External Hard Disk won't mount

spockiespockie
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I haven an external firewire hard disk which worked fine both under Mac OS X 10.2.8 and Panther. Suddenly it doesn't mount anymore on both systems. When plugged in Mac OS X doesn't show the drive in the Finder and Terminal can't find ist under /Volumes/. Disk Utility shows the drive type and the partition, but says that the partition is not mounted. Clicking on the "Mount" button doesn't help. A verify says that the disk appears to be ok. Does anyone have a clue what to do? Thanks in advance!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    macserverxmacserverx Posts: 217member
    Same here, I was hoping that maybe the Security update would fix it, but no luck. (Didn't expect it too, but I can hope can't I)



    And since I copied everything to that drive and reformatted and reinstalled, I have no access to any of my old files.



    Anyway, I've heard of this elsewhere, very recently, and I would expect Apple to get out an update ASAP since tons of stuff is on external drives. Mission critical.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    bspearsbspears Posts: 147member
    Why not try the old repair permissions trick. You may have already done this but you did not say so in your post. Good luck.



    bob
  • Reply 3 of 9
    macserverxmacserverx Posts: 217member
    Repair permissions on what? The external drive? I can't do anything to it.



    I did try something from Mac OS X Hints that had to do with other removable media, (deleting caches) which I did first via command line and then via Cocktail and then via Oynx, and had no effect.



    I also took the drive home and tried it on a 10.2.X machine and had no success. I'll repair permissions for the heck of it, but I don't think anything will happen.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    bspearsbspears Posts: 147member
    I had the same problem with two internal drives not mounting. I repaired permissions on my system drive and voila.........they mounted.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    macserverxmacserverx Posts: 217member
    No such luck. I tried without the drive connected, then with the drive connected. I really hope this gets fixed, cuz I have a years worth of information that i'd like to keep on it.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    bspearsbspears Posts: 147member
    What make is the drive? How large is it?



    bob
  • Reply 7 of 9
    lgnomelgnome Posts: 81member
    i might try running disk warrior on the drive.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    macserverxmacserverx Posts: 217member
    I might just have to get DiskWarrior then. But i can't lose anything with whatever I do to it. At least I would prefer not to lose anything. I don't care about anything else now, I just want my Home folder back.



    It's a Maxtor 3000DV 80GB. It's FireWire 400 only, 7200RPM. That's about it.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    lgnomelgnome Posts: 81member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by macserverX

    I might just have to get DiskWarrior then. But i can't lose anything with whatever I do to it.



    it really sounds like there is a corrupt directory file to me.



    if you run DW, it will give you option to view the drive and the contents before you commit to making the changes.



    i run DW on my external Lacie 250GB once a week. About every 4th time, it alerts me to the fact the the directory structure that will be replaced will have a different number of files that are acually on the disk and there will be data 'loss'.. i forget the correct verbiage.. but its something to that effect..



    ive never lost a critical file though.. and ive done this more than 500 times over the years i imagine.. your milege may vary though..



    on that note, i recco that you run Apples disk util and DW every week on your FW drive.. or in the event you have a weird crash that's preceded by the disk unexpectantly unmounting.. it really does help..
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