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General discussion

External HD not recognized on my MAC

Oct 24, 2007 12:11PM PDT

So I have an external HD. It was working dandy for almost a year and then it decided to not be recognized by my mac. When I hook it up to my PC, all the documents in it is readable. What gives? What should I do so that my MAC can recognize the HD again.

Discussion is locked

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The answer is in the details
Oct 24, 2007 9:46PM PDT

What Mac?
What HD,
What OS?
What connection interface?


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details
Oct 24, 2007 11:18PM PDT

What Mac? I have a Macbook Pro
What HD? The hard drive is generic. I bought a regular HD then a casing to make it into an external.
What OS? I am running the Tiger. Though starting tomorrow, once I get the disk, I will be running the Leopard.
What connection interface? I plug it into the USB port.

I hope that's enough details. Thank you for the help in advance.

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Does the external have a power supply
Oct 25, 2007 2:47AM PDT

of its own or is it powered from the USB bus?

If it is USB powered, had you added any other USB devices to the MBP?

Is the HD the only thing plugged into the USB ports?
If yes, try removing the other stuff and replugging it in.

Have you restarted the MBP since this first happened?

Enjoy Leopard

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Yes, the HD has its own power supply
Oct 25, 2007 2:56AM PDT

I have rebooted, I have taken all the other items attached to the other USB ports but no go.

The only thing I haven't done is taking my HD and my laptop to the Genius Bar but it seems you can only make an apt. a day or two ahead. Which really is hard for me to do.

Any other thoughts?

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Unfortunately, that just about
Oct 25, 2007 8:32AM PDT

covers all that is usually necessary to get an external HD to mount on OS X.

Apart from the usual, Repair Permissions and PRAM reset, there is not a log that you can do from this point. If the drive functions correctly on a Winbox, then we could probably assume that the drive is functional.

If you had something like Disk Warrior, it would be worth trying to rebuild the index's. That program can usually see a working drive, even if it does not mount on the desktop

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