Hard drives inserted won't be recognised by macbook pro

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Hard drives inserted won't be recognised by macbook pro

Hello

I have a macbook pro 15'' retina (late 2013 mode) running OS X Yosemite 10.10.4

I have a 2TB backup WD external hard drive for it, 2TB seagate external hard drive that I use on windows and mac for university things, and a 2TB WD external hard drive for personal things.

My mac was reading these hard drives perfectly fine before (I've had this mac since early 2014), but suddenly, yesterday the macbook pro stopped recognising the partitions in any of these external hard drives.

I've changed USB ports on the mac but disk utility only shows the external hard drive that is plugged in and the partition as disk11s1.

I've tried to plug in a normal 16GB USB and the same thing happens, but the mac is running my cintiq 13HD tablet and USB mouse perfectly fine.

I've tried the external hard drives on my HP windows laptop and the hard drives were working perfectly fine as well.

Could I please have help on this matter? I can't do any university work with a macbook pro that isn't recognising any external hard drives being plugged in.

Please help

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), Late 2013 model

Posted on Aug 1, 2015 1:52 PM

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Answer 1

ChitlinsCC

Level 7

20,924 points

Aug 1, 2015 2:09 PM in response to Pakanese

Things seldom just "happen" with no cause. Think back to just before the onset of your problem and define what event occurred on your MBPro... Add software? update software? add/change hardware of any kind? anything at all, no matter insignificant it may seem.

It may help to tell us your exact Actions leading up to your discovery of the misbehavior. Start as far back as Startup prior to your last joy with your externals.

meanwhile, I'll get this moved to MBPro forum

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Answer 2

Pakanese Author

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Aug 1, 2015 2:25 PM in response to ChitlinsCC

I used my windows laptop (which had updated to windows 10 from 7) to transfer files from my seagate 2TB hard drive to my WD 2TB hard drive (because the WD isn't formatted to be written on with a mac). And I transferred some movies over to my WD.

I had been using a USB multi-port device on my mac because the macbook only has 2 USB ports.
I plugged in the WD back to my mac to transfer a movie file into my USB but the mac kept saying the file can't be transferred because there's not enough space in the USB for the format type (which I thought was strange because the USB was empty).

I ejected the USB out of my mac, plugged in my seagate one (with the WD still plugged in).

Suddenly both hard drives were ejected without my knowledge (which happens often, the WD hard drives likes to kick off my seagate one from time to time). So I thought that was normal, but when I unplugged and plugged the seagate one back in, the mac wasn't recognising it anymore and in disk utility, the partition bit is shown as disk11s1. And the mac couldn't recognise any hard drives after that, but the hard drives work perfectly on windows laptops. I don't have a different mac to test the hard drives on.

I hope this makes sense.

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Answer 3

ChitlinsCC

Level 7

20,924 points

Aug 1, 2015 3:15 PM in response to Pakanese

Pakanese wrote:

I used my windows laptop (which had updated to windows 10 from 7) to transfer files from my seagate 2TB hard drive to my WD 2TB hard drive (because the WD isn't formatted to be written on with a mac). And I transferred some movies over to my WD.

I had been using a USB multi-port device on my mac because the macbook only has 2 USB ports.
I plugged in the WD back to my mac to transfer a movie file into my USB but the mac kept saying the file can't be transferred because there's not enough space in the USB for the format type (which I thought was strange because the USB was empty).

I ejected the USB out of my mac, plugged in my seagate one (with the WD still plugged in).

Suddenly both hard drives were ejected without my knowledge (which happens often, the WD hard drives likes to kick off my seagate one from time to time). So I thought that was normal, but when I unplugged and plugged the seagate one back in, the mac wasn't recognising it anymore and in disk utility, the partition bit is shown as disk11s1. And the mac couldn't recognise any hard drives after that, but the hard drives work perfectly on windows laptops. I don't have a different mac to test the hard drives on.

I hope this makes sense.

No experience whatsoever with modern Windows, their formatting characteristics or file structures. Windoze 10 may by the red flag as it touted as something "completely different" as Monty Python would say. As they say, "What happened to Windows 9... ' 7 ate 9 ' "
Not really following this one...
did you plug the WD drive directly into the Mac instead of the USB multi-port device? Maybe something in #3 indicates reality?
What kind of USB device is this? Merely ports or does it have storage as you imply - 'not enough space' and 'empty'?
Maybe with specifications of the USB device we can deduce what you mean... I envision a USB HUB connected to your Mac by a cable, but I am guessing. Ejecting in the Finder is always the right thing to do.
Plugging seems appropriate but UNplugging without ejecting in the Finder would set off alerts on my Mac.
It is good news that Windows seems to be joyful with the drives.

Have you restarted your Mac? *1st step in all troubleshooting!!

Simple test:

Shut down your Mac
remove all devices while cold
Startup your Mac
add ONE of your external drives - plug it in is all that you need do
report results

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Answer 4

Pakanese Author

Level 1

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Aug 1, 2015 3:25 PM in response to ChitlinsCC

I had tried connecting it directly into my mac thinking that the USB hub was faulty but it seemed to make no difference.

The mac didn't make any alerts when the hard drives were disconnected.

I tried to restart once but my mac froze in the process so I just shut it down my pressing down the power button. Then I booted it up and restarted again, plugged in one of my external hard drives and it worked!!!!

It took a little while for the hard drive to be recognised but the problem I mentioned wasn't happening anymore. Still not exactly sure of the cause but I'm guessing it was the USB hub that messed with it...

Thank you so much!!

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Answer 5

ChitlinsCC

Level 7

20,924 points

Aug 1, 2015 3:46 PM in response to Pakanese

Good news...

You have "too many balls in the air" to make any determination about the USB multi-ported (got Storage?) device.

Do what I suggested with your now joyful Mac - plugin stuff one at a time (with patience) and see if you can't get it back to what you deem normal.

My guess is that you merely made a boo-boo with a mounted drive and it had a little trouble recovering.

Best luck!

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