Searchable External Hard Drive Issues

Hello Fellow Mac Users...

I have a G5 Mac 2.7 PPC (OSX 10.5.8). And a couple of Ext. Hard drives.

My Book Essential (3 TB) was formatted by me: Mac Os Extended (Journaled) and happy with it for almost 6 months now. I have about 1TB left but I can't "search" for files using the SPOTLIGHT within FINDER. (yes, even when I clicked on "My Book 1" next to This Mac)...

I checked everything under the DISK UTILITY and even clicked on VERIFY. No issues whatsoever. It checked for:

• Journaled HFS Plus Volume
• Extensts Overflow file
• Catalog File
• Multi-linked Files
• Catalog Hierarchy
• Extended Attributes File
• Multi-Linked Directories
• Volume Bitmap
• Volume Information

And everything is fine...under the INFO button (within the DISK UTILITY) I clicked on the INFO button and all of these info came out fine:

Name : My Book 1
Type : Volume

Disk Identifier : disk2s3
Mount Point : /Volumes/My Book 1
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : USB
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : 75471D4A-0A40-3D56-87A2-C60FD8396A3E
Capacity : 2.7 TB (3,000,424,431,616 Bytes)
Free Space : 1.1 TB (1,177,219,317,760 Bytes)
Used : 1.7 TB (1,823,205,113,856 Bytes)
Number of Files : 880,511
Number of Folders : 176,134
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : No
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 3

On my old LACIE ext. Hard Drive formatted the same way, I have no problems with it in terms of searching. How come I can't search of anything?

Is there a way to Index it? How do I fix this drive? I am tired of going through the folders and clicking on the specific file.

Thank you very much and I appreciate your help! Please respond or email me via this site.

Warmest regards,
Fabie tai chi

Is it possible you can dump the contents of the drive to somewhere else, reformat the drive, and then re-populate the drive? That might solve the issue right then and there.

Maybe repairing permissions?

Try forcing Spotlight to reindex the drive. Remove it from the Spotlight list, so Spotlight isn't set to search it. Logout/in then add it back to the search list.

dauber said:

Is it possible you can dump the contents of the drive to somewhere else, reformat the drive, and then re-populate the drive? That might solve the issue right then and there.

Maybe repairing permissions?

Click to expand...

Hello dauber....thanks for your quick response. Unfortunately no, I don't have any extra hard drive to dump it's contents and moving it temporarily to 'repopulate' it with the "repairing permissions" set up.

I wish I have an extra drive....but that sounds like a great idea.

Stretch said:

Try forcing Spotlight to reindex the drive. Remove it from the Spotlight list, so Spotlight isn't set to search it. Logout/in then add it back to the search list.

Click to expand...

Hello Stretch,

Thanks also for your comments. How would I remove my drive from the list? Just log out and log in? I will see what I can do by playing around spotlight parameters.....thanks again, hopefully I can find it.

fabie tai chi said:

Hello Stretch,

Thanks also for your comments. How would I remove my drive from the list? Just log out and log in? I will see what I can do by playing around spotlight parameters.....thanks again, hopefully I can find it.

Click to expand...

Add the drive to the Privacy list. Log out, back in, then remove it from the privacy list.

Stretch said:

Add the drive to the Privacy list. Log out, back in, then remove it from the privacy list.

Click to expand...

Did those exactly, it didn't work. <sigh> I think dauber's suggestion may work but that's the thing, I don't have any other ext hd that big to temporarily move files.

I've searched all over the internet and couldn't find anything about it. I knew from the get go that when I first bought this ext hd, that if I formatted it as Journaled - Mac OS extended there wouldn't have any issues regarding indexes.

I mean the ext hd is functioning properly...just that SPOTLIGHT can't search anything in that drive while my older LACIE ext hd....no problem really.

I came across this from the internet:

Spotlight tips



There are two approaches to rebuilding the Spotlight indices on a given volume:

Via Privacy: Add, then remove, the volume whose Spotlight indices you wish to rebuild to the System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy tab (hereafter abbreviated as "Privacy"). See the AppleCare Knowledge Base document "Spotlight: How to re-index files and folders."
Via Terminal: Assuming indexing is enabled on the volume in question:
1.
Open Terminal, located in the Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder.
2.
At the Terminal prompt, type the following command:

sudo mdutil -E /path_to_volume
where /path_to_volume is the path of the volume whose Spotlight indices you wish to rebuild. [1]

For example, to rebuild the Spotlight indices for your Mac OS X startup disk, the command is:

sudo mdutil -E /
3. Press Return. You will receive a confirmation message based on the version of Mac OS X you are using:
Mac OS X Confirmation Message
10.5 and later Indexing enabled.
10.4 Volume index removed.
Indexing will begin shortly thereafter.
4. At the Terminal prompt, type exit and press Return.
5. Quit (Command-Q) Terminal.

I've never really used the TERMINAL previously and when I tried to open the terminal and type the first command line, it gave me a warning:


WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.


I stopped for the fear of accidentally wiping out my ext hd....any help one can extend before I try these? I don't know how to use this terminal....


Does this mean I should type: sudo mdutil -E /My Book 1

Is this correct? Would this just re-index MY BOOK 1 and not affect my files? I'm nervous about this....
Thanks again....