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  1. 12th June 2009, 02:57 PM #1
    skirrow17
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    Unhappy My WD external hard drive won't show up!

    I've had a pretty thorough search of this site to see if it's already been answered, but I'm pretty desperate for a response now...and thought I should put my exact problem down...

    I have a 1TB Western Digital hard drive (reasonably new). Its been going fine and I've filled up to about 900GB.

    A few days ago I was using iPhoto for the first time, and I moved all these photos from my hard drive into it, and i realised they were filling up room on my mac (a 17" Macbook Pro) so when i went to try and find the iPhoto library using spotlight, it just said it was in my external! I was so confused, because 8GB of space had disappeared on my computer!

    Last night I discovered what had happened: there was an alias of my hard drive on my computer, so when it referred to the folder "*** ******'s Hard drive", it was actually referring to the alias! I moved the iPhoto library onto my hard drive, then deleted the alias so this wouldn't happen again, and emptied the trash.

    Now my external hd won't show up on my computer when I plug it in. I dont think its a problem with the HD because it makes all the usual noises that it used to make when I plug it in, and so does my computer, but at the vital moment when the icon used to show up on my desktop...nothing happens.

    I'm utterly confused! It doesn't even show up in disk utility! I have all my music, photos, films and school work (I'm a film student) in there, and can't access it. So formatting it isnt an option for me..(even if i could see it in disk utility). Any mac geniuses able to help me out?!
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  2. 12th June 2009, 03:40 PM #2
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    bennettnz
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    These drives are known for connectivity issues. This is what I end up doing. Put the power plug in the hard drive and listen to it start up then put the firewire or usb plug in and if that doesn't work do it in the opposite order e.g. plug the usb or firewire plug in and then the power. Eventually i get the drive to mount but once I do I try real hard not to disconnect it. This seems pointless I know. Happily I see that WD drives have mounting problems on PCs as well.
    Bennettnz
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  3. 12th June 2009, 04:56 PM #3
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    craigc
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    Stating the obvious, but can you try it on another machine?
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  4. 12th June 2009, 05:05 PM #4
    skirrow17
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    no its not stating the obvious...everyone in my household has PC's and this is mac formatted. I know a few people i could plug into, and i really do think it will work...but im sure the problem is my computer so even if it works on their computers, im still in the dark!

    But it would give me peace of mind knowing all my data is safe!
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  5. 12th June 2009, 05:07 PM #5
    skirrow17
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    bennettnz I'll give that a go.
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  6. 12th June 2009, 05:11 PM #6
    skirrow17
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    IT WORKED!! First try.

    Someone give this person a medal!

    So what have we learned?

    Just crappy connectivity by WD? Or should i really not have deleted the alias? Or was it just a bad coincidence.

    Its not the first time ive had troubles connecting, but usually a bit of unplugging the power cord works....this one was out of order a long time! I'd restarted many times, unplugged the power COUNTLESS times, but not unplug the computer, then power, then plug back into computer. Thanks heaps!
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  7. 12th June 2009, 05:23 PM #7
    bushbabe
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    Have just purchased WD elements 640 GB HDD and plugged into eMac 800 ghz running 10.4.11 -no good - could not read, started disk doctor and it 'saw' it but said that it was not formatted so I tried to erase and format to Mac OS extended (journaled) and it couldn't do it (connection problem) - plugged into other eMac running same 10.4.11 1.42 mhz and it worked like I hoped - can anyone explain ????
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  8. 12th June 2009, 06:55 PM #8
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    Brains
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    Easily -- your 800 MHz eMac can only talk USB 1.1, your 1.42 MHz eMac can talk USB 2.0. The Elements enclosures do not work reliably under USB 1.1.
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  9. 13th June 2009, 03:32 PM #9
    skirrow17
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    It happened again...and bennettnz's solution aint workin' like it aughta...
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  10. 15th June 2009, 04:05 PM #10
    bushbabe
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    Thank you Brains for easy answer to my problem it makes sense of course - it worked properly for me on other eMac 1.25 mhz no worries

    But - I have just looked at the about this Mac and it says USB 2.0 Hub ??? so I thought that that would be USB 2.0 ??
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