FAT32 Partition on External Hard Drive won't mount

Joined
May 29, 2012
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Hello forum users.

About 1 week ago, I bought a brand new 500GB Western Digital external hard drive. I bought it as I intended to use it as a backup and file transfer drive.

I made 2 partitions, one for backing up my Macbook's (2008, 2GB RAM) contents, and a FAT32 partition for transfers and file storage.

Now, am I right for making a FAT32 partition so that I can transfer files between Mac and Windows computers?

I gave my external to my friend to put music on it (he has windows, so he put music on the FAT32 partition). When I got it back today and had a look, my backup partition was fine. But my FAT32 partition was not mounting. Disk Utility recognizes that it exists (but with a different name, "disk1s3"), but no matter how much I try, it will not mount.
By the way, the FAT32 partition is 140GB, and has about 120GB of music on it. I heard somewhere that Mac OS won't mount a FAT32 drive that is above 128GB. Is that true, or do I have a different problem?
First of all, has the files my friend put on been lost?
Secondly, how do I get this drive back to my desktop, and if I can will the files be lost?
Thirdly, how do these things happen?

Please help me.

Regards,
eb94
 

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