HELP! Mac with External HD issue

I am using a MacBook Pro and have an external hard drive that I use to store my images on. It has worked fine for quite a while and now all of a sudden it does not show up on my desktop, in the finder or in the disk utility when I plug it in.

I have tried both USB ports and they work fine with other devices. When I plug the HD into my PC laptop it recognizes the drive even though nothing shows up because its formated to Mac only.

What happened? How can I get it back?

Hey Aug...,

Try this.

After connecting the HD, Open Terminal (located in Utilities) and fire up a 'ls /Volumes'. If you see it in there, then you're good. Then what you can do is in Finder do a Go> Go to Folder and type in /Volumes/<name of volume you found in terminal>.

If you don't see it in Terminal, I'm guessing something wrong with the USB port on your MB Pro. Are other USB devices mounting with it?

I think both USB ports a single bus. Do you have another USB or firewire enclosure to put the drive in?

aRjun,
I see what you are saying but I just want to make sure I am doing it right, when I open the terminal, I just type 'ls/volumes' and hit enter, or just ls/volumes and enter without the ' ' ? When I do either now I get a reply back that just says no such file or directory. Thanks in advance

Hmm Aug...

So it happened to me just now too! I closed the lid and that put the MB Pro to sleep. When I opened the lid again, aperture (library's on my external HDD) gave an error and exited. I figured the HDD wasn't connecting.

Here's how I fixed it:

1. Since the HD isn't connected, no I/O is happening and it is safe to shut it off by disconnecting its power supply and also by taking out the USB plug from the MB Pro.
2. Once that is done, simply restart the MB Pro.When it comes back up, connect the HDD to its power supply and connect it to the MB Pro. It should mount itself pretty soon.

Well, from now on, eject the drive before putting the MB Pro to sleep. If you don't 'have to' put it to sleep, download an app called Insomniax and if you start that up, it keeps the MB Pro from sleeping when you shut the lid off.

Hope that helps.

August 15 Photography wrote in post #3483536
aRjun,
I see what you are saying but I just want to make sure I am doing it right, when I open the terminal, I just type 'ls/volumes' and hit enter, or just ls/volumes and enter without the ' ' ? When I do either now I get a reply back that just says no such file or directory. Thanks in advance

It's without the quotes and there is a space between 'ls' and '/volumes'.

Also check the USB cable/any hub - I've had a similar problem recently, and traced it back to one of my hubs.

Try this:
1. Shut down.
2. Disconnect HD
3. Reboot
4. Reconnect the HD
5. If it doesn't appear: try Disk Utility to see if it shows up. Also run System Profiler to see if it shows up connected to the bus. If not, attach another device (printer, etc) & refresh. If nothing still shows up there may be a problem with the USB bus.

Wlescall,
I did try your suggestion and the only place it does show up is in the System Profiler as 2.0 USB mass storage, but it is not on the desktop, finder or Disk Utility. Any advice on what I can do next?

I think you need to try putting another drive into this enclosure, or put the drive you're using into another enclosure. It's not clear to me if perhaps the drive has failed or if the enclosure's controller has failed. Do you have a spare drive laying around to put into the enclosure? Does the enclosure support PATA or SATA drives? I presume it's a 3.5" drive?

Sounds like it must be the host machine then. You could try repairing privilages and checking the disk via disk utility. You may have to repair the hard drive by booting up with the system disks supplied. Then update the system software via software update if you don't already.

Good luck.

Graham

Tony-S wrote in post #3487018
I think you need to try putting another drive into this enclosure, or put the drive you're using into another enclosure. It's not clear to me if perhaps the drive has failed or if the enclosure's controller has failed. Do you have a spare drive laying around to put into the enclosure? Does the enclosure support PATA or SATA drives? I presume it's a 3.5" drive?

I agree. Can your PC laptop read the HD's SMART status?

blue_max wrote in post #3487041
Sounds like it must be the host machine then. You could try repairing privilages and checking the disk via disk utility. You may have to repair the hard drive by booting up with the system disks supplied. Then update the system software via software update if you don't already.

In his earlier post he stated that System Profiler sees that something is connected to the USB bus, but Disk Utility doesn't see it. That means, in all likelihood, that there's an issue with either the drive itself or the enclosure's controller. The same occurred on the PC machine - it saw that something was connected to the USB port, but it was not identifying itself as a hard drive. I just hope it's the controller and not the drive. If so, then a new enclosure would solve the problem. If it's the drive, then there's a good chance the data are gone for good.