Inaccessible External Hard drive

Damell · Jul 30, 2014

I accidentally pulled out my Lacie external hard drive from my iMac before the safe eject. Now, when I plug it in, I can't see it, as it no longer appears on my finder/desktop icons. I go to Disk Utility, but I still can't access it. I urgently need help please. Thank you.

Dami.

kenrivers · Jul 30, 2014

Do you get the same result if you shut down, reboot and then reconnect the drive?

Damell · Jul 30, 2014

kenrivers :

Yes I do. From Disk Utility, I can get the drive's info. However, I can't open it. The name has also changed.

kenrivers · Jul 30, 2014

Damell :

Has anything changed regarding permissions for that drive? I will post a bit more of a response after I look into Disk Utility.
In Disk Utility, under the First Aid tab, do you see Verify Disk or Repair Disk? If yes, are you able to use either of them?

Damell · Jul 30, 2014

kenrivers :

Nothing has changed...sadly! I just tired disk utility again. I see the drive listed on the left. I click "mount", but nothing happens. I've also tried "verify" and "repair" a few times.

kenrivers · Jul 30, 2014

Damell :

kenrivers :

Nothing has changed...sadly! I just tired disk utility again. I see the drive listed on the left. I click "mount", but nothing happens. I've also tried "verify" and "repair" a few times.

You just answered my last two questions. What happened when you tried "verify" and "repair"?

Damell · Jul 30, 2014

kenrivers :

Damell :

kenrivers :

You just answered my last two questions. What happened when you tried "verify" and "repair"?

Damell · Jul 30, 2014

It brings this message:
"Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk and restore your backed-up files".

I'm wondering how I can do that if I can't even access the drive and it's content?

kenrivers · Jul 30, 2014

"My external hard drive icon disappeared and the drive was no longer accessible but it worked fine on another Mac. I checked the mount points in /Volumes. When the OS has difficulty mounting the drive then it creates a new mount point with a new number. My /Volumes folder had subfolders called Lacie, Lacie1, Lacie2...Lacie99. I guess 99 is the max. I disconnected the drive and dragged all the LacieXX folders to the trash (admin privileges required). Hey Presto! the drive was back in action.

Two things to note if you do this:

Firstly /Volumes is a hidden folder. Several ways to get to it but the easiest is probably Finder>Go>/Volumes.

Secondly /Volumes contains mount points for the Macintosh hard disks as well as for external disks – be very, very, very careful not to mess around with the hard disk mount points. - Jack"

Source: http://hintsforums.macworld.com/archive/index.php/t-69453.html

Damell · Jul 30, 2014

kenrivers :

"My external hard drive icon disappeared and the drive was no longer accessible but it worked fine on another Mac. I checked the mount points in /Volumes. When the OS has difficulty mounting the drive then it creates a new mount point with a new number. My /Volumes folder had subfolders called Lacie, Lacie1, Lacie2...Lacie99. I guess 99 is the max. I disconnected the drive and dragged all the LacieXX folders to the trash (admin privileges required). Hey Presto! the drive was back in action.

Two things to note if you do this:

Firstly /Volumes is a hidden folder. Several ways to get to it but the easiest is probably Finder>Go>/Volumes.

Secondly /Volumes contains mount points for the Macintosh hard disks as well as for external disks – be very, very, very careful not to mess around with the hard disk mount points. - Jack"

Source: http://hintsforums.macworld.com/archive/index.php/t-69453.html

I'm running OS X 10.8.5 and Volumes is not listed under Finder/Go......
Also, in disk utility, it's renamed the drive to "disk1s1".

kenrivers · Jul 30, 2014

So if you try Shift+Command+G it won't bring up the go to folder dialog box? If you try that and it works then you would type "/volumes" without the quotes. That command should work in OS X 10.8.5. It is rather strange that it does not work.

Damell · Jul 31, 2014

kenrivers :

I forgot to mention earlier that, I had intially partioned the hard drive(about 4years ago) for windows and mac, using disk utility. The windows part was formatted to MS-DOS(FAT32) while the mac part was formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The mount point says "not mounted" in disk utility. When I click mount....nothing happens.
I can access the windows part of the drive with no issues at all. It's the mac portion that is now inaccessible.
I just tried Shift+Command+G and "/volumes". It brings up only the windows portion of the drive.

trekzone · Jul 31, 2014

Have you tried plugging the drive on a Windows PC which have proper HFS drivers to find out if you could access the Mac partition there?

kenrivers · Aug 1, 2014

Should you decide to try what trekzone suggested and if the drive in the LaCie case is a Seagate drive you can download an HFS driver for Windows here: http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/backup-plus-mac-software-master/
One that is free to try: http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive

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