Old Mac Os Wont Mount A Hard Drive
I bought a new hard drive cable and then the problem was solved. It seems that the MacBook Pro from 2011–2012 have some issues with the hard drive cable failing after some time. On your Mac, select an item, then choose File Get Info. Click the lock icon to unlock it. Enter an administrator name and password. In the Sharing & Permissions section, do any of the following: Add a user or group: Click the Add button below the list, select a user or group, then click Select. Remove a user or group: Select the user or group, then click the Remove button below the list. Make sure your Mac is connected to the external storage device (for example, using a USB cable or over a network). Click the Finder icon in the Dock to open a Finder window, then do one of the following to move your files. Move files to the storage device: Select one or more files on the desktop or in a folder, then drag them to the storage device, listed below Locations in the Finder sidebar. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or a external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files. Recovery mode on the Mac. If you are using.
- Mac Os Hard Drive Space
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- Find Hard Drive On Mac
- New Hard Drive Os Install
It is common that Mac fails to mount a hard drive. Many users have been subject to this issue before. It actually can result from many factors. So, this article will expose 5 main causes as well as solutions for this problem.
Hard drive is the most important part of a computer in that it’s used to store data, supporting computer to work in a normal manner. Therefore, if the internal hard drive is unable to be mounted on Mac system, not only will the system be unable to boot, but also you will be incapable of accessing the drive data. So, this issue is admittedly knotty and annoying. But don’t worry. In the followings, we will unveil its 5 primary reasons and solutions.
Reasons:
1. Virus Attack
There may be chances that your Mac system or the hard drive itself is attacked by viruses or malware, causing data corruption like corrupt PST. Hence, your Mac is unable to mount the hard drive. This isn’t rare in that viruses have become more and more sophisticated nowadays.
2. Disk Utility Failures
In addition, this problem may be caused due to Disk Utility faults. As we all know, not only can this tool fix disk issues, but also it can format or partition hard drive. Hence, if you used it to partition drive but failed, then the drive may be unable to be mounted.
3. Catalog File Corruption
Moreover, catalog files are extremely important as it is responsible for storing the record files of partitioned volumes. Therefore, if any catalog file becomes corrupt, Mac will not be able to get the volume information, such as volume size location, description of volume content, etc., thereby failing to mount the drive.
4. File System Damage
File system is responsible for organizing and storing the data in hard drive. Thus, if the drive file system is compromised, the master file table will be impacted in a direct manner. At that time, Mac will definitely fail to mount the disk drive.
5. System Malfunctions
Furthermore, there are likelihoods that the Mac operating system crashes. Hence, the Mac cannot mount your hard drive.
Solutions:
1. Kill Viruses
Based on the first reason above, you need to kill the potential viruses. Launch the anti-virus software on your Mac and then make it scan the disk or the entire Mac to remove viruses.
2. First Aid
“First Aid” is a repair feature in Disk Utility. You can use it to have a try. Insert a Mac OS installation disk and then reboot Mac while holding down the “C” key. In installer menu, select “Disk Utility” and turn to “First Aid” tab. Later, choose the drive and hit “Repair” option.
3. Quit “fsck_hfs” Alike
Many senior users may have noted that as shown in Activity Monitor, a process called “fsck_hfs” or “fsck_exfat” always auto runs on Mac startup. As long as, this process is quitted, the issue will disappear. You can try this solution, too.
4. Reset NVRAM
NVRAM is a small portion of memory used to store some settings for quick access on Mac system. Thereby, you can attempt to reset the NVRAM. Reboot your Mac and hold down the “Command + Option + P + R” key buttons. After resetting, you can retry to mount the drive on Mac.
5. Use Third Party Tool
What’s more, there are multiple utilities that can repair such an issue. Hence, you can download a trustworthy and experienced tool to have a shot.
Author Introduction:
Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including sql fix and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com
Summary: This post introduces 5 solutions you can try when you are unable to mount an external hard drive on your Mac. Also, to avoid further data loss, you can use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover lost data from this unmountable external drive first.
- Table of contents
- 1. Why you can't mount your external hard drive on Mac?
- 2. How to fix when external disks won't mount on Mac?
