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External Hard Drive Problems Help!!!

W

walchemi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
So my external isn't working with my Powerbook G4 or my iMac. It doesn't come up at ALL on my desktop like normal. I took it to someone who plugged it into a PC and my stuff came up fine. What is wrong. Please, my life is on this external. HELP ME!
 
Does it show up in Disk Utility? Have you tried using a different USB/FireWire port? (you didn't say what kind it used.)

tracetritt said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I would say that it's not formatted correctly for use with OS X.

Trace
Click to expand...

That's not the problem, even if it was formatted as NTFS, Mac OS X should still be able to read it.
 
I have been using it with my Powerbook G4 that has OSX and Tiger for the past few MONTHS. It JUST NOW decided to not work. I have no idea why. It's USB. It shows up NOWHERE that I can see. I am so lost!!!
 
As the handsome yet ferocious iBookG4user said, check Disk utility in the Utilities folder. If it's not even showing up in Disk Utility, then you've got some issues. Do any other USB devices work on these machines? 🙂
 
perhaps you unplugged it without ejecting it first. You could try shutting down, plugging it in and then booting holding the option key and see if the drive shows up.

Since you use it on a PC I assume it's formatted FAT (?) If so, then attach it back to the PC and check the drive there. I don't remember windows stuff anymore, but do the equivalent of a fsck on it.
 
so i found it in disk utility - do i repair the disk? what do i do next?

thank you all so much for helping me out!
 
walchemi said:
it told me the repair failed the fix one volume?

?????
Click to expand...

well then i would copy your files over on the windows PC, buy i new hard drive, and then copy the files onto the new hard drive

btw, how old is the drive....hard drives usually fail after 5 years or so
 
Verify and Repair disk “EXTERNAL”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains
** Phase 3 - Checking Directories
Unable to read directory (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





that's what it tells me.



the drive is less than a month old.
 
After backing up the files on the PC like the illustrious and vivacious diehardmacfan said, try reformatting it. Do this from the Mac so as to avoid the FAT32 size limitations. Format it as MS-DOS File System. Then use Disk Utility to verify the drive again.
 
ahhh this is a disaster - and i know all my files will NOT fit on the PC that is in my house. i have over 100G of music.
 
walchemi said:
ahhh this is a disaster - and i know all my files will NOT fit on the PC that is in my house. i have over 100G of music.
Click to expand...

If your PC has a DVD burner, then you could transfer some of the music at a time and then burn a DVD of it, repeat until done. That would take a while, but if your Mac can't read it, then I don't see what other choice you have. And backup your data if you don't want to lose it 😉
 
Is there another PC you could try? I'm not saying it'll necessarily work copying all these files back, but it certainly seems worth a try. Oh, and copy back the files in batches because a single large copy will put a lot of strain on the drive and you mightn't be able to recover anything. Keep the drive cool during the transfer too. 🙂
 
how do i back things up?

can i transfer some to a PC then to an external and keep doing it in short sections like that?

then how will it work with my mac after that?


(thank you again for allllll the help)
 
You can reformat it using Disk Utility, if you don't normally use it with a PC, then you should format it using HFS. To format it click on the "erase" tab in disk utility then select the format that you want to format it to and click erase.
 
You could back up that way if you want. The key is keeping the drive cool so that it's less likely to crap out on you mid transfer. Once you've backed everything up, reconnect it to a Mac and use Disk utility to completely reformat it. This may not necessarily help though, which is why you should verify the drive before relying on it for your data storage again. If it fails the verification, then take it back and get it repaired/replaced under warranty. 🙂
 
Don't listen to them.

Is the hard drive under warranty? If yes, go back to the store and get them to mirror it.

If not, go to professional and get him to mirror your hard drive onto a new one.

Do not copy files the regular way as you would most likely corrupt them.

You need to mirror the hard drive if it is failing.
 
after i reformat and put files back on it from the PC will it be okay to put in my mac? even after having put it back into a PC?
 
Yeah, as long as the files are unmodified while on the PC they will be the exact same files that you saw on the Mac.
 
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