Macbook Pro not acknowledging Ext Hard drive

[scharah]

Hi

I'm a final year student with ALL of my dissertation documents saved on to my external hard drive. I figured I should probably back these things up to dropbox and low and behold, when I plugged in my External Hard Drive, my mac doesn't seem to register it.

You can't write this stuff!

I'm using a 2010 macbook pro with OS X 10.8.2. with a 2.4 GHz processor.

The hard drive is a Sonnics 250gb external hard drive with 2 usb plugs.

When I plug the hard drive in, it is spinning and making al the usual noises - the red light is showing as it normally would, but it's not appearing on the desktop and doesn't seem to be in devices either.

Please help!! `

(also apologies if this is in the wrong forum)

Sarah.

 

[justperry]

Open Disk Utility, do you see it there?

 

[scharah]

Open Disk Utility, do you see it there?

I opened disc utility, there's a 'Hitachi 250.6Gb' drive as well as the Macintosh HD, but it says it's internal, so I'm assuming that's not it?

 

[justperry]

I opened disc utility, there's a 'Hitachi 250.6Gb' drive as well as the Macintosh HD, but it says it's internal, so I'm assuming that's not it?

Can you make a screenshot, so I can see it, or just check, there should be two disks with each 1 or more volumes under it.
If this is not the case it is not connected.

Screenshot= Command-Shift-4 then hit spacebar and click on Disk Utility window.

 

[scharah]

Can you make a screenshot, so I can see it, or just check, there should be two disks with each 1 or more volumes under it.
If this is not the case it is not connected.

Screenshot= Command-Shift-4 then hit spacebar and click on Disk Utility window.

http://s17.postimage.org/3med4yn3j/Screen_Shot_2012_12_08_at_13_09_09.png

 

[justperry]

http://s17.postimage.org/3med4yn3j/Screen_Shot_2012_12_08_at_13_09_09.png

No, it is not there.
Now, what you could do now is try a restart or if you have another cable try that one.
You can also check if the other USB port on the external.

 

[scharah]

No, it is not there.
Now, what you could do now is try a restart or if you have another cable try that one.
You can also check if the other USB port on the external.

It's just decided to show up now! Thankfully. It's been plugged in for about half an hour and nothing had shown up.

I don't know if its' the hard drive itself or the connection, maybe the cables aren't brilliant.

But I'm backing everything up on Dropbox just now as we speak.

Thanks so much for your help though!

 

[justperry]

It's just decided to show up now! Thankfully. It's been plugged in for about half an hour and nothing had shown up.

I don't know if its' the hard drive itself or the connection, maybe the cables aren't brilliant.

But I'm backing everything up on Dropbox just now as we speak.

Thanks so much for your help though!

Ah, great.

It is probably a flimsy cable or connector, or it might be buggy driver although I doubt this.

I looked up this drive seems to have a fairly low price, might be a good brand but I never heard of this brand.

If you get into trouble again and it won't show up anymore even with restarts or different cables the hard disk might still be OK but a faulty enclosure.
So, if this is the case you could always open up the case and try in a different case.

Good luck with uploading your Data, and you can remove the screenshot if you like.

 

[scharah]

Ah, great.

It is probably a flimsy cable or connector, or it might be buggy driver although I doubt this.

I looked up this drive seems to have a fairly low price, might be a good brand but I never heard of this brand.

If you get into trouble again and it won't show up anymore even with restarts or different cables the hard disk might still be OK but a faulty enclosure.
So, if this is the case you could always open up the case and try in a different case.

Good luck with uploading your Data, and you can remove the screenshot if you like.

It was admittedly the cheapest that I could find on ebay. Student living at it's best!

Thanks for all the advice, I tried it with a different cable which seems to be working better as my mac is registering the drive instantly. So I'll stick with that cable. But to be honest, I think I'll just be automatically saving everything to dropbox from now on.

I have less faith in the internet breaking...