Ticket Options

Question Profile

Question Details

TICKET ARCHIVE -> USB drive not seen

rogershields - Mar 12, 2008 - 4:54 pm

I have an external hard drive connected to a USB port. I was using it for Time Machine and it worked fine until today. I had powered the drive off since I didn't want continual backups, then switched it on today to restart Time Machine. Now the drive is not seen by Finder or by Disk Utility, though it is in System Profiler. I've tried powering off and on, no effect. How can I get my drive back???

rogershields - Mar 12, 2008 - 5:13 pm

Further info - I'm running Parallels on the Mac, though I wasn't using the USB disk with Parallels. Parallels does see the disk - it's listed in its USB section, though it's not ticked off to be accessed by Windows.

Serenak - Mar 12, 2008 - 8:26 pm

Hello Roger and thanks for using us at macosx.com

I have had a problem with USB drives and Windows in Parallels myself

If you plug it in and Parallels/Windows asks if you want to "automatically access" it and you agree it seems to break the Mac's link to the USB drive (especially for TM or SuperDuper!)

In my limited experience if you don't allow this "automatic access" the problem doesn't occur

If there is nothing on the drive but TM you may find the best option is to rename or even reformat the drive and start again.

rogershields - Mar 13, 2008 - 6:41 am

Well, I would do that, but how can I reformat it when disk utility can't see it?

rogershields - Mar 13, 2008 - 6:45 am

Also I tried setting the USB option in Parallels to "Ask me what to do", but no luck.

Serenak - Mar 13, 2008 - 7:33 am

Sorry Roger

I didn't read your initial Post thoroughly enough... my bad.

Have you tried connecting the drive powering it up and then doing a restart... some times that will make the offending volume reappear.

Can you reformat the drive from inside Windows? Formatting it as FAT will do if all you really want is to make the Mac see it so Disk Utility can reformat it...

If you have no luck come back and I will consider more esoteric options...

rogershields - Mar 13, 2008 - 8:23 am

Well we seem to be in limbo. The disk is "seen" by Parallels, because it appears in the list of USB devices, and when I click to put a check mark next to it I get the "ding dong" sound that says it's been connected, BUT it doesn't appear in My Computer or Disk Management, so I can't format it.

rogershields - Mar 13, 2008 - 3:24 pm

Update: I tried attaching to my XP laptop - same thing. PC says your hardware is connected but nothing in Disk Management. I do have disk recovery software on another machine - I'll try that this weekend.

Serenak - Mar 14, 2008 - 4:59 am

Sorry I haven't been able to respond sooner... well your latest update has beaten me to the punch anyway... i.e. Try a Windows PC and if that won't work consider the risk of Disk trouble/failure.

Disk repair/recovery software would indeed be my next suggestion... or in extreme circumstances try using an Ubuntu Live CD and seeing if that can reformat the drive... because Ubuntu will probably see it as "unformatted" and may then be able to format it

Other than that I am rapidly running out of ideas...

My best bet would be the recovery software for now and see what transpires

Good Luck

rogershields - Mar 14, 2008 - 9:27 am

Success! Ubuntu did it in the end, so now I'm back in action. I guess Parallels should always be set to "ask me what to do" for USB and then don't automatically add the TM drive to Parallels?

Serenak - Mar 15, 2008 - 8:58 am

Yes - I think that seems to be the way to do it. Something in the "automatically add this drive" in Parallels seems to stuff up the usb somehow.

Glad it is back in action anyway - the Ubuntu trick scores a result again! (Actually any decent Linux should do really but Ubuntu is easy to lay hands on)

If you require no more help you can close the ticket