External hard drive not showing on my desk tp

A V A

my external hard drive isnt showing up on my desk top after being connected by fire wire and usb!! i all ready went to the finder preferencesa nd clicked all devices to show up on my desktop including external discs/hard discs!! also my external hard drive isnt showing up in disc utilities either, can anyone help me out?

Passenger

Hi, It should appear in Disk Utility if it's not appearing on your Desktop. When you have Disk Utility open click First Aid and Repair Disk Permissions. You should also try the HD on another Mac and see if it appears there as that would signify that the issue is the HD and not your Mac. Does the HD make the disk spinning noise when it's connected to your mac?

A V A

yes the HD makes the spinning noise when connected to the mac

nialler

You're not connecting them with both cables are you? I've also found lacie, iomega and western digital suffer power supply woes, the drive appears to spin up and work but hasn't enough power to mount. Connect with a firewire cable, got to your system profiler (in the utilities folder) and see if it's connected under the Firewire bus.

Nialler

A V A

its connected via firewire ,iv tried connecting both and just the usb on its own and still doesn work

nialler

Did you check in system profiler if it was showing up under either bus?

A V A

no how do you go about that

muggyog

What Nialler is suggesting is that you use only one method to connect your drive at a time. Try FireWire first , check in system profiler, disconnect, then connect USB, check system profiler. This explains system profiler and look under FireWire when it's connected and under USB when using USB cable.

Is this a brand new drive and what make/model is it?

Not sure you have done the bridge board any good on this drive by connect both interfaces simultaneously.

A V A

iv done both methods but still aint working!!

nialler

ok let's try it this way

Plug in your drive via firewire, ensure it's on and spun up. Go to your black apple menu top left of the screen, Click About This Mac, then Click More info, system profiler will appear click on firewire it should like something like this



You can see Iomega drive there listed, do the same for USB (eject drive and remove firewire cable).

Let us know how you get on

muggyog

I think that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, its probably ducked

A V A

nialler wrote: »

ok let's try it this way

Plug in your drive via firewire, ensure it's on and spun up. Go to your black apple menu top left of the screen, Click About This Mac, then Click More info, system profiler will appear click on firewire it should like something like this



You can see Iomega drive there listed, do the same for USB (eject drive and remove firewire cable).

Let us know how you get on

i did go into this menu but the hard drive doesnt show up when im inthe manu?

nialler

Sounds like a power supply issue, the device would show up even without the HD being properly formatted.

ZENER

What's the make/model of the drive ?

Ken

A V A

its an iomega hard drive, i dont know the model!!

ZENER

A V A wrote: »

its an iomega hard drive, i dont know the model!!

The model number is important I think, Iomega make many different drives !
It should be on a sticker somewhere on the case or perhaps the packaging it came in ?

Ken

A V A

iomega YOFA 270092 , thats whats on the back

ZENER

That number doesn't lead to anything unfortunately. Maybe a photo or a link to the drive online somewhere ? Did you buy it new ? The model should be on the box.

Ken

A V A

unfortunitly i dont have the box,its long gone i bought it new tho,i'll try and find it online

ZENER

So the drive is old then rather than something you've just bought ?

Ken

A V A

yes i have it about 2 years but rarely plugged it in

lordgoat

This drive is dead right? Sounds like it's bricked to me...

A V A

so its it totally gone?

nialler

AVA, no it's not necessarily gone, I've had a myriad of problems with iomega power supplies (as in the cable that plugs in attached to the little brick), drives appear to spin up but do not mount. Common common problem with them. No you say it's 2tb, if you can take a picture we'll be able to assess here if it's a single or dual drive in RAID configuration, if it's a single drive it may be as simple as popping it out and sticking it in a new blank 3.5" USB caddy (€20) and that should solve your problems, unfortunately if it's a RAID config you'll have to go back to iomega and get them to replace the power supply (i've found them relatively easy to deal with and no cost to replace).

Take a pic, let's see how we go from there.

Nialler

A V A

cant find the model of the hard drive off pixmania where i bout it, this is really annoying me , i had loads things of there that were important

ZENER

Maybe you could post a few pictures of the drive, especially any writing or labels on it ? It's possible someone could identify it and offer some advice then ?

