My External Hard Drive In Disk Utility Is Grayed Out

I've found many similar posts with various forums, as well as on this site. Nothing matched my situation. So someone have mercy on a poor girl from Brooklyn who can't afford to purchase a Disk Recovery program.

First off, my disk is not mounting on my Mac. I open Disk Utility to try and do so and this appears:

Verify and Repair disk “AKBAR”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
Unable to read FAT (Input/output error)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 non HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error

I've been Googling for solutions for the past seven hours. My life lives on this disk. The thing is, I was about to back up and of course, this happens!

I want to also mention that the computer reads the disk. I know this because it appears in Disk utility. But its grayed out. I tried to mount it and is says to repair it first.

Someone... please... help... must... use.. the force (mac rumors)...

DoFoT9 said:

welcome!

i was going to suggest mouting, but you already tried that.

first of all, restart your mac.

second, if that doesnt work after that, try the HDD on a PC.

the fat system might be corrupt in some way or another. i hope its all ok.

how important is the data? i could probably "help" you find some recovery software

thirdly, select the greyed out partition, and try to create a new disk image from that by hiting the "New Image" button in the top of the window.

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well... here's the thing... this has happened before and I was able to recover the info on my PC. I just took it off the drive and copied it onto my PC's external hard drive. Then I took the drive to my Mac and erased all the stuff and went back to the PC to install the stuff that was there before. Easy as pie and it worked for a while. Now, when I plug it in the PC, it freezes... and only appears as the "G" drive, not as its name AKBAR

DoFoT9 said:

ok thanks for telling me that.

from this point on i would suggest that you unplug the hard drive from the computer, and do not plug it back in or turn it on until you have a recovery program ready to get the data back.

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what was that way u could assist??

DoFoT9 said:

i have a whole bunch of data recovery tools, mac&pc/shareware/freeware that will be handy for you to recover the data

just trying to think of the best method to recover

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send em this way... I need em free and fast... I'm a graphic designer and my files need to come home to Mama.

DoFoT9 said:

i have a whole bunch of data recovery tools, mac&pc/shareware/freeware that will be handy for you to recover the data

just trying to think of the best method to recover

Click to expand...

thanks so much By The Way...

DoFoT9 said:

ok i just wanna start off with WinClone. download that app, plug in your hard drive, and try to clone it using WinClone. your external hard drive will be located at disk1s1. its not really recovery software technically, but i have found it VERY good with these sorts of issues.

if that doesnt work, ill email you some software


all good

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OK well WinClone won't work as its System Requirements are 10.5 and I'm running 10.4

DoFoT9 said:

hahahaha uh oh.

well there goes that idea, that does make it a bit harder.

no wonder why you canot fix the hard drive in disk utiliy, FAT32 support was added in 10.5 (leopard).

looks like you may have to use a PC. do you have access to one?

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I do... but I mentioned the issues with that in the first post... *sigh*

I may just end up erasing the whole drive and starting fresh.

DoFoT9 said:

that doesnt matter, as long as it mounts and can be detected.

we could go down the DOS program side of things. how familiar are you with boot CDs and whatnot? its quickly becoming the only way to recover it! its easy enough to do, download an image, burn to CD, boot up PC from that CD.

if i had the drive i could recover it no problems

do you have access to a Leopard installation disk? that would work too!

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*sigh* No access to anything... I know for sure erasing the disk and starting fresh would re-mount

DoFoT9 said:

yup but sounds to me like the drive is failing, so it wont last for long.

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I'm taking a hell of a risk here but... u think there's a way you can work remotely?

I'm praying to God that you're a trustworthy person. You've been very helpful.

DoFoT9 said:

i most certainly can work remotely

i have no way to indicate to you whether i am "trustworthy" or not, but i do hope that the way i have communicated so far has gained your trust somehow.

if you want, there is some software called "Team Viewer" that lets you create a session to allow remote access. i can log in, do what i need to do, and once you exit the application i can no longer get it. that ensures that everything closes down. you can delete the app once you're done! its very easy to use.

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hey I installed it: 644 921 151 is the ID

DoFoT9 said:

its asking for a password. you can PM that to me.

have you done this on your mac or PC? i found some software for Mac that would work with tiger i have used it before, its pretty good!

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Hey,

i'm new to this forum so I don't even know where to PM you...

I saw ur email on ur profile... I've emailed you