External HD not mounted, keeps 'busy'. Can I reset it?

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viniweb

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Aug 2, 2014
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Short version: is there a way to 'reset' or 'force mount' an external HD via a terminal command or something?

Back story: I have a Seagate Freeagent GoFlex 1TB external HD. I plugged it on my TV and was watching a movie. I then turned the TV off while the movie was playing out of the HD. Now the TV doesn't recognize the drive and it is not mounted on my Mac.

When I plug it on the Mac, the working leds light up and I can feel that the disks are spinning. I used the command 'system_profiler' and I see that the operating system sees the disk, but it has a permanent flag called 'busy' with the value 1.

My guess is that the drive is on a kind of infinite loop inside and because of this the computer keeps waiting for it to finish its job, which it never does.

I have tried multiple USB ports, rebooting, putting the Mac to sleep (so it could force the drive to stop). Nothing has worked.

Is there a way to make the drive stop so it can get mounted?

Thanks.
 
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viniweb

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Hi, can you post it here? Thanks.
 
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Bluemoon_9

Bluemoon_9

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Step 1. Buy this http://www.amazon.com/SANOXY%C2%AE-Inchs-Laptop-Enclosure-SILVER/dp/B004FLOXE4.

Step 2. Get the case open for your drive. I do not remember that particular drive but the cases are usually press fit. A flahead screw driver is your friend here. Be gentle while prying the case open, you do not want to damage the drive. You will find a laptop HDD inside the case.

Step 3. Use the USB converter you purchased and you are good to go.

hard drives do not go into infinite loop or something. What you described here tells that the USB connection for the drive went bad. Common thing for external HDD's.
 
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viniweb

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Turns out I had one of those here and my external HD doesn't need to be opened to connect (it has a SATA/USB adapter).

Unfortunately it didn't help much.

When I plug the HD on the Mac using the new adapter, it is still not mounted, but now Disk Utility recognizes it. The problem is that it says that the drive is unformatted and all options to Verify or Repair the disk are greyed out / unavailable.

Running the 'system_profiler' command again, I see that the drive is still reporting as 'busy' to the operating system.

I tried using TestDisk to recover the partition, but when I select the disk, it freezes.

Any other advice?

Thanks again.
 
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Bluemoon_9

Bluemoon_9

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Sorry, was not around for a few days. If your computer can recognize the disk its working to at least some extent. I still recommend you use a brand new adapter. If it doesn't work you should contact Seagate service.
 
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