Spotlight not seeing external HD

P

PaulHigg

Grounded by depression
Can anyone help with problem? I have an 80GB USB external HD I bought before Tiger to backup everything. Now when I use spotlight it doesn't see my external HD. How can I change this?

Thanks again,

Paul
 
No, it's Paul's external 80 GB hard drive. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I think I might have found a solution. I did an experiment on some images. I put comments in the spotlight comments box of two of the same photo. One photo on the internal HD, the other photo on the external HD. I used one word that was the same on both photos and then different words on each photo. To make a long story short, I discovered that Spotlight (which I like a LOT) will not see the external until I restart the iMac with the external running. I can't just turn it on and mount it and expect Spotlight to see the files. (sigh)

Thanks,

Paul
 
Paul,

Have you tried going to System Preferences->Spotlight...the Privacy Tab? In the Privacy Tab drag the external disk image over to it, exit System Preferences. Once Spotlight starts indexing it, go to the Spotlight Preferences and remove the disk image (with the minus button). This should index the drive.
 
Should not be necessary. My external drives were just indexed when I first connected them (not at boot time, mind you!), IIRC.
 
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