Ken

muggyog

AVA, stop beating a dead horse and do as nialler suggested and buy yourself an enclosure. Get the correct size for your hard drive and transfer it to the new enclosure. If the hard drive itself is dead you are at no loss because you can just buy another hard drive and pop it into the enclosure.

nialler

Go to iomega.com, click support, register your device (by serial number) then you'll get your model. It is vitally important that we establish if there's two drives in the unit or a single drive (THIS MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE). Again I stress if it's a single drive just pop it in a caddy, if not then back to iomega you go.

N

A V A

lads i registered my hard drive on the website so where do i find out what my model is cause it isnt telling me

A V A

500 gb ego USB 2.0 /FIRE WIRE 400/FIRE WIRE 800 portable hard drive


^^^ thats what it says in my registered products

nialler

Ava I've had awful problems with Iomega drives, the drive itself wasn't the issue but the power supply, plug it in and it powers on but not supplying enough power to spin up the drives, I've replaced five supplies for the one drive which I use as an archive. Again I'll reiterate if it's a single drive/disk then an enclosure is your best bet and quickest method.

N

Joziburg

Is there specific external hard drives you buy for Macs or can you just buy any ol' one!? Been meaning to get one for my pro

nialler

Any ol' one will do, they normally come formatted as NTFS or FAT32 formatted I would open disk utility and reformat as MAC OS extended with a guid partition for intel macs.

Joziburg

nialler wrote: »

Any ol' one will do, they normally come formatted as NTFS or FAT32 formatted I would open disk utility and reformat as MAC OS extended with a guid partition for intel macs.

Cool thanks its just on most boxes I would see the windows symbol or PC details and thought there was some special Mac one that ya needed

A V A

nialler wrote: »

Ava I've had awful problems with Iomega drives, the drive itself wasn't the issue but the power supply, plug it in and it powers on but not supplying enough power to spin up the drives, I've replaced five supplies for the one drive which I use as an archive. Again I'll reiterate if it's a single drive/disk then an enclosure is your best bet and quickest method.

N

ok kool so do i just conect my hard drive to the enclosure and then to my computer and that makes power supply stronger ??is that how it works?

nialler

You either buy a new supply from Iomega themselves through the Support portal on their website or you buy a 3.5" USB enclosure (go to right-click on camden street or dawson street), remove the disk from the iomega and place it in the enclosure.

A V A

what do you mean by remove the disc from the iomega and place it in the enclosure how would you do that ?

nialler

You take a screwdriver to the Iomega remove the large silver thing (disk) and then put it in the enclosure, if there's two disks in the drive, leave it alone and buy a new power supply

A V A

so before i go ahead and buy one will i un srew the back of the hard drive??

A V A

iv opened it up and to be honest i dont know what im looking for

nialler

Post a pic and we'll instruct ya a 3.5" drive is just that 3.5" on one side, silver on top generally and about 20-30mm thick

It will look like this

http://zuosanli.en.made-in-china.com/product/GXvQUTyKgEVk/China-750GB-7200rpm-SATA-3-5-HDD-Hard-Drive-Hard-Disk-750-.html

Nemeses

This will help. Save you posting pictures up.

Caddy may not be the same but will be the same principle

http://www.instructables.com/id/Install-a-Hard-Drive-in-an-External-Enclosure/

44thservice

thanks guys

im having the same problem ,how much does an enclosure go for in a shop ?

nialler

anywhere between €10 and €20, probably more for USB 3

A V A

nialler can i pick one up in any electric store like pc world or anything

Nemeses

A V A wrote: »

nialler can i pick one up in any electric store like pc world or anything

Maplins do one for about 20 euro I think

nialler

http://www.dabs.ie/category/components-and-storage,hard-drives,external-hard-drive-enclosures/11270

A V A

what difference between a 2.5 and 3.5 ??

nialler

About an inch







Sorry couldn't resist

A V A

hahahha i shoulda seen that one


i thought it could have been something to do with the system or something could mine not be a 2.5 inch cause its thin

nialler

Is your external like this?



If so it's more than likely a 2.5" drive.

Does it look like this also


If so then it's deffo a 2.5" caddy you need, make sure it's SATA as I doubt you'd get and IDE now days.