HELP!! Can't Access external HD
 

Dear Smarter People,
Hi, my name is Mike Fisher, I live in Kansas and have a 24" Intel iMac running 10.5.6. I have been having issues with my iMac lately and after talking to Apple and the Apple Store in Wichita they suggested HD replacement. After they replaced the HD and put in the system again I picked it up and brought it home. I have an external HD with 2 partitions. They are "iFish Backup" which is a SuperDuper backup and "Time Machine". "iFish" is the name of my HD. My Home folder name is k2fish.
When I got home I couldn't access my backup HD when I tried to use my backup.
It has lock icons on the partitions and the info windows show "custom" for all the groups(?) listed there. I have all our daughter's wedding pictures on it, music, tax work, etc. I am royally screwed if I cannot get to that info. I have been reading this link:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=90894

I am pretty good on a Mac, I have had them since LC II's but I am petrified of Terminal. I am pushing 60 and therefore my geekiness is quite feeble. I have read this stuff on this page over and over again but I am a Terminal idiot.I do not want to do irreparable damage by floundering around in the Terminal.
I have selected "ignore ownership" in both partition info windows without any success. Also in Disk Utility the permissions side is dimmed out. Perhaps a screen sharing session from iChat would be a possibility?

Thanks, Mike Fisher

Hi Mike,

When your external drives are connected and turned on, can you open up your Terminal (it's an application found in /Applications/Utilities) and copy/paste the following commands all at one time into it, then hit Return? None of these commands will cause any irreparable damage, I promise.

ls -alO /Volumes
ls -alO /Volumes/"iFish Backup"
ls -alO /Volumes/"Time Machine"
id
echo "done"

Let us see the results by copy/pasting everything from your Terminal window into the forum, and we should be able to fix you up quickly.

Trevor

Problem solved!
 

I called Apple at lunchtime and the tech guy had me do some terminal commands. I was able to access everything. I was restoring from my SuperDuper backup when I went back to work. I will check my emails when I get home tonight and let everyone know what the sudo commands were. A big thanks to you for your prompt and courteous help.
Thanks again, mike

same issue unresolved - external drive won't mount
 

Hi Trevor,

I see that k2fish solved his external drive problem. I'm having a similar problem and was wondering If I might take his place in asking for assistance.

I have a MacBook 2GHz Intel Core running OS 10.4.11 and have used a 250gb LaCie d2 as an external drive for over a year without a problem. Until today, that is. I usually use the USB cable port to connect the two, but today I tried using the Firewire 400 port with no success. So I disconnected the firewire and tried to use the USB again since I never have problems with it and I received the error "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."

I entered the commands you suggested in Terminal and here's what I got:

Erins-MacBook:~ Erin$ ls -alO /Volumes
ls: illegal option -- O
usage: ls [-ABCFGHLPRSTWZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file ...]
Erins-MacBook:~ Erin$ ls -alO /Volumes/"iFish Backup"
ls: illegal option -- O
usage: ls [-ABCFGHLPRSTWZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file ...]
Erins-MacBook:~ Erin$ ls -alO /Volumes/"Time Machine"
ls: illegal option -- O
usage: ls [-ABCFGHLPRSTWZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file ...]
Erins-MacBook:~ Erin$ id
uid=502(Erin) gid=502(Erin) groups=502(Erin), 81(appserveradm), 79(appserverusr), 80(admin)
Erins-MacBook:~ Erin$ echo "done"
done

Disk Utility sees the drive but when I try to Verify I got this:

Verifying volume “disk1s6”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Invalid B-tree node size
The volume needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

I'd appreciate any suggestions you can provide. THANKS!

- Erin

How the Apple rep saved my A--
 

Hi everyone,
Sorry I have been watching basketball and putting my iMac back together. THe Apple rep emailed me two emails with terminal commands and I am friends again with my external HD.

The first email was:
chflags -R nouchflags /Volumes/*

The second email was

chown root:admin /Volumes/*

chmod 1775 /Volumes/*

I had two partitions and we did one partition ata atime and restartes adfter each command. All I know is everything worked and I want to thank you all for your responses, particularly Trevor.

