes is also wrong, depending on what you use to back it up. However, the OP mentioned nothing regarding "backup" at all.

jep51 obviously uses the drive on both Windows and Mac, so formatting it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) would be counter-productive.

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Answer 9

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Apr 20, 2014 6:49 AM in response to jep51

Once you sort it all out, you should format it as ExFAT, clearly superior to FAT32.

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