External Hard Drive is seen in Disk Utility but Won't Mount

[buzzsmith]

Hello!

I'm running an external backup drive via an IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 adapter. (The original OWC enclosure failed.)

Everything has been just peachy until about 2 days ago.

I may have, inadvertently, disconnected the drive without a proper Eject. (I may have accidentally partially disconnected the USB cable while not paying attention while working.)

Disk Utility sees it and I've tried Repair Disk about a dozen times and get this every time...

2018-06-12 12:10:40 -0500: Verify and Repair volume “Audio Backup And Transfers”
2018-06-12 12:10:40 -0500: Starting repair tool:
2018-06-12 12:10:40 -0500: Checking file system
2018-06-12 12:10:41 -0500: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
2018-06-12 12:10:41 -0500: Checking extents overflow file.
2018-06-12 12:10:41 -0500: Checking catalog file.
2018-06-12 12:10:54 -0500: Checking multi-linked files.
2018-06-12 12:10:54 -0500: Checking catalog hierarchy.
2018-06-12 12:10:59 -0500: Checking extended attributes file.
2018-06-12 12:11:01 -0500: Checking volume bitmap.
2018-06-12 12:11:03 -0500: Checking volume information.
2018-06-12 12:11:03 -0500: The volume Audio Backup And Transfers appears to be OK.
2018-06-12 12:11:03 -0500: Volume repair complete.
2018-06-12 12:11:03 -0500: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required
2018-06-12 12:11:03 -0500: Repair tool completed:
2018-06-12 12:11:03 -0500:
2018-06-12 12:11:03 -0500:

If I try to use the Mount command, I get...

The disk “Audio Backup And Transfers” could not be mounted.
Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting.

I've Googled and watched 4 or 5 videos that were helpful but didn't address this exact issue.

Thanks in advance!

Buzzy

[mikehalloran]

I've used those adapters. My normal procedure is Reboot... damn! Reboot... damn! Reboot...damn! Reboot... d.. hey, it worked!

If there's a better way, I've not found it.

The second it works, pull everything off. Move it to a SATA drive and use one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FDLCTQO/re ... 32629&sr=1

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Maybe try a different USB port?

[buzzsmith]

Maybe try a different USB port?

I did, MLC, and checked out the adapter with another drive. Works fine with the second drive, just not with the one mentioned above.

Thanks, though!

Buzzy

[buzzsmith]

I've used those adapters. My normal procedure is Reboot... damn! Reboot... damn! Reboot...damn! Reboot... d.. hey, it worked!

If there's a better way, I've not found it.

The second it works, pull everything off. Move it to a SATA drive...

Thanks, Mike.

Would you recommend powering down the drive on shutdown and powering it up after the reboot?

Or, just leave it on?

Appreciate it!

Buzzy

[mikehalloran]

Would you recommend powering down the drive on shutdown and powering it up after the reboot?

Yes. I remember that now. Leaving the drive powered when rebooting never worked.

Power down, shut down the drive and power back up before booting. Didn't work every time but gave me the best chance of success.

[HCMarkus]

Hey Buzzy... have you tried putting the drive in one of you MP's trays for a direct SATA connection?

[mikehalloran]

Hey Buzzy... have you tried putting the drive in one of you MP's trays for a direct SATA connection?

If it’s really an IDE drive, that should be PATA, not SATA.

[buzzsmith]

Resolved:

I bought Disk Warrior 5 (actually 5.1, I think) and ran it on the problematic drive.

Voila!

It found 5 issues. Oddly, none seemed to be directory related but were files associated with my DP projects.

Anyway, HD is now mounted.

Buzzy


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[buzzsmith]

Hey Buzzy... have you tried putting the drive in one of you MP's trays for a direct SATA connection?

No, I didn't even think about that.

It would have been pretty easy to try as I have a couple of carriers.

Anyway, Disk Warrior was successful (see above) and the drive is now mounted, ready and waiting for a Backblaze scan.

Thanks, though!

Buzzy


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[buzzsmith]

Hey Buzzy... have you tried putting the drive in one of you MP's trays for a direct SATA connection?

If it’s really an IDE drive, that should be PATA, not SATA.

Dang, something else for me to Google!

PATA vs. SATA.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[mikehalloran]

I assumed that, when you posted IDE/SATA that you had made a mistake. It is one or the other and since you pulled it out of an old enclosure, that IDE is correct.

PATA (Parallel ATA) is the new name for what used to be called IDE/EIDE/ATA/UATA/ATAPI/ATA-1 etc. The last versions supported bus speeds of 133mB (my G4). These were the drives used in Macs & PCs if we weren't using any of the versions of SCSI. This is the Performa through the G4. You can still buy them new to keep an old Mac or PC going and there are adapters that let you use SATA SSDs in these.

With the G5 came the SATA (Serial ATA) bus with theoretical speeds beginning at 1.5G (SATA 1). eSATA is for external and just specifies a specific connector.

There is also SATA/eSATA Multiport that allows multiple drives on the same bus. Although the Mac does not support this, you can buy compatible PCIe cards, Ethernet boxes and Thunderbolt–PCIe enclosures that do.