# WD external HD won't mount



## andproud (Jan 28, 2009)

Hi guys & gals. 

I know its annoying when a newbie's first post is asking for help but i don't really have many other alternatives. I've ben searching & reading through many threads on this and other forums regarding my issue and have decided to just plain ask for help as i can't seem to find an answer. Hopefully some of you nice people may be able to help.

My problem is this - my western digital "mybook" 500GB USB2 external HD isn't mounting on my mac (running OSX version 10.4.11 on a 15" G4 Powerbook).

It isn't showing in finder, and when i go into disk utilities i can see it, but the actual drive is greyed out (see pic 1). I have the option to mount it there but it never does. I have also tried to verify & repair the disk permissions but to no avail (see pic 2) I've tried changing the USB wire, restarting the mac and HD etc, and also the USB port it goes into. Still no dice.

I've downloaded a few free demo's of data recovery programs; Data Rescue, FileRecovery, Stellar Phoenix, but the as they are demo's they only offer a file recovery with a 100kb limit. But the good news is that i can actually see some of the files on the HD this way (see pic 3) so all of my hope of losing the files is not lost.

Should I just hang my hopes on Disk Warrior? 
I hope someone can offer up a solution! 

Thanks for reading people.


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## chevy (Jan 28, 2009)

What is the disk format ?


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## andproud (Jan 28, 2009)

... and here is the info on the drive itself via Disk Utility...

	Name : 	EXTERNAL WD
	Type : 	Volume
	Disk Identifier : 	disk1s1
	Mount Point : 	Not mounted
	File System : 	MS-DOS File System (FAT32)
	Connection Bus : 	USB
	Partition Type : 	Windows_FAT_32
	Writable : 	Yes
	Capacity : 	465.8 GB (500,105,217,024 Bytes)
	Owners Enabled : 	No
	Can Turn Owners Off : 	No
	Can Be Formatted : 	Yes
	Bootable : 	No
	Supports Journaling : 	No
	Journaled : 	No
	S.M.A.R.T. Status : 	Not Supported
	Disk Number : 	1
	Partition Number : 	1
---
Well i've just opened up Disk Warrior, and it can't rebuild or do anything to my external HD as it isn't mounted & that its not a Mac drive. Great. I'm right up the creek now, and it feels like there isn't even a paddle about... help!


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## sjh (Feb 1, 2009)

Hi there 

I had the same problem - was plugging in my maxtor hardrive (USB) (and a WD and a toshiba flash drive) and nothing would mount. This may sound a bit obvious but I did a restart of my macbook with the flash drive in the usb port - when it started up the flash drive worked and I was also able to then plug in my maxtor and it mounted straight away.

Hope this helps 
sjh


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## Satcomer (Feb 1, 2009)

To reset the USB/FireWire in a Mac is to just to Reset Your PRAM.


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