External Harddrive doesn't show up on macbook

Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook: 2.16ghz / 1gb ram / 120gb iPod 5G 30gb
ANOTHER ONE, YES I KNOW :Confused:.

It's a 200gb maxtor one touch III 2.0 usb (f01e200) it does have a power cord, so it's not powered by usb. worked fine with my PC, doesn't even show up on the macbook... ntsf formatted i believe.
 
Joined
Oct 10, 2004
Messages
10,345
Reaction score
597
Points
113
Location
Margaritaville
Your Mac's Specs
3.4 Ghz i7 MacBook Pro (2015), iPad Pro (2014), iPhone Xs Max. Apple TV 4K
If you open disc utility on the Mac, does it show up there?
 
OP
L
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook: 2.16ghz / 1gb ram / 120gb iPod 5G 30gb
it doesn't show up in disk utility.

it showed up on my PC and when i boot up xp with bootcamp on my MB
 
Joined
Jan 1, 2007
Messages
1,917
Reaction score
87
Points
48
Location
Oz.....near the Wizards home
Your Mac's Specs
iMac 24' 7 Snow Leopard + Parallels and Win 7 | 30 Gb iPod | Canon EOS 400D
Mac does not recognise NTSF....needs to be Fat 32 if sharing between PC and Mac or just Mac format otherwise.
 
Joined
Sep 18, 2006
Messages
172
Reaction score
2
Points
18
Location
Windsor, Ontario
Your Mac's Specs
14" ibook g4, 1.42ghz. 512mb ram, 60gb hdd
Even if it's ntfs you should be able to see the drive and take files off of it. You cannot write to it though.
 
OP
L
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook: 2.16ghz / 1gb ram / 120gb iPod 5G 30gb
i find it odd that it won't even show up. do i need to reformat it into something else? i've read a few threads about reformatting with disk utility, but i can't even open it up on disk utility.

do i reformat with ms-dos on a pc?
 
Joined
Jan 1, 2007
Messages
1,917
Reaction score
87
Points
48
Location
Oz.....near the Wizards home
Your Mac's Specs
iMac 24' 7 Snow Leopard + Parallels and Win 7 | 30 Gb iPod | Canon EOS 400D
i find it odd that it won't even show up. do i need to reformat it into something else? i've read a few threads about reformatting with disk utility, but i can't even open it up on disk utility.

do i reformat with ms-dos on a pc?

You can format it on a PC but format as fat32. Sometimes on a PC you need to go into disk uitilty and make the drive active also.
 
OP
L
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook: 2.16ghz / 1gb ram / 120gb iPod 5G 30gb
I'll check it out. From my knowledge, windows xp will only let you format 32mb of it to fat32 or something of the sort. i will need another program. i've tried some part. program, but it doesn't really reformat which is pissing me off.

also the box did not say mac compatible... it didn't say it wasn't either.. big deal? i always thought a HD is a HD.
 

dtravis7


Retired Staff
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
30,133
Reaction score
703
Points
113
Location
Modesto, Ca.
Your Mac's Specs
MacMini M-1 MacOS Monterey, iMac 2010 27"Quad I7 , MBPLate2011, iPad Pro10.5", iPhoneSE
It's been a LONG time since I ran into this issue with a friend of mine's G5, but he had an external that would not show up. What it turned out the problem was the Volume Name. If I remember right there was no Volume Name on the drive. Plugging in back into XP and adding a Volume Name caused it to show up in OSX. Not sure if this is your issue, but thought I would mention just in case.
 
OP
L
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook: 2.16ghz / 1gb ram / 120gb iPod 5G 30gb
Oh wow, okay i'll try that once i get home from NY. thanks i hope that's the problem =P
 
Joined
Nov 16, 2006
Messages
638
Reaction score
6
Points
18
Location
UK, London
Your Mac's Specs
13 inch Macbook Pro Retina, 2.7ghz, 128gb SSD
if you do not safely remove the external HD by ejecting it then it may take a long time to show up because it has to verify if any data has been lost.

This happened to me and i just left it like that for 10 minutes and it eventually showed up...
 
OP
L
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Your Mac's Specs
Macbook: 2.16ghz / 1gb ram / 120gb iPod 5G 30gb
well i named my external HD a few days ago, just remembered. plugged it in. didn't show up. =\
 
Joined
Jul 14, 2007
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I have the same problem. I have a whole array of External Hard disks and sometimes they simply don't show up. Currently I am having a problem with a new Western Digital drive, 360gb that just won't show up. Not even on the disk utility. I'm on a Macbook, and the drive is USB and self powered (not bus powered). I don't recall unplugging it without ejecting (I'm careful about this these days) so I don't understand why it would be having trouble.

(*update*)

Following an earlier suggestion, I do leave it and after a LONG while it does show up. Any suggestions about how to make the drive a bit more reliable?

-dennison
 
Joined
Jan 9, 2007
Messages
178
Reaction score
0
Points
16
It is possible that it is because you have OS 10.4.10. Many people have been unable to use their USB hard drives since the update. It is very annoying and apparently still unfixed. I find it hard to accept that an apparently good company like Mac would leave so many of us with unusable hard disks for so long now. For us, the 10.4.10 update was just like receiving a virus!

See this thread for example:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=67484&

Justin
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top