External HDD not recognized anywhere (including Disk Utiliy)

[TijmenDal]

Hi,

So I bought a hard drive dock to speed up the back-up workflow. I just unpacked it and it inserted a Seagate HDD 2TB drive I bought along with it. When I insert it, the drive powers up, I hear it spin for 2-3 seconds and then it just powers off again.
I can't see the disk anywhere on my Macbook (10.9).

What's going on here? I hardly doubt the HDD dock is broken. There's a green 'power' LED on, as well as a blue LED that supposedly shows you there's a disk inserted. It just doesn't show anywhere on the laptop.


Thanks in advance!

 

[Ebenezum]

Open Disk Utility and check if the drive is listed there. If it is select it and check information at the bottom of the window, does it show Mac OS extended and GUID?

If not you have format it using Disk Utility, choose Mac OS extended (journaled) and GUID. Formatting will erase all data so be careful!

If the hard drive won't mount at all its probably defective. If you have another dock you could test it, if it works with it then problem is in the dock.

 

[chown33]

Remember to check the cable, too.

Also, if you're using a USB hub (I'm assuming the dock is USB), make sure to take that out of the chain, and plug the dock's cable directly into the USB port on the computer.

It's entirely possible the dock is bad, or the drive is. With no USB cable connected to anything, I think the drive should spin up and remain spinning for considerably more than 3-5 seconds. It might help to identify exactly which dock it is (model number, manufacturer, etc.).

 

[TijmenDal]

Thanks for the help.
I found an old(er) 2.5 750gig drive from an old laptop: same problem, it fires up (but keeps spinning though) but isn't recognized. That drive is working, so it's definitely the dock. I'll send it back.