External HD in System Profile, but not Disk Utility

[Ja Di ksw]

Hi everyone. Pretty much what the title says. My external hard drive is showing up in the system profiler (gives all its information and whatnot), but doesn't mount and doesn't appear in Disk Utility. Any ideas on how to fix this? I'd like to save the data, of course, but at this point I'd settle for just getting a hard drive back since I'm afraid my other (and currently sole) backup will die before this is fixed. Thanks in advance!

 

[hobowankenobi]

Have not seen this, but typically, if DU won't see a drive, no other software/recovery tools will either. If this is the case, you cannot (easily) recover any data.

Variables to remove before assuming the worst:

Try different cables
Try different ports
Try mounting on another Mac
Remove the drive from the case and try with a different case/adapter...to bypass the current (possibly failing) bus
Try a free demo of recovery software...to see if it can detect the drive


One software recovery tool I have used that was both easy and robust is DiskDrill. There are quite a few others too.

 

[Fishrrman]

Does the drive (that won't show in Disk Utility) mount on the desktop?

What kind of drive is it?