my hard drive went 'poof' and disappeared

[lindsgomes]

i clicked on my hard drive (maybe double clicked?) to upload a photo to my blog from it, it all of a sudden went 'poof' and disappeard. i immediately plugged it into my other iMac to be sure no data was lost. i then re-plugged it into my iMac and it doesn't come up in the finder anymore. the only time i see it is when i go to disk utility.
how do i get it back on my finder screen without loosing ANY data?

thanks for you help!!!

 

[Boogsephine]

Do you mean the icon for the hard drive isn't on the desktop or it isn't showing up at all even if you go into the settings (not disk utility)?

Try clicking the desktop so the Finder is active, hit Finder (next to file) and go to Preferences. In there you can hide / show the drives on the desktop.

If it isn't being recognized by the OS itself but shows up in disk utility, I'm not sure what to do from there.

 

[lindsgomes]

first, thanks for your help!

second, i read in previous threads to go to the finder and hit preferences and to select what you want shown on your finder. i have everything selected, and still, no hard drive on my finder. interestingly, my other external hard drive still shows up, just not the one that i had clicked on previously.

my hard drive shows up in disc utility, and i also just found it in bridge, so the computer recognizes it, it just is not coming up on my finder??

perhaps i will restart my computer and see what happens?

 

[Boogsephine]

perhaps i will restart my computer and see what happens?

That's always a good start. If the disk utility and such are recognizing it, you should be fine after the restart. I highly doubt the drive is bad or anything because it'd be making noises or wouldn't be recognized by the system, period.

My Windows machine HDD just died a few days ago (lost 400+ movies) and it was making horrible noises and nothing could recognize it.

Give the restart a shot.

 

[lindsgomes]

bummer!! sorry to hear that…

thanks so much for your help! it's definitely odd, my hard drive shows up everywhere else, i can find it in the drop down menu if i need it, just not on the left side of the screen…

anywho, thanks!!