# External HD not mounting



## hndsmman (Oct 25, 2007)

I may have _accidentally_ unplugged my external HD Acomdata 160 GB with unmounting it properly. Now it doesn't mount on the desktop, Disk Utility doesn't see it and System Profiler doesn't see it. I have tried everything these forums say...reset the PRAM, NVRAM & SMU. I've shut everything down and unplugged and waited 10 minutes and nothing happened. I tested the cable and both ports on the computer with another peripheral and they are working. I spoke to the manufacturer (Acomdata) and they said the ports on the drive might be burned out? and I need a new enclosure? I want to exhaust all other options before I purchase that. So if anyone knows any other tricks to get er done...I've heard tell of certain codes you can enter in Terminal that would help?


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## eric2006 (Oct 25, 2007)

When plugged in, does it show up in disk utility?


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## DarkSorrow (Oct 25, 2007)

hndsmman said:


> I spoke to the manufacturer (Acomdata) and they said the ports on the drive might be burned out?



Wow..... those company is so clueless about how OSX works.

Sometime ejecting a mounted image in a non-proper way will cause it not to work again. i have that issue with my Sidekick 3, i never eject it the right way (like right-click and click eject or highlight it and click Apple+E). After a few time, OSX wont see my sidekick 3 anymore, and it did happen to my flash drive.

That why there is some article saying you have to eject it properly or OSX dont see it anymore.

This kind of thing wont affect it until you did it too much.


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## hndsmman (Oct 25, 2007)

yes, but I did it just once. There must be something you can do???


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## vocastic (Dec 4, 2007)

Glad to know I am not alone.. I have a WD (Western Digital) MyBook 500gig external HD, and just the other day it stopped mounting on my desktop.  I am currently running OSX 10.4.11

Didn't really make any changes for this to occur, and the last time I did take the usb chord out, it did give me the "Disk not properly removed" warning, but I don't do that often enough for this to occur.

It does however still show up in Disk Utility when I plug it in.. but is grayed out, and when I press the "Mount" button, nothing happens.

Can somebody, anybody help?  I'd hate to think I lost my data.


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## vocastic (Dec 4, 2007)

An update to my issue here.. I plugged it into my sister's Dell PC laptop, and it fully loads up and everything.  Is my best bet to just buy another one and redump everything over?


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## Gnomo (Dec 4, 2007)

Does the unmounted drive show up in disc utility?  If so, run the verify disc command to find out what is wrong with it.  Usually when OS X doesn't mount a drive it is because there is something wrong with the filesystem.

You can try running the repair disc command too, but that doesn't always seem to work.  If it fails try Disk Warrior or fsck if you're not afraid of the terminal.


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## Abobo kitty (Dec 17, 2007)

i too have 2 western digital 500 GB my books. they were working fine & then just this morning they mounted....but all the data is missing....i want to cry
i was using one for a backup & one for work.. Am I totally screwed?


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## AdmiralAK (Sep 6, 2009)

Hello to all

I have an external WD MyBook 500GB hard drive. It was a little flaky recently, not showing up on my desktop after sleep, however now it refuses to mount (tried both FW400 and USB). 

I fired up disk utility and the disk does not show up there either. Any ideas?


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## djackmac (Sep 6, 2009)

Sounds like its dead. Any clicking/beeping noises coming from it when powered up?


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## AdmiralAK (Sep 6, 2009)

when it's powered up and connected via usb or firewire to a computer I hear clicking noises.


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## djackmac (Sep 7, 2009)

Yeah, doesnt sound promising. Some clicking at power up and such are considered normal, but a consistent click..click..click usually means a bad controller board on the drive. Finding an exact matching controller board is rare unless you have an exact duplicate and even if you do, swapping the controller boards rarely makes the drive functional again. Some have reported success with sealing the drives well and freezing them to get them operational again, but this is a temporary fix which would only be good if you had nothing to lose and were desperate to get a small amount of data off of the drive in a hurry. Once the drive heats up it will malfunction again.


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## AdmiralAK (Sep 7, 2009)

Interesting fix. so seal the HD in a zip lock or two and freeze it?

I've read some fixes such as leaving the HD alone (unplugged) for a long period of time and trying again and it may come back to life. At this point I don't care much about most of the data on the HD - it's been backed up elsewhere. It's a pain to reconstitute (and many man hours), but I can if I need to.


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