Can't Connect External Hard Drive (USB/Firefire?)

Question

Can't Connect External Hard Drive (USB/Firefire?)

I've been copying files back and forth between my PC and my MacBook Pro via an external hard drive. When I plugged it into my MacBook Pro, an external device icon would appear in my Finder program, right below "Macintosh HD," I believe. When I unplugged it, I'd get a "Device Removed" message, or something like that.

But the last time I plugged it into my MacBook Pro, nothing happened. I can still connect my external hard drive to my PC, but I can't connect to my MacBook. No icon appears in my Finder, and no message is displayed when I unplug it.

I'm not even sure what "it" is - a firewire, USB cord, or whatever. On the right side of my laptop is a series of five or six "slots." I'm not sre what the one farthest away from me is for, but the next one is used for connecting to the Internet. The next two are not in use, and the last sizeable slot is the one I'm having problems with.

I restarted my laptop, but that didn't help.

Can anyone tell me if there's a way to troubleshoot this and/or an alternate way of connecting to my external hard drive?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Mar 10, 2007 7:27 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Mar 10, 2007 7:51 PM in response to David Blomstrom

Never unplug an external disk drive without first "ejecting" the drive. You can do this several ways - drag the disk icon to the Trash, locate the drive listing in the Finder's sidebar. You will see an Eject icon to the right of the drive name. Click on that icon to eject the drive, Right-Click or CTRL-Click on the drive icon and select "Eject 'drivename'" from the contextual menu. and select the drive icon and press COMMAND-E.

Failure to eject a drive properly will result in the error message and eventually cause data corruption and potential loss of data from the drive. This is likely what has now happened.

You can try connecting the drive to your Mac then opening Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If the drive appears in the DU left side list then you can select it, then click on the Repair Disk tab in the DU main window, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports errors that were fixed then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported.

If DU reports errors that cannot be fixed then you may need to use third-party software like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro to try and repair the drive.

If all else fails or the drive is not visible in DU, then you will need to reformat the drive. If the drive is formatted MS-DOS then you could try repairing it on a Windows machine.

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Answer 2

Mar 10, 2007 8:18 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks for all the tips; I wasn't aware I had to eject external hard disks. I've probably swapped it between my PC and MacBook pro several dozen times.

Do you know if I have to close all my software programs in order to run Disk Utilities? I've had it open for five or ten minutes now, and it still says "Gathering Disk Information." Maybe it just takes a while.

When I plugged my external drive into my PC, I could still see files in it, though I didn't open any of them. Anyway, I suspect it will still work with my PC, so hopefully, it will just take some minor repairs to make it work with my MacBook Pro again.

Thanks again.

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Mar 10, 2007 8:19 PM in response to David Blomstrom

The never ending "Gathering data" message usually means DU cannot read the drive at all. Usually a sign that there is a problem with the boot block.

You could try booting the computer from your OS X Installer Disc One and running DU from the installer disc's Utilities menu that will appear after you select a language and click on the Continue button - you're not going to proceed any further. However, if DU still has a problem, then you may need to repair the drive from a PC or reformat it from scratch.

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Answer 4

Mar 10, 2007 8:20 PM in response to Kappy

One more question...If I do have to reformat my hard drive, is there a certain way I should format it, now that I'm using it with both a PC and a Mac? It seems to me there were two ways of formatting it for the PC, and I can't even remember which one I chose or why. I was just happy to see that it also worked with my Mac.

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Mar 10, 2007 8:22 PM in response to David Blomstrom

Yes. Open Disk Utility. Select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) for the external drive from the left side list, then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Click on Options and select the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition scheme then click on OK. Set the format type to MS-DOS and set the number of partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu. Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume mounts on the Desktop.

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Answer 6

Mar 10, 2007 9:06 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks. My external hard drive finally appeared in the DU screen, so I'm "Verifying" and repairing it now. It did say there are "0" files on my external drive, which isn't a good sign. 🙂

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