OS X Lion will not read external hard drives and USB flash drives

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had same problem

My MBP after upgrading to Lion would not read 8Gb sandisk usb drive. My macbook with snow leopard was fine. I waited for a few minutes and it appears to work okay now. I have to agree with some that it was indexing and it took a while to get done. Solved my issue.
 
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A possible work-around

I have an iMac and a MBP that are not recognizing USB drives. After a few convoluted suggestions didn't work, I plugged a flash drive I was working with into the USB port on an Apple wired extended keyboard (on the iMac) and the drives (flash drive has 2 partitions) mounted immediately.

I then plugged the keyboard into the MBP to see if it would read them also and it did.

So if you've got a keyboard with a USB port on it, it's something to try.
 
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Kellygee, thanks for the tip. I'll try this as soon as I get home.
 

bobtomay

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I went to Apple Store. After waiting for 45 minutes and 20 minutes for the guy to run different test, went to the back room to get more answers, the only way they managed to make my macbook recognize my external drive is to turn of NTFS-3G. Mac OSX discovers the drive and now I can "read" from the drive... Still cannot write to it. Maybe NTFS-3G will have a new compatible version soon... very disappointed with this.

Anyone have other solutions, please post/advise.

I'd suggest biting the bullet, spend the $20 and get Paragon's NTFS for Mac.
 
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How do I turn off NTFS-3G?
 
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kellygee, I tried plugging my USB 8G flash drive into the USB port of my MBP keyboard and it wouldn't connect because there wasn't enough "power".
 

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Do you mean the external Aluminum Apple USB keyboard? The ports on the external keyboards do not have enough power for a Flash drive at all. It has to be plugged into a powered USB Hub or directly into the computer.
 
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I went to Apple Store. After waiting for 45 minutes and 20 minutes for the guy to run different test, went to the back room to get more answers, the only way they managed to make my macbook recognize my external drive is to turn of NTFS-3G. Mac OSX discovers the drive and now I can "read" from the drive... Still cannot write to it. Maybe NTFS-3G will have a new compatible version soon... very disappointed with this.

Anyone have other solutions, please post/advise.

Is NTFS a native windows format and was the drive set-up as a windows drive? I ask because I am having the same issue as this user only its with an iMac hard drive. It came out of my older iMac and i am using it externally. It connects with my Snow Leopard machine but not Lion. Any thoughts?
 

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Have never installed NTFS-3G as there were too many reported issues with it when I was researching it. I believe it has a preference pane in System Preferences with an uninstaller there - use that.
 
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Do you mean the external Aluminum Apple USB keyboard? The ports on the external keyboards do not have enough power for a Flash drive at all. It has to be plugged into a powered USB Hub or directly into the computer.

Yes, it's an aluminum "Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad" and I'm using a 16gb USB flash drive with 2 partitions and both partitions still mount as soon as I attach the drive. What gave me the idea was I was looking in the system report to see if the flash drive showed up there under the "mass storage" section of the "USB High-speed BUS" section (it didn't). I saw "keyboard hub" listed and decided to try it (totally forgetting about not having enough power).

Not sure what to tell you other than I finally got my flash drive to mount.

In the meantime, I've also tried the flash drive in the same USB port (on the back of the iMac) that the keyboard was plugged into thinking that maybe there was a bad port on the iMac but the flash drive won't work on any of the ports on the back of the iMac (or the MBP). Right now the only port that recognizes the drive is the port on the keyboard.

I also have in my office one of the older plastic Apple extended keyboards and tried it just for yucks. The drives mount when plugged into it as well.

Sorry, I don't have an explanation :(
 
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update anybody? I am having the same issue with not being able to load external hard drives (fat32). I am able to load Mac journaled external drives but no luck with other drives.
 

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I would try and help but can not duplicate the issue here. iMac 2007 2.4Ghz C2d with 10.7.1 Lion here. 10 External drives I have tried hooked up USB 2.0, FW400, FW800 and formatted in FAT32, NTFS, and Mac format. All mount in maybe 1-2 seconds. All work. Same on my C2D mini.

So I am not sure what is up with the few that are having external hard drive issues with Lion.
 
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Happening to all Removable Drives

Not a solution but a possible stop gap. Open Disk Utility and see if you can manually mount the discs. I have the same problem but can do that.

I called Apple tech support, created a new user account, the disks mounted, went back to original account and they were still mounting automatically. A few days later my machine rebooted due to a power surge and now they don't mount automatically.

Happens to any "removable" disk including CD/DVD SuperDrive, all USB thumb and external drives, my NewTech Voyager hard disk toaster plugged into an eSata port.
 
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so I should just try plugging in the hard drives with a new user account and it should fix the issue? sounds odd but I will give it a try
 
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I have a new MBA running LION and I cannot get my USB drives to work. They worked perfectly on my previous MBP. I can see them in the disk utility, just cannot access them - and they are just fine - as they work everywhere else. Are there any fixes for this? I have tried a new user account and also leaving the stick in for more than hour....
 
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Mac OSX Lion note mounting external USB drives

All my Macs with Lion do not see any external USB (except thumb) drives. I have several raid arrays for backing up data that ran fine on 10.6, but fail to mount on Lion. I have tried all purposed soultions I could find online. I called Apple only to be told they had not heard of this issue, to which I replied, have you read your own support forums?

They tried several tier 1 support fixes and all failed. I have TB of data I need to access. Does anyone have a proper solution?
 
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Solution

I tried as many brands of external hard drives and USB flash drives with the same results. None of them will mount with Lion.

hey tompam, dunno if you have sussed out ur dramas yet...

i had the same problem and tore chunks of hair out trying to solve it...

basically all i did to over come the problem was to open Finder preferences, click the sidebar tab, and where the "devices" list is, the "hard disks" part had a little - sign highlighted in blue next to it. basically i just clicked that and it turned into a tick sign and magically all my USB flash drives, SD cards and external hard drives all mount properly now...

i hope this solves your problems. :D ;D
 
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Sticko, I haven't gotten to the point where I've started to tear "chunks of hair" but I'm more than just pretty 'sussed' out. My MB Pro's in the office but I'm gonna try your suggestion first thing in the morning. Thanks for the tip. I'll let you know what happens. :)
 
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So here is the latest word for those of you trying to use external USB RAID arrays. I have contacted some manufactures and it seems 95% of the market has issues with Lion. All the drivers tend to be 32bit only or just not compatible. I did find one RAID array from OWC that states it is Lion compatible. I ordered one, and I will post back on my results.
 
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Qucikly skimmed through this thread, has any tried accessing the finder preferences and making the disks visible on the desktop? That may be an issue.
 

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