What to do when an external hard drive is not detected by Mac?

External hard drives are now household storage devices which offers huge amount of data to be stored on it providing fast and simple accessibility to files any-time, anywhere. Today, a computer user has so many varieties of external drive to choose from which perfectly meets his/her working needs. Among the most popular producers of external hard drives are Seagate, Toshiba, Western Digital, Kingston and others. Hard drives, also, are the most preferred devices that are used to take temporary back up of system data through transfer of files & folders (Copy & Paste). With a Mac machine at home, the external drive can be used as time capsules that will take incremental back ups of the data stored on the machine. In case of any unfortunate event, the Mac user can easily restore the files and folders from a Time Capsule.

Repair an external hard drive using Volume Repair utility that rebuilds Mac disk directory

Despite of its usefulness, there are several events that can harm the consistent performance of an external-drive and make it go undetected. One of the most unpopular event is when the OS X could not detect a connected hard drive and the data inside the drive is far away from user's reach. Undetected hard drive on a Mac could be a result of following reasons:

1. Blame it on the hardware of the drive: No logical error found on Mac, but some hardware issues like loose or faulty wires, damaged surface, bad header and over heating could be few examples of hardware malfunction.


2. Logical failures: Coming to the logical errors like file system corruption, unmountable drive due to file system failures, improper ejection of the drive corrupting the media. Here, we should remember that the drive in case of rude ejection can develop both logical as well as hardware errors.

Safe hard drive ejection tips for Mac OS X: Drag the external hard drive icon and drop it on the trash folder. Alternatively, use the key CTRL+Left Mouse Click, a pop-up appears, select the 'Eject' option to safely remove the attached hardware.

What to do when drive goes undetected:

Let's assume, a hard drive is abruptly detached from the system and now it fails to get detected by Mac on reconnecting.

1. Make sure to check if the light on the hard drive is still active. This will ensure the drive is facing an error and is not entirely dead. A faulty cable of the drive could be one of the possible reasons for not getting it detected by OS.


2. Connect the same drive on another system to check if that system detects it correctly. It happens many a times when a drive not detected on the system from which it was abruptly ejected and works fine when connected to other computer.


3. Open disk utility and locate your hard drive. If corruption is serious, then disk utility will not show the drive. Here, users can also try safe mode to see if the drive is detected by the OS. If so, run verification from disk utility.


4. Under Apple logo (on the top of desktop), click 'About This Mac'. Further, running the system report will confirm if its connected through the h/w.


5. Run a hardware test for undetectable devices.

What if none of the measures works? If you are tired of trying all the tricks without any positive result then it is recommended to contact a professional. Hard drive components are sensitive and one never ever should try to experiment without proper knowledge. If your priority is to extract data which is still intact on the drive then try out a recovery application best suited for such drive corruption.

Partition a Mac hard drive? Here is what you should know?

Today, many Mac users are aware about how to partition a hard drive using disk utility and benefits of partitioning the drive into multiple volumes. Still, there are others who don't know about both. New Mac users would find it difficult to cope up with the disk utility functions, although it is simple to use. 

To split a hard drive or let it be as a single hard drive: We split our large hard drive into number of others small volumes which are then mounted by OS X. To access a volume, it should be first mounted by the Mac; otherwise the volume would be inaccessible to the user. These individual volumes not only ease the saving of files & folders but also make the OS X access the information much quicker. Splitting a hard drive also facilitate creation of volumes which can be used for any kind of testing. These kinds of working conditions are best suited to those who work upon hard drives. E.g.: Testing Engineers damages the file structure of the volume and then repairs it using their new software. This way they can check the functionality of their new tool with the help of the test volume.

Installing Multiple OS on hard drive: Each volume created on Mac can be used to install an OS X, for instances, I got both Lion 10.7.3 and Mountain Lion (10.8) installed on my Mac Mini. A dedicated partition can be used to install Windows using boot camp. 

Resizing Mac partitions to utilize disk space: After a Mac partition has been created it must be re-sized to completely utilize the space. Disk Utility functions allows resizing a partition either by mouse drag or by entering the definite volume size in numbers.

Is resizing partitions a risky task? No matter, you choose either disk utility or a non-Apple utility to partition a hard drive, the risk of data loss may occur on both the situations. Prior to resizing partitions, always ensure back-ups of the entire hard drive. Here, you can either copy the drives content to an external hard drive, or clone the complete drive making it bootable, else use time machine.

Resizing a large partition may be time consuming: On resizing a large partition on Mac hard drive, the disk-utility (or 3rd party software) may take hours to move blocks from a position to another. Users, often jump to negative conclusions when the tool takes hours of time to resize a large partition. But, in general it is a normal process that needs time.

My Mac won't pass beyond the White Screen? How Should I get rid of this irritating error?

I bet, many of the Mac users (including myself) have come across the 'White Screen' error on OS X. This error is so irritating that it won't let you go beyond the white screen causing all sorts of agony. The personal data including media files, videos, applications, and office data seems to be completely out of reach when this error occurs.   

Create a Recovery CD to boot Mac and recover hard drive data. Get Recovery CD for inaccessible Mac utility

“Alias of White Screen of Deaths are: Stop Error, WSoD, White Box/Screen of Doom, or preferably White Death affects all OS, even Macs, iPods & iPhones.”

Symptoms of White Screen: 

Upon turning ON the Mac, a blank white screen appears disallowing the OS X to boot further. No further activity can be done upon receiving a White Screen, desktop won't load, no dock & finder etc. All stuck on White Screen.  

Reason for White Screen Error:

Either the Kernel Panics or a bad hard drive is responsible for White Screen error on Macs. A bad hard drive may be caused by any logical or physical deterioration. If the hard drive has cultivated bad blocks or file system errors then this would result in Kernel Panics (like White Screen of Death). Other minor reasons for a White Screen of Death could be any changes made in the hardware that might be conflicting with the present Mac OS installed. E.g.: A RAM change may bring in WsoD.

What a lay user can do to fix Stop Error?

Initially, Apple suggests to reset P.R.A.M & N.V.R.A.M to change any notice:

1. Turn off the WsoD affected system. Do it by force shutdown.
2. Switch on the Mac again until a boot sound appears.
3. Push hold on CMD+Opt+P+R keys syn-chronically
4. Keep the control of the keys up to the system starts again, and boot sound is made twice.
5. Relax the keys now.

The Result of above applied steps:

The system may wake up from the Stop Error and boot as normal. Many users have experienced resetting PRAM & NVRAM, causing the error to resolve. However, many of them still did not go beyond the white screen that appeared after a good boot up. 

Now what to do?

1. When the above 5 steps didn't prove to of much help you can try resetting the SMC.
2. Close the Mac.
3. Detach any peripherals, cables, power wires, battery etc.
4. Be patient for several minutes.
5. Re-attach all the cables, peripherals like before.
6. Now turn ON the OS X

The WSoD might be a frustrating error but with the help of proper steps it can be resolved without taking it for a repair.