External Hard Drive Issue

[Nick321]

Hello there

I have recently formatted my external hard drive to make it usable on my mac aswell, and making it exfat compatible.

However, after a force restart my mac no longer shows my external hard drive in the finder.
I have tried multiple things in the Finder settings etc, but cannot seem to make it show.

I can locate the external hard drive in terminal with 'diskutil list', but if I try to dismount it, it says its already been dismounted, and if I try to mount it in Terminal, nothing happens.

Another thing I've noticed is that I am unable to open Disk Utilities while the external hard drive is in the USB, its simply stuck on loading discs, if I remove the USB though, it can see my internal hard drive with no problem.

I am able to mount it on a PC and see the files, but it says its damaged and I am unable to edit files. Could all this have happened simply due to the force restart I made on my mac while the external hard drive was mounted and working perfectly?

This is all very strange, is there anyone who is able to help me out? I'd appreciate it greatly!

Thanks in advance,

- Nick.

 

[honestone]

Hello there

I have recently formatted my external hard drive to make it usable on my mac aswell, and making it exfat compatible.

That is a confusing statement. Either it is formatted for a Mac, formatted for Windows (exfat), or you have it partitioned with those 2 formats.

Also, what brand is it? Also, what exact Mac model do you have, and what Mac OS are you running?

 

[Nick321]

Thanks for your reply, honestone.

It is a Toshiba 1TB External Hard Drive, formatted for Windows but I made it compatible with Mac in Disk Utilities.

I have a MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) running Sierra 10.12.

*Update*
After having had Disk Utilities load for 30 minutes with the external hard drive usb connected, it is now showing the external hard drive in disk utilities and in the finder. However, I am no longer able to edit files on my mac.

 

[honestone]

OK, need to understand something. You say that it is formatted for Windows. What kind of stuff are you trying to put onto the drive? If you have a Windows partition (via Parallels, VMware Fusion, or Boot Camp, then that is how it would (logically) be used.

If you do not have a Windows partition, then one would think you would want to put Mac "stuff" on it. In that case, you would need to format it, via Disk Utility, with a GUID Partition Map.

Also, an upgrade for Sierra, OS 10.12.2, came out about 2 weeks ago. You can get the Combo Updater from here:

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1900?locale=en_US

Finally, another individual was having issues getting his external Seagate drive to be visible in the Finder (he is using OS 10.12.2). I suggested that he go to Seagate's site and see if they had a newer driver for the drive, and especially for Sierra compatibility. Sure enough, he found that, installed it, and now his drive mounts fine. So, you might want to do the same.