I have a Seagate FreeAgent Go Media external hard drive. It worked fine for months and then I plugged into my friends mac and it worked for a few minutes then gave me an error message saying that I unplugged it. (I didn't unplug it) Ever since the icon is not there for me to access the data. I have tried disk utility on two other macs besides my own and they all do the exact same thing. It recognizes the hard drive and when I run first aid it says the volumes appear to be ok. I unplug it and plug it back in put it doesn't show up anywhere except disk utility.
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Need help with external hard drive
- Thread starter danera1630
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I checked the finder preferences and it is checked to show up already. Any other reason why it wouldn't be showing up?
Is the drive USB or Firewire? Does it show up in System Profiler? Is the drive showing up as formatted? Does it show up as having data on it?
It is connected using usb. it shows up in system profiler and this is what is says.
FreeAgent Go:
Capacity: 149.05 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk3
Product ID: 0x2000
Vendor ID: 0x0bc2
Version: 0.00
Serial Number: 5MA0YRQS
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Seagate
Location ID: 0x19100000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 500
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
Time Machine Backups:
Capacity: 148.73 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk3s2
Mount Point:
This is what it says in disk utility
Mount Point : Not mounted Capacity : 148.7 GB (159,697,911,808 Bytes)
Format : Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) Available : -
Owners Enabled : - Used : -
Number of Folders : - Number of Files : -
FreeAgent Go:
Capacity: 149.05 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk3
Product ID: 0x2000
Vendor ID: 0x0bc2
Version: 0.00
Serial Number: 5MA0YRQS
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Seagate
Location ID: 0x19100000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 500
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
Time Machine Backups:
Capacity: 148.73 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk3s2
Mount Point:
This is what it says in disk utility
Mount Point : Not mounted Capacity : 148.7 GB (159,697,911,808 Bytes)
Format : Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) Available : -
Owners Enabled : - Used : -
Number of Folders : - Number of Files : -
Yes, I tried that same website before I even posted here. It didn't really have my exact situation. I have tried to mount it several times and it just gives me an error message telling me it could not be mounted and to try using disk repair. I run disk repair and it says everything is fine. I then try to mount it again and it gives me the same message about running disk repair.
Okay here's just about everything I can think of to help...
Have you tried to manually mount it in Disk Utility using the File/Mount Volume menu command? Have you tried shutting down the Mac, plugging in the external and then booting the Mac to see if it shows up?
I assume that when you plug it in it powers up, correct? Does the drive actually spin up or does the light just come on?
Does this drive have a separate power cable? If not, does it use a single USB cable or a dual-head USB cable?
Is your Mac a desktop or a portable? What about the other Macs you tried, desktops or portables? What versions of OS X have you tried it with? Have you tried different USB ports?
Have you tried to manually mount it in Disk Utility using the File/Mount Volume menu command? Have you tried shutting down the Mac, plugging in the external and then booting the Mac to see if it shows up?
I assume that when you plug it in it powers up, correct? Does the drive actually spin up or does the light just come on?
Does this drive have a separate power cable? If not, does it use a single USB cable or a dual-head USB cable?
Is your Mac a desktop or a portable? What about the other Macs you tried, desktops or portables? What versions of OS X have you tried it with? Have you tried different USB ports?
I have a desktop and I use leopard. I was using my friends laptop when it said I unplugged the hard drive. He has Tiger. I tried it on my other friends laptop who runs leopard and it is the same on all of them.
I ran disk utility on my friends computer with leopard and it is the same thing.
There are two usb cords from the drive. One says power+data and one says power only. I have tried to plug them both in at the same time and have tried different usb ports.
The drive makes noise when I plug it in as well as lighting up. Is there any program that will at least allow me to get all my data off of there safely?
I ran disk utility on my friends computer with leopard and it is the same thing.
There are two usb cords from the drive. One says power+data and one says power only. I have tried to plug them both in at the same time and have tried different usb ports.
The drive makes noise when I plug it in as well as lighting up. Is there any program that will at least allow me to get all my data off of there safely?
With your desktop Mac did you try the USB ports on the Mac itself or just the ones on the keyboard? Could you get access to another dual head cable to try?
I believe that there are programs that will attempt to do that, but I don't have first hand knowledge of using them. I don't know if they'll work if the drive can't be mounted. Here are two that I can think of off the top of my head. These are both commercial paid software, I don't know of any freeware or shareware.
Alsoft - DiskWarrior 4
Prosoft - Data Rescue 3 - Mac
Another option you could try is to ask the people over on the MacResource Forums, they're very knowledgeable and helpful. They know way more than I do.
I believe that there are programs that will attempt to do that, but I don't have first hand knowledge of using them. I don't know if they'll work if the drive can't be mounted. Here are two that I can think of off the top of my head. These are both commercial paid software, I don't know of any freeware or shareware.
Alsoft - DiskWarrior 4
Prosoft - Data Rescue 3 - Mac
Another option you could try is to ask the people over on the MacResource Forums, they're very knowledgeable and helpful. They know way more than I do.
Your file directory is probably corrupt. Since you can access the disk with utilities, do a reformat and do a one pass zero out of the drive. If you are able to reformat the drive, then it's probably okay. Once you have completed this task and everything checks out, restore your files from your backup.