- 3. Conclusion
After you connect an external hard drive to your Mac, if everything is working fine, the operating system will automatically recognize, read, and mount your external drive, as well as show it in the Finder and on the desktop. However, if your disk gives up the ghost just like the users below, the external disk will not be showing up as normal. And if you check it in the Disk Utility, you will find your drive unmounted there.
'I was able to use my 3 TB external hard disk drive to backup my data last week. But now it doesn't mount after I migrate from Mojave to macOS Catalina. I dug around and tried a lot of stuff but still can't mount this external hard drive on my Mac. Can someone explain how to get this drive mounted so I don't lose the data?'
Why an external drive is not mounting on Mac?
Mac Os Hard Drive Space
There are numerous reasons for the external hard drive not mounting issue. The following are a few of the most common ones:
Hardware and connectivity issue
Most of the time, you can't mount your external drive on a Mac just because the connectivity is not in proper condition. This issue may be affected by a loose fitting, a broken USB cable, the wear on USB ports, etc. Sometimes, such connectivity issues could make your external drives keep disconnecting, or much worse, it would make your external hard drive unmountable eventually. After all, it is essential to have a firm and tight connection.
Corrupted disk
Another possible reason for an unmounted disk may come from the problematic hard drive itself. Wonder how could it be? Well, it is possible that you're unable to mount a drive just because it is corrupted and unrecognizable by macOS. You can recall if your external drive has experienced one of these things: an unsafe removal when you are transferring files, an improper ejection, a sudden power outage, or even a virus infection. If so, your disk might be corrupted and it should be the culprit that you are unable to mount your external drive probably.
Incorrect formatting of the disk
In some cases, an unsupported file system will make your external drive unmountable. It is reasonable because if your Mac can't even read your disk's file system, how can you mount and access this hard drive on your Mac? This factor may not be as possible as the other causes, but it does happen.
Unable to mount external hard drives on Mac, how to fix?
Even though the reasons for a not mounting disk are different from case to case, certainly there are some things you can do to fix this issue. The following are five effective solutions to the 'external hard drives won't mount on Mac' issue, and some of them are just basic checks.
Solution 1: Check and fix connectivity issues
The first thing you can do is to make sure that your disk is connected to your Mac properly. Here are some things you can try.
- Reconnect your external hard drive to your Mac and ensure that it fits the USB port snugly.
- Connect the external hard drive to a different USB port or a different Mac. If you are not sure if there is a problem with the USB port/hub, you can plug a working external drive in to a port/on a hub, unmount and eject it. Then plug the unmountable external hard drive into that port/hub.
- Replace the USB cable or adapter in case that it was damaged or broken.
- Connect it to a Windows PC and see if the storage device is powered on and working.
Solution 2: Check the file system of the external hard drive
Well, if you don't know exactly what file system your disk is formatted with while your external hard drive can't be mounted now, you can go to Disk Utility to have a check if it is formatted with an unsupported file system. Remember that macOS is friendly with APFS and HFS+ and is in a neutral attitude with FAT, FAT32, and exFAT. However, it is a different story if you need to access and write to NTFS file system on Mac. By default, macOS only enables NTFS drive read support but disables write support. In this case, you can download a free NTFS driver for macOS to mount this external hard drive in read and write mode.
Still unable to mount the external hard drive on Mac? Then it should be some problems with the drive itself. You can try the following solutions to troubleshoot this problem.
Wait! Have you recovered your important data from this unmountable drive?
Before you go any further to fix this unmountable hard drive, you'd better make sure you have backed up your data on this drive to avoid data loss. The reason is that when your external drive won't mount, you lose the only access to all your files on this drive. In this situation, if you have important files on the external hard drive, any operations on the drive could overwrite the original data and cause irreparable data loss.
Forget to back up before? You can also use Mac data recovery software like iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac to recover lost data from the unmountable external hard drives.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is afree external hard drive data recovery tool that enables you to recover lost data from external drives, especially when a hard drive is unmounted, formatted, inaccessible, unreadable, or corrupted. It's fully compatible with macOS Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7. In addition to external hard drive data recovery, it also can recover lost data from internal Mac hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, pen drives, etc.