The above command was the one appropriate for Leopard (OS X 10.5).
For Tiger (10.4), it would be:
ls -alo /Volumes

That means that you should try doing the "Repair Disk" (different from "Repair Disk Permissions"!) in Disk Utility when booted from the Install CD/DVD. I.e. you restart from the Install CD/DVD, then run the version of Disk Utility that is available from one of the menus there (in 10.4.x, it's the Utilities menu), then go to the First Aid tab, select your boot drive, and click "Repair Disk" (NOT Repair Disk Permissions). If Repair Disk finds any errors at all, repeat the repair until no errors are found.
See this Apple doc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

But I fear that it may not be able to fix the problem. In that case, there is a good possibility that more powerful disk utilities can fix this - e.g. "DiskWarrior". Otherwise, you should backup all your files, erase your disk, and reinstall.

Please clarify - same issue unresolved - external drive won't mount
 

Hi Hayne,

Here are Terminal results with the Tiger appropriate command:
I will try "Repair Disk" in Disk Utility when booted from the Install CD as you suggested following instructions outlined in the Apple doc you linked. I am confused when you say "Otherwise, you should backup all your files, erase your disk, and reinstall."

What disk are you referring to? My External Lacie Drive? And if so how would I access any files on the external drive to back them up, erase them & reinstall if the drive won't mount to my MacBook? Or are you referring to my MacBook's internal drive? And in that case you're saying I need to resinstall my entire OS to access files on the external hard drive again?

Please clarify before I proceed. Thanks!

- Erin

The above results show that you have only one external drive mounted ("ERIN").

Sorry for confusing you - those were generic instructions and apply to the case where you had installed a copy of OS X on the disk that is having trouble.
In your case, you would only need to erase your external disk (after backing up any files that are on it that you want to keep - if you can) and then restore the files from your backup.

But at the moment, it seems that you can't even access the files.
So go ahead and try to do "Repair Disk" in Disk Utility when booted from the Install CD/DVD.

As per the Terminal results saying the only external hd I have mounted is "Erin", I would like to clarify that "Erin" IS the external lacie drive that, when I attach to my MacBook I get the error "the disk you have entered is not readable by this computer." I only have one external hard drive "Erin" being it. So what I gather is that Terminal sees that "Erin" is connected but it's not actually mounting to my computer to be able to access it.

I tried repairing my external drive "Erin" using Disk Utility but I got the message that First Aid Failed The underlying task reported failure on exit. Volume could not be repaired. I Also tried repairing the start-up disk on my MacBook - there were no errors found so disk did not need repair.

Is there something in the post below that I found that I could use to help me out?

"nh-ref 05-06-2007, 08:12 AM

As an aside, I had a new external 200GB drive I got the day after Thanksgiving last year, which I had put in an old enclosure (It only "saw" 160GB of it- old chipset i guess). So, after backing it up, I put it in the Lacie enclosure and it, for a minute, showed the whole 200GB in Disk Utility, then it died. I turned it off, and turned it back on and got: “The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer. I bought a new enclosure, popped it in, formatted it, and it is now working fine. It sees the whole 200GB...

So I believe the original drive that was in the Lacie is fine, I "just" have to recover the directory information somehow."

I also saw Trevor suggested a new case for a similar problem. I am willing to try it but I'm not really sure what that means!

Thanks!

- Erin

Since the "ERIN" drive seems to be mounting, let's see what files are accessible on it.
Please run the following commands (via copy & paste as usual) and show us the results:

id
ls -aol /Volumes/ERIN
echo "done"


Looking ahead a bit, if it turns out that the files you care about are accessible, then you should make a backup copy of them on some other disk.
If they aren't currently accessible, and you care about rescuing those files, consider buying "DiskWarrior" and using it to repair the filesystem on the "ERIN" drive.

