Can't mount formatted external disk

[alexmac712]

I decided to format my Lacie 160 Gb firewire external drive yesterday. I used disk utility and chose to erase with the zero out data option.
Today, I unplugged the drive and plugged it back in later. I want to mount the disk, but nothing happens. Not sure what I need to do????

 

[Bear]

Did you unmount/eject it before unplugging it?

Had it finished erasing the disk?

I suggest you go in to Disk Utility and see what it says about the disk.

Also, how old is the drive? COuld it have failed?

 

[alexmac712]

I just left it when I went to bed last night.
When I woke up my Mac this morning the disk icon wasn't there.
That's when I unplugged and replugged it. A message came up that disk was unreadable (with options to stop, eject or initialize)
I chose initialize and got the disk utility screen.
The Group SA is shown as:
Disk Description : LaCie Group SA Total Capacity : 160.04 GB (160,041,885,696 Bytes)
Connection Bus : FireWire Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Connection ID : 58629636519016050 Partition Map Scheme : Apple Partition Map

but the disk itself has the shaded grey font.
I tried verifying and repairing and got this:
Verifying volume “disk4s6”
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Verify and Repair volume “disk4s6”
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.

The drive dates back to 2006.

 

[Bear]

The disk icon won't show if it's not done erasing the drive. I suggest you try erasing it again and make sure it finishes with no errors.

 

[joelw135]

The disk icon won't show if it's not done erasing the drive. I suggest you try erasing it again and make sure it finishes with no errors.

Also sometimes you will get the error can't unmount disk then open the terminal and type sudo mdutil -a -i off which turns off indexing then after you format use sudo mdutil -a -i on which restarts indexing. I had the problem yesterday.

 

[alexmac712]

Thanks for the tips. I'll try them later and let you know!

 

[alexmac712]

The disk icon won't show if it's not done erasing the drive. I suggest you try erasing it again and make sure it finishes with no errors.

It worked. Thanks a bunch!