Tutorial to recover lost data from unmountable external drive on Mac with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac on Mac.
To use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, you need to install this software on your Mac. You can just download the installation package and install it with no fuss.
Step 2: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
After successfully downloading this program on your Mac, you can drag it to your Applications folder to install it, or you can double-click its icon to launch it.
Mac app reduce blue light. Jul 13, 2018 Make sure that your Mac meets the system requirements for Night Shift, then follow these steps. Choose Apple menu ( ) System Preferences, then click Displays. Click the Night Shift tab. Schedule: Create a custom Night Shift schedule or have Night Shift turn on automatically from sunset to sunrise. Manual: Control Night Shift manually. If Night Shift is off, select the checkbox to turn Night. Make sure that your Mac meets the system requirements for Night Shift, then follow these steps: Choose Apple menu ( ) System Preferences, then click Displays. Click the Night Shift tab. Schedule: Create a custom Night Shift schedule or have Night Shift turn on automatically from sunset to sunrise. Manual: Control Night Shift manually. If Night Shift is off, select the checkbox to turn Night.
Mac Os Hard Drive Icon
Step 3: Select the unmountable external drive and click Scan button to scan all lost data.
When the Mac data recovery software is launched, all connected storage devices will be listed in the interface. You can see the name, file system, and space allocation of your hard drives and partitions. Locate your unmounted external hard drive, select it, and click 'Scan' to scan for lost data. Two scanning modes are allowed: Quick scan and Deep scan. Quick scan mode saves time for users and is applied when data is recently deleted. Deep scan mode finds more files at the cost of more time, and it's used when file system is corrupted or partition table is lost. Anyway, this software will automatically choose the most efficient way to scan for files according to the disk condition.
Step 4: Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click Recover to get them back.
With the preview feature, you can check whether your files on this unmountable disk are in a good condition or not. It saves time and money for users. The software will show if your file is corrupted so that you would not waste energy to recover it or pay for this data recovery product.
Step 5: Have a check to ensure you have got all lost data back.
Mac Os Hard Drive Format
Now you either have a copy of a data backup in hand, or have recovered your important files with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac. Therefore, you can go ahead to repair this unmounted external drive without worrying about data loss.
Solution 3: Repair the external hard drive with Disk Utility
When an external hard drive is not working properly, you can use the built-in disk repair tool - First Aid to check and repair disk errors.
Find Hard Drive On Mac
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.
Step 2: Choose the unmountable external drive on the left sidebar.
Step 3: Select First Aid in the top center and click Run.
Solution 2: Repair the external hard drive with Terminal
Sometimes, Disk Utility may not function as desired. Fortunately, you can still try to repair the corrupted external hard drive with Terminal.
Step 1: Go to Applications > Terminal
Step 2: Enter: diskutil list (This will list out the available volumes).
Step 3: Check the volume identifier from the table that appears.
Step 4: Enter:diskutil repairVolume [diskvolume identifier]. For example, if the volume identifier of an external hard drive is disk2s, you should enterdiskutil repairVolume disk2s.
Solution 3: Reformat the external hard drive
If yourexternal hard drive can't be repaired with Disk Utility and Terminal, the file system of this drive might be seriously corrupted. The only way to fix this unmountable external drive is to reformat it. Komplete audio 6 driver mac os x.
Warning: Reformatting will erase all data on the external hard drive, so please make sure you have backed up important data.
New Hard Drive Os Install
1. Launch Disk Utility from Utilities.
2. Click the icon of the unmountable external drive on the left part of the window.
3. Click the Erase function on the top of the Disk Utility window.
4. Complete the related information (name, format, scheme), then click Erase button.
Conclusion
When you can't mount an external hard drive on your Mac, you can try the 5 methods introduced in this post. But no matter which solution you are going to try, to avoid data loss, you are always advised to back up your files or recover your data from this unmountable drive first with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
But if unfortunately, none of these solutions can make your hard drive work again, or your disk is not even detected or showing up in Disk Utility, then this drive might be physically damaged. Under this situation, you should send it to a local disk repair service and see if they can help.
Good luck!