Thanks Hayne,

Im confused as to what you mean when you say the external drive "Erin" is "mounting". When I attach it to my MacBook i get the error "the disk you have entered is not readable by this computer" and do not get any icon that indicates its mounting. When I open Disk Utility I can see that an external drive is connected but it is not shown as mounting. Here is an image of what exactly I see. Maybe I just don't really know what the term mounting means in this regard.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...lythe/help.jpg

Here are the results from the Terminal commands.
Thanks so much for bearing with me.

- Erin :confused:

Hi Erin,

The "ERIN" drive is mounting, as can be seen in your Terminal. You're pulling information off of it to show us the directory, so it's mounted. It just may be damaged in some way.

What do you get from the Terminal commands:

ls -al /Volumes/ERIN/"WORK STUFF"
echo "done"

Or, if you want to just try to copy stuff off of it into a new folder on your Desktop, we can try

cp -R /Volumes/ERIN/"WORK STUFF" ~/Desktop/"WORK STUFF"
echo "done"

Trevor

Hi Trevor,

Here's what I get.
There's no way all the files on the drive would fit on my desktop. I have about 80GB of music on the drive and a bunch of large Illustrator files as well. Eeeek. Scary.

- Erin

I also had recently changed the name of the drive to "Erin's External" by just renaming the label under the hard drive icon. Does that make a difference?

It may be that what we see under the folder "/Volumes/ERIN" (using Terminal) are just a copy of (some of) the files that used to be on that disk.
But it doesn't really matter what they are if you can access these files to make a copy of them.

Let's assume for the moment that your external disk "ERIN" is dead (as in hardware failure). In that case you will need to buy another disk.
So I'd recommend buying another disk and then copying what files you can from the folders under /Volumes/ERIN (that show up in the Terminal commands above) onto the new disk.

Note that you can use the "Go to Folder" menu item in Finder's "Go" menu to go to this /Volumes/ERIN folder - just type in /Volumes/ERIN when it asks you for the path to the folder. That way you can use Finder to look at the files and copy them to your new external disk etc.

I copied what was on the "/Volumes/ERIN" folder onto my desktop and it consisted of only two small files I think I deleted from the External Hard Drive ages ago. I'm sick :(

I don't understand how just trying the firewire cable would have INSTANTLY erased at least 100GB of data that was originally on there. Is there nothing else I can do? Is there anywhere I can take the drive to see if the data can be recovered or restored or something?? Is what Terminal is seeing really all that's there? I had just signed up for Crash Plan and was literally going to back that drive up the same evening I tried the firewire. I thought, the backup to Crash Plan's online server will be faster if i can get the firewire to work. Uggggggg. :( I thought for sure It was some directory issue but that the data was still sitting on the drive without me being able to reach it.

If you take the drive somewhere, it will probably cost quite a lot to get them to try to recover your data files.
Instead I'd proceed to do "Repair Disk" in Disk Utility on the disk that is shown there (as seen in your screen shot in post #11).
And if that doesn't work, then buy DiskWarrior (as mentioned above) and use it to fix the filesystem damage.

I ran Disk Utility way back in #9 and got:
Will go to Tekserve and get a copy of Disk Warrior. Maybe they'll have some ideas as well. I like it there and they have an old timey coke bottle machine that sells mini bottles for a nickel! Will keep you posted.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions!

- Erin

I took the laptop and external drive to tekserve today and was quoted $800 to recover the data on the external drive. yes, this makes me sick but worse is to imagine I'm going to need to pay this to get 90 gigs of files returned to me in a jumbled incorrectly named mess. I read this article and knowing what led to the problem thought it made sense. http://www.deathtofilm.com/2007/02/1...lure-easy-fix/ Has anyone else tried to replace the drive casing with any luck?The drive is NOT making any unusual noises and sounds as though it's spinnining normally. Yes, Ive learned my backup lesson. Just one last inquiry in hopes of a lucky break. thanks once again. -Erin

Hi Erin,

Before, you were planning on buying DiskWarrior. Now, you're talking about how much someone is quoting you for data recovery service. Does that mean you've already purchased and tried DiskWarrior? Or are you giving up on that very good idea for no reason? I would certainly recommend trying DiskWarrior, although of course nothing is guaranteed.

