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External drive won't show up on desktop

G

googs

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 15, 2009
8
0
There are similar threads regarding this on the site, but mine seems to be a unique case...

My external drive has been used once. It was formatted, partitioned and files were saved on a mac. It showed up on a friends computer running Linux, and it showed up on my PC at home, but it hasn't been turned on since (about two weeks). This is where the problems begin. A few days ago I purchased a new enclosure for my HD (Nexstar 3.5). I took the HD out of it's old enclosure and put it in the new one (I needed the new enclosure for school purposes). I got to school today and plugged it in to the mac, but the drive didn't show up on the desktop. I tried to connect with Firewire 400, 800 and USB 2.0 but no luck with any of them (a USB key worked fine). Just to make sure it was working, I got home plugged it in to my PC and it showed up instantly.

From looking at other threads regarding this issue they all say I have to access the Utility menu. The only problem is since the mac I need to use is a school computer I can't access the Utility menu. It says I don't have authorization to use that menu, and won't allow me to go any further.

I don't know what to do from here. I can't reformat the drive because there is rather important info on there that hasn't been backed up yet. What can I do?

Thanks for any help you can offer!!
 
Is the Mac setup to show hard drives on the Desktop? Is the Mac setup to show hard drives in the Finder's Sidebar?
 
What's the current File System format? Can you backup the drive somewhere and format it?
 
I'm not entirely sure how the mac is set up, but if I had to take an educated guess I'd say it is supposed to show drives on the desktop. When I plugged in a USB key it popped up on the desktop right away. I didn't see it in the Finders sidebar either.

I definitely don't know what the File System format is. The formatting, partitioning and file saving was done by an engineer at a recording studio. I just sat beside him while he did everything. My knowledge of macs is extremely limited, I've only been using them in any great depth for a week now.

I'm going to try using a different computer and see if that makes a difference, then I'm going to try putting the HD back in the old enclosure.
 
So I've put the HD back into it's original enclosure and it shows up on the desktop right away. That would be super, but I really need to use the new enclosure I've got for school purposes.

Anybody have any idea why when I swap the HD to the new enclosure it suddenly doesn't show up? I must be missing a step somewhere between taking it out of the old one and putting it in the new one, but I have no idea what.
 
googs said:
So I've put the HD back into it's original enclosure and it shows up on the desktop right away. That would be super, but I really need to use the new enclosure I've got for school purposes.

Anybody have any idea why when I swap the HD to the new enclosure it suddenly doesn't show up? I must be missing a step somewhere between taking it out of the old one and putting it in the new one, but I have no idea what.
Click to expand...

Could it be the new enclosure needs to use a different jumper setting on the hard drive? Another thought is that I suppose the new enclosure could also be defective.
 
DewGuy1999 said:
Could it be the new enclosure needs to use a different jumper setting on the hard drive? Another thought is that I suppose the new enclosure could also be defective.
Click to expand...

Possibly. How do I go about checking or changing the jumper setting? Just reading the manual, it says I have to change the jumper setting to MASTER or SINGLE DRIVE ONLY. But it also says to refer to my HD manual to go about changing them...my HD didn't come with a manual.
 
googs said:
Possibly. How do I go about checking or changing the jumper setting? Just reading the manual, it says I have to change the jumper setting to MASTER or SINGLE DRIVE ONLY. But it also says to refer to my HD manual to go about changing them...my HD didn't come with a manual.
Click to expand...

I've only done this once, so I'm not an authority on it. Here's a web page that I found that has an overview Hard Drive Upgrade Install Guide. As shown on the page above your drive should have a diagram on it showing the different possible configurations, if not the drive manufacturer should have something available on their site. Different manufacturers use different configurations for the same thing, so it best to check the diagram or the manufacturer.
 
DewGuy1999 said:
I've only done this once, so I'm not an authority on it. Here's a web page that I found that has an overview Hard Drive Upgrade Install Guide. As shown on the page above your drive should have a diagram on it showing the different possible configurations, if not the drive manufacturer should have something available on their site. Different manufacturers use different configurations for the same thing, so it best to check the diagram or the manufacturer.
Click to expand...

I think that may be it. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes. Thank you so much for your help!!
 
Update!

I still haven't been able to change the jumper settings on it, but that seems that's the least of my worries.

I had my HD plugged in today while working on Pro Tools, but not actually using it to access any info. Suddenly ProTools started running REALLY slow. For whatever reason I decided to unplug my HD from the computer so the computer didn't have to deal with so much info. I clicked on the HD icon so I could properly eject it. About 30 seconds went by with the good 'ol beach ball spinning when suddenly I had a pop up that said "My device was improperly disconnected from the computer and I may have lost information" or something to that effect. I never tried to eject it, I never even accessed the window to properly eject it. Suddenly my HD was no longer on the desk top. When I tried to reconnect it to the computer it wouldn't appear on the desktop. I rebooted the computer, nothing. I tried a different computer, nothing. I rebooted it with the HD attached, nothing. I rebooted it THEN attached the HD, nothing.

What the hell is going on!?!? Is my hard drive screwed? Why will it suddenly not show up? Why did this even happen in the first place when I wasn't even using the HD during my protools session?

Help!!
 
I don't have any experience with that kind of thing happening but I'd venture a guess that the HD may have failed. Does it show up in Disk Utility? If so, can you Verify or Repair it? Sorry, I don't have anything better to offer.
 
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