Help! No external drives mounting

[Dimwhit]

I've got two external drives. I've tried them with two separate pieces of equipment (an external enclosure and a Universal Drive Adapter). The drives won't mount at all. Disk utility, DiskWarrior, and Data Rescue...none of them even recognize the drives. One of the drives is brand new. The other one, I got it mounted for about five minutes using the Drive Adapter, but then the drive disconnected and won't re-mount. Again, nothing even recognize the drives. I've tried via USB (with the Adapter) and FW400 and FW800 (with the external enclosure).

So I'm stumped. I restarted my iMac thinking that might help. Doesn't, unfortunately. But I'm thinking it must be a software issue, since I know the drives are good, and I know I didn't lose USB AND both FWs all at the same time on the iMac.

Anyone have a suggestion where I should go from here?

 

[dr. shdw]

Can you hear/feel them spin up?

 

[Dimwhit]

Yep. They seem to spin up just fine.

Also, I'm on 10.5.7.

 

[dmmcintyre3]

Reboot with them attached. That did it for me on my iBook when I had this issue.

 

[Dimwhit]

Reboot with them attached. That did it for me on my iBook when I had this issue.

No dice.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the 10.5.7 update, but the only reports I've been able to find pertain to Buffalo drives, which these aren't.

 

[Dimwhit]

Now I'm really confused. The drives boot up just fine to my MBP, which is also running 10.5.7.

 

[Morod]

Under Finder>Preferences>General, have you deselected the Hard disks or External disks from the "Show these items on the Desktop" menu?
That's my only help. Sorry if it doesn't work.
Morod

 

[Hrududu]

I have the same issue with my external Seagate Firewire drive. Its flaky like that since I got it. I found that I just have to screw around with powering on the Mac and Drive at different times for it to eventually mount. I don't know why it does this, but it won't mount at all on any of my G3 Macs.

 

[Dimwhit]

I've finally been able to get them to mount using the Drive Adapter. I think it's working with that regularly. Of course, that's not a permanent method. My external enclosure still won't mount them, and I'm not sure they're spinning up all the way. So it may be that I've had two issues at the same time, one that seems to have fixed itself, and one that hasn't.

 

[eyefoniac]

I am having the same problem with my Seagate Freeagent pro. It started the day after I installed 10.5.7. When I plug in the drive it spins up, the light on the drive comes on (sounds like it spins up all the way) but the computer doesn't even recognize it. Disk utility can't see it, and no other mac in the house (sadly all on 10.5.7) can see it. I have tried its connection via USB (4 different cords) and eSATA. Any suggestions?