Trevor

Hi Trevor,

I had the drive removed from its casing and connected to a drive dock to test it and was told the drive is definitly bad. From what I was told once its clear the drive is the problem Disk Warrior is no longer a useful option. Two different techs told me this but I really dont know. I just know it looks like my only option is to pay the $800 for data recovery.

$800 is not a lot for failure recovery, when I send customers to DriveSavers I see quotes often for $1500 minimum.

Assuming the techs are telling you correctly that the disk is damaged, then they would most likely be right. Programs like diskwarrior can do a lot of good with logically damaged data, but not much good if the drive is physically bad, as is probably the case (based on contextual information in this thread alone).

If you typically use your external drive as extra storage more than storing copies of what's on your mac's drive, you should probably buy 2 external drives and use one to backup the other. A good backup is one that is not plugged into anything when it's not being used to make backups.

Removing the drive from it's case and connecting it to their drive dock will tell you that the problem is in your hard drive and not in your case.

But (by itself) that will not tell you if the problem is a hardware problem, or a messed-up filesystem.

If you have a messed-up filesystem, then DiskWarrior is very likely to be able to fix it. If you have a hardware problem, then DiskWarrior has a low to medium chance of being able to fix it (with some specific types of hardware problems).

I'm not sure if the techs did any other tests other than swapping the internal drive into a drive dock, but if that's all they did it is definitely not proof that you need to take the drive to a data recovery service.

If that's what you want to do, go ahead. I'd personally try DiskWarrior first.

Trevor

It is also possible to extract the raw disk data from the failing hardware (sometimes aided by trick such as putting the drive in the freezer) as a raw disk image (e.g. using command-line programs like 'dd' or 'ddrescue') that you store on another drive and then repair that disk image using DiskWarrior.
I did that to rescue some inadvertently non-backed up data from an iBook drive that had failed to the squealing and clicking stage.

Thanks Trevor and Hayne for the info and suggestions. Unfortunate that the techs at the shops don't offer the kind of support you do. I was also told running Disk Warrior could mess things up even more which scared me out of continuing to try and fix it myself. Not only that, but to my disbelief when i took the external drive in with my macbook somehow my macbook started to fail right when the store tech turned it on! It wouldnt start up then when it did it was running some code on a black screen prompt over and over. They did some tests on my macbook and discovered the firewire port wasnt working and im not sure what else was wrong but to find out they would have to send it to the "depot". At that point I was so freaked out and confused I let them send it for a flat rate of $350 to fix it plus another $100 to back it up to a drive. Ive left the external drive with them but havnt given the go ahead on the data reco from that drive yet, though iguess i cant really run disk warrior till i get my macbook back from repair. What a nightmare this has all been.

No, DiskWarrior will not mess things up even more. Whomever said that doesn't know anything about DiskWarrior.

The way DiskWarrior works is that it only reads data off of your drive while it is figuring out whether or not it can do any good. Once it has completed reading and figuring, it will let you know whether or not it can replace your directory (which will fix the problems) or not. If it can indeed replace your directory, it asks you first, and if you give it the go ahead, it replaces the directory all in one fell swoop. This is the only time it writes to your drive--after it knows that it can fix it, and you've given it permission.

It sounds like these techs are confusing DiskWarrior with other repair programs that are continously reading and writing to the disk in an attempt to fix it. If a problem occurs during writing, these other apps can cause more damage than they fix.

DiskWarrior is really an excellent program that I highly recommend. You should feel completely comfortable trying to use it on your hard drive.

Whether it will fix your hard drive or not is still unclear, but it is safe to attempt it.

Trevor

Need some help with this too! Just happened and i need to access my files.

Anyone there?

I have a lacie external drive, the one with swappable drives.. First time i have problems with it.

"disk insertion.....The disc you inserted was not readable by this computer"

I see the drives in the disk utility but they won't mount.
Would appreciate any comments and instructions.

Thank you!

Allanz,

Try what Trevor suggests above. Ultimately I had to pay for data recovery but hopefully you'll have luck trying other things suggested first.

Best of luck to you!

- erin