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

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The other day I bought the OS X Lion from the App Store and it installed successfully on my Macbook Pro. Today for the first time I connected my external hard drive to my laptop but it couldn't be detected. I also connected another of my external hard drives as well as my USB flash drives and none of them could be detected or read by my laptop after I installed Lion. Can anyone help?
 
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Is there a file called IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext in System/Library/Extensions/
 
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I couldn't find it. Is it significant? Am I the only one with this problem?
 

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Until Louishen gets back to you on the KEXT file, you might try having Spotlight ignore the external drives. Been doing some looking and apparently some third party software in particular causes Spotlight Indexing to hang, causing Lion to unmount the drives.
 
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I'll try this. Thanks.
 
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Works perfectly with Cruzer SanDisk Slice.

Can't help with external drive as on a Mac Pro backup drive is installed in position two and works well.
 
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Works great on my SanDisk Cruzer 4GB.
 
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I tried as many brands of external hard drives and USB flash drives with the same results. None of them will mount with Lion.
 

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My question would be: What do you mean by it's not mounted?

It doesn't appear on the Desktop?

It doesn't appear on the Sidebar in Finder?

It doesn't appear in Disk Utility?
 
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The other day I bought the OS X Lion from the App Store and it installed successfully on my Macbook Pro. Today for the first time I connected my external hard drive to my laptop but it couldn't be detected. I also connected another of my external hard drives as well as my USB flash drives and none of them could be detected or read by my laptop after I installed Lion. Can anyone help?

I'm having the exact same problem, did you fix yours?
 
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The other day I bought the OS X Lion from the App Store and it installed successfully on my Macbook Pro. Today for the first time I connected my external hard drive to my laptop but it couldn't be detected. I also connected another of my external hard drives as well as my USB flash drives and none of them could be detected or read by my laptop after I installed Lion. Can anyone help?

Ok, I left the hard drive plugged in for about 8 minutes and the computer finally recognized it. Before lion, it would see it instantly. Try leaving it plugged in for a little while
 
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Ok, I left the hard drive plugged in for about 8 minutes and the computer finally recognized it. Before lion, it would see it instantly. Try leaving it plugged in for a little while

Spotlight was possibly indexing it. Shouldn't take that long to recognize the second time around. Try again now that it's been recognized once?
 
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My question would be: What do you mean by it's not mounted?

It doesn't appear on the Desktop?

It doesn't appear on the Sidebar in Finder?

It doesn't appear in Disk Utility?
It doesn't appear on the Desktop, the Sidebar, or the Disk Utility. I'll try joeg679's suggestion of leaving the external hard drive connected to the laptop for 8 minutes or more until it appears. I hope it works.
 
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Ok, I left the hard drive plugged in for about 8 minutes and the computer finally recognized it. Before lion, it would see it instantly. Try leaving it plugged in for a little while
I'll try this. Thanks.
 

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Is this a new Mac? I have never had a Flash drive that would not mount unless the drive was dead. Never. My Dell refused to mount my 2GB Kingston, 2 dells in fact but it mounted instantly on my Macs at the time.

Not sure what to say. How are these drives formatted? You say Lion is the cause. I have 6 external drives, plugged in USB2, FW400 and FW800 and all show right up on my iMac under Lion. I tried 8 Flash drives and every one shows right up.
 
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I don't really know. Some Lion users experienced something else that wasn't working right. In my case, it's not being able to detect external drives. Some say it could be that a third-party software in my Mac is causing it because it might not be that compatible with Lion. I'm going to try leaving the external hd plugged in for 8 minutes or more as someone suggested.
 
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I'm not sure how to "have Spotlight ignore the external drives". How do you do this?
 
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I finally tried this. Left the external hard drive plugged to my laptop for more than 20 minutes. Nothing appeared anywhere. Also tried it with USB flash drives for 20 minutes. Still nothing.
 
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Last resort would be to re-install Lion. But how do I do that if bought it from the App Store?
 

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Last resort would be to re-install Lion. But how do I do that if bought it from the App Store?

To reinstall, after loading the Mac APP Store hold down the OPTION key and click on PURCHASED. You should be able to install then.

But, first do a google search on Spotlight Indexing and Lion. Should be able to find the settings to ignore. I've seen it recently, but don't remember where. If I find it again I'll post a link here.

EDIT: This is to disable indexing for a specific folder, but should work as well for the drive I believe.

http://www.techiecorner.com/254/how-to-disable-spotlight-index-for-specific-folder-in-mac-os-x/
 

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