Back-up HD goes missing from desktop - help!!!

[Charlie Jefferson]

My back-up HD, currently with 450GB of music on it, isn't showing on my desktop. I've two external 500GB drives, one as back-up to the other, both indicate they are on and fully connected. I can play/stream music from the primary external drive, but just can't locate the back-up HD on the Mac's desktop. Does anyone have any ideas about what might be going on and how to rectify this? I trawled a few Mac forums, but to no substantive avail. If the drive had failed it's front light wouldn't still indicate it was on, would it? HELP!!

 

[professorhat]

It could be a dodgy connection i.e. the drive light may come on, but if something inside has broken in the connection then the Mac won't see it.

Worth contacting the retailer / manufacturer if still in warranty.

 

[Tom Moreno]

When you open Disk Utility does the drive show as connected but the volume isn't mounted? If it isn't showing there, open the Apple menu and select "About this Mac" then press the button for System Profiler and then select Firewire under Hardware (assuming this is a firewire drive, go to USB if you are using that connection) and see if the device is registering as connected via the bus. If it is showing as connected but not mounting the volume, you will need to do some disk maintenance.

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

Thanks ProfH & Tom.

It's an old drive (3-4 years old), so is well out of warranty, Prof H.

I'll try the latter, Tom, when I get home later on this afternoon.

Bearing in mind my techno-duncery in the computer department, what would I need to do if "disk maintenance" is required?

Thanks.

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

The drive does show in disk utility but isn't shown as mounted.

What's the best way to proceed, anyone?

 

[PJPro]

Can't help with advice as I am not familiar with macs. But I can give this thread a bump ;-)

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

Thanks, PJ.

I'm still scouring the Mac boards, but as yet, to no avail.

 

[Anonymous]

Charlie Jefferson:The drive does show in disk utility but isn't shown as mounted. What's the best way to proceed, anyone?Highlight the disk and select mount.

If you have another mac or windows machine try the disk with them. However, if it's a windows machine it may not be formatted appropriately but at least you can see if it is visible to the OS.

If that doesn't work, open terminal and try the mount command (heaps of info on this on the web) though, frankly, if you can't do it in disk utility nor access it on another machine the odds are there is a problem with the filesystem or the disk.

Go back to disk utility, highlight the disk, erase and reformat. Try to mount it again. If that fails, time for PC world...

Edit A line went missing from my original post! If you erase/reformat you destroy all data irretrievably on the disk.

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

We had a power trip last night, and when the power resumed there was my HD icon restored to the desktop.

In disk utility it is showing as being mounted, so I'm assuming all is well.