Harddrive in disk utility, but not showing up on desktop.

[SarahShutze]

Hello,

I'm new to this forum, but need help with my external harddrives (WD Pasport 250GB). I can find it in my disk utility, but not on my desktop. I had WD send me a new drive, but now I do not know how to transfer the info from the old drive. Its not a dead drive- its obviously turned on and connected, but I can't mount it to my desktop. Any advice??

I have a iBook G4 (if that matters).

Sarah

 

[Trip.Tucker]

Have you setup a partition on the new drive in Drive Utility as well as format it?

 

[spinnerlys]

Do you mean, you can't mount the drive via the Disk Utility?

Is it formatted?

Maybe you can try a PMU reset.

 

[rdowns]

Sounds like the drive needs to be formatted. In Disc Utility, select the drive from the left hand pane and then click the Erase tab. If you are only using the drive with a Mac, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and it will then format the drive. After that, it should appear on your desktop.

 

[SarahShutze]

It is formatted for a Mac. It previously showed up, but will not show up now. I don't want to erase it b/c it has all my back-ups. I'm hoping to pull the info off and transfer it to a new drive. Any advice?

 

[Trip.Tucker]

It is formatted for a Mac. It previously showed up, but will not show up now. I don't want to erase it b/c it has all my back-ups. I'm hoping to pull the info off and transfer it to a new drive. Any advice?

You'll need to provide more detail. You said in your original post that WD sent you a replacment drive. That replacement drive would be unformatted. That drive will also need to be partitioned and formatted.

Where is the original drive? Still in your iBook? Where is the new drive connected? In Disk Util, when you click on the old drive, can you mount it from there?