external drive not showing up

[kentucky]

my external drive is not showing up on my screen anywhere.
it has been working fine.
could it be a permisssions issue.
mac g4, tiger 10.4.9.

all my backup files are on there and i need access today.
help please. i tried to view on another mac and it's not showing up there either.

 

[Welshbird]

If you go to 'about this mac' can you see it there?

Or can you see it in Disk Utilities and manually mount it from there?

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[kentucky]

it is showing up in both places.

how do i get it to mount.

it is not showing up in my search or on desktop.
thanks!

 

[Welshbird]

If you click on it in Disk Utilities you should just be able to click 'mount'.


Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[kentucky]

thanks for your reply.
i just checked it and the "mount" is not highlighted.
but grayed out. like it is already mounted.

then why would it not show up on my desktop...or in my home window.

 

[pentode]

Is this a Mac-formatted drive or Windows (FAT32). I've seen this happen on FAT32 drives.

 

[kentucky]

i am uploading a screenshot maybe you can see.

i don't know if it is fat32.
but i have 2 drives hooked up. the same kind.
one backup2 shows 1270 folders.

backup does not show icon like the other.
and does not show any folders.
says 0.
i clicked on verify disk and repair permissions.
and it says disk ok.

 

[drlex]

If it's a bus-powered one (USB/FireWire), have you got the mains adaptor? It may be that it requires more power to spin up and mount than is available over the bus.

soi la, soi carré

 

[kentucky]

maybe this one will work.

 

[ObviousTroll]

Open a terminal and type

open /Volumes/Nichols\ Backup

it should appear in the finder then.

 

[kentucky]

what do you mean "open a terminal"?

thanks.

 

[ObviousTroll]

... Are you kidding?

Look in your Applications/Utilities folder.

 

[kentucky]

thanks obvious troll. i tried that. am i doing something wrong?

i called the company that made the drive. "simple drive".
they said i may have to download some disk recovery software.

 

[ObviousTroll]

You missed a backslash.

Since there's a space in the name of the volume you have to be careful when typing it into the terminal.

open /Volumes/Nichols\ Backup

Alternately, use double quotes:

open "/Volumes/Nichols Backup"

 

[jmgalvin]

Does the thing show up in the left pane of disk utility?

If yes, make sure to click on it and highlight it before going to the Mount button. Mounted volumes most often disappear when a user accidentally right clicks or clicks and holds and accidentally then hits "Eject".


Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[kentucky]

here is view of disk utility

i think it is something with the permissions.
as i did change the permissions on a folder the last time i used the drive.

 

[kentucky]

here is a screen shot of more commands attempted in the terminal.

 

[kentucky]

another screen shot.

 

[ObviousTroll]

That is very weird; but permissions shouldn't keep you from mounting the disk at all.

I know it says that you don't need to repair the disk, but I guess the next steps are:

1. Use "Repair" on Disk Utility.
2. Buy or Borrow a copy of Tech-Tool Pro and try that.
3. If those two don't work, give up and repartition and reformat the disk.
4. If the reformat doesn't work, go back to where you bought the disk and get your money back.

Wait - I have one last thing you can try, but it requires the Terminal again. I used to see this occasionally with external disks and 10.2. This is also slightly risky, but it may solve the problem IF the problem is with your Mac and not the drive:

1. UNPLUG ALL EXTERNAL DRIVES - make sure the disk is NOT connected.
2. Open a new terminal window.
3. Type the following command. Do NOT type "exit".

ls /Volumes

4. If you only see your built-in hard disks you're okay; stop here. If you see "Nickels Backup" EVEN THOUGH THE DISK IS DISCONNECTED then try this:

sudo rm -rf "/Volumes/Nickels Backup"

Make sure you get that command exactly right! This is the UNIX delete command and deleting the wrong volume could seriously ruin your day - as in "erase your hard disk".

5. Reboot. Try plugging the drive in again.

 

[biglebowski]

I did something similar when I first got my macbook.
Connected a drive to the airport extreme used it for a few days then messed with the sharing&permissions in info. After that I got the same problems as you. Probably not a great deal of help but I had to reformat the drive to get it to work again.

When I was born I was so suprised I didn't talk for 18 months