external FW drive doesn´t mount

[Klaus Esser]

Hi folks!

My external FW drive on a Mac G5 2x2GHz doesn´t mount. Drive test sees the physikal drive, but not the volume. No programm like diskwarrior or so can scan the volume, because it doesn´t mount and can´t be read.

A great part of my data is on that drive . . i have backups of the most
Size is about 270GB and about 40GB wre free, when i shut down my Mac and switched off the external drive.

MAYBE, i switched off the drive too early . . but i don´t think so, because i alway eject external devices before a shutdown . . but it was 3:30AM . . .

best, Klaus

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Karl,

Welcome to the club! That's happened to me a number of times.

Have you tried starting the G5 from your instal disk and accessing the Disk Utility just before it goes to "instal"?

The disk utility works better there. Also sometimes repairing permissions of you boot drive will help.

It may take a dozen attempts to eventually get the drive to be repairable.

If I'm stuck I use Techtool Pro then go back to Disk Utility and thence bacl to Disk Warrior.

Eventually some packaging is put right and I get the drive mounted.

It can be very frustrating I know!

It has taken me sometimes 12 hours of dogged word to get the drive to mount. Try Prosoft Drive Genius as well.

Asher

[Nicolas Claris]

Another simple thing to check is cable or loose connexion...
I know what you may feel right now.... brrr

Is it a Lacie drive? I once saved one with some tools from Lacie to restore the driver...

[Klaus Esser]

Hi Karl,

Welcome to the club! That's happened to me a number of times.

Have you tried starting the G5 from your instal disk and accessing the Disk Utility just before it goes to "instal"?

The disk utility works better there. Also sometimes repairing permissions of you boot drive will help.

It may take a dozen attempts to eventually get the drive to be repairable.

If I'm stuck I use Techtool Pro then go back to Disk Utility and thence bacl to Disk Warrior.

Eventually some packaging is put right and I get the drive mounted.

It can be very frustrating I know!

It has taken me sometimes 12 hours of dogged word to get the drive to mount. Try Prosoft Drive Genius as well.

Asher

Hi Asher! (this is Klaus :-) )

"Have you tried starting the G5 from your instal disk and accessing the Disk Utility just before it goes to "instal"?
The disk utility works better there. Also sometimes repairing permissions of you boot drive will help."


Yep - tried that first. DiskUtility behaves just as on the standard-system.
Tried TechTool, Onyx, Maintanance, DiskWarrior . . they can´t scan it caiuse they don´t see it . .

But i´m gonna try Drive Genius. Will keep you informed . . ;-)

best and thx, Klaus

P.S.: i never had this problem in the last 5 years with OS X - i had it on my G3 with OS 9. But there´s Scuzzy drives and they where always running again.

[Michael Fontana]

Klaus, do you have a pbook to verify, if a FWslot of the G-5 was "burned"?
This sometimes can happen; even its more common on USB-devices.
This first approach is usefull to clear the point between the external disc and and the computer.

2nd: if you can't read it, it doesn't means, that the data isn't on it anymore; as a example it could be the FW-bridge within the FW-case, which is broken; in that case you might put the harddisc in a other case, and there you go. Reading "Drive test sees the physikal drive, but not the volume" you have a good chance, that the bridge (FireWire to ATA) only was hit.

Many different qualiities were produced as bridges; usually the oxford did well (knock on wood) , meanwhile some others had known problems.

BTW: Which case it is?

PS: The third point would be more serious. If the bridge is fine, and the slots are ok, than you've a harddisc problem, which usually can't be resolved with software, aka beeing a hardware problem.

[Asher Kelman]

Michael,

Great idea on the FW connection. I'd try a new port and a different and shorter cable just in case.

Also one can put the drive in another case.

I've almost always been able to get the volume to mount.

Asher

[Ray West]

Hi Klaus,

Hi Asher! (this is Klaus :-) )which I interpret as you telling/reminding Asher that you know diddly squat about computers. I can't help you in the details, since I know diddly squat about Macs, but I think the first thing you need to do, is get another drive, or two, and get your backups on line. You may not need what you have lost, and you can spend ages, even if you know what you are doing, in trying and finally not succeeding in recovering from your situation, unless you strike lucky, or someone can identify exactly the chain of events which caused the failure, and can explain it exactly, in a way that you can duplicate, how to recover your drive.

External drives, do not last long, in some cases, and in some instances - lack of cooling, running all the time, etc. causes premature failure, like us, really. If it is truly a drive failure, and when you have given up, then maybe you can put it in a poly bag and in your freezer overnight. Sometimes, you can get it fired up for long enough to recover the data.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Klaus Esser]

Klaus, do you have a pbook to verify, if a FWslot of the G-5 was "burned"?
This sometimes can happen; even its more common on USB-devices.
This first approach is usefull to clear the point between the external disc and and the computer.

2nd: if you can't read it, it doesn't means, that the data isn't on it anymore; as a example it could be the FW-bridge within the FW-case, which is broken; in that case you might put the harddisc in a other case, and there you go. Reading "Drive test sees the physikal drive, but not the volume" you have a good chance, that the bridge (FireWire to ATA) only was hit.

Many different qualiities were produced as bridges; usually the oxford did well (knock on wood) , meanwhile some others had known problems.

BTW: Which case it is?

PS: The third point would be more serious. If the bridge is fine, and the slots are ok, than you've a harddisc problem, which usually can't be resolved with software, aka beeing a hardware problem.


Hi Michael!

It´s definitely not a hardware problem. The device is regognized, has the correct specifications shown.
As well over USB2 as over FireWire.
It´s the VOLUME, that´s not MOUNTING. So this has to be a software problem in the catalogue A or B tree. It cannot be scanned and repaired witout being mounted . .

Device-utility says sort of of "incorrect shutdown" . . ("Problem beim Beenden").
Maybe i switched power off too early or during the shutdown-process.

Drive-Genius scans the hardware - the surface of the disks. No problem, no bad block.
It could repair catalogues and so on - if the VOLUME were mounted . .

what a mess . . i know: it´s a very small thing . . but i have to mount the disk as a volume, that´s the problem.

best, Klaus

[Asher Kelman]

Does the disk appear on the desktop or only in the Disk Utility and Drive-Genius?

If you can just get an entire disk image made, then try this, pick a softwre, I think Drive Genius, but you'll have to check, and make two volumes.

You can do it with any software that deletes the information in making the partition.

What do you think of that?

Asher

[Nicolas Claris]

Asher, he said already that the drives doesn't mount!

[Michael Fontana]

Hi Michael!

It´s definitely not a hardware problem. The device is regognized, has the correct specifications shown.
As well over USB2 as over FireWire.
It´s the VOLUME, that´s not MOUNTING. So this has to be a software problem in the catalogue A or B tree. It cannot be scanned and repaired witout being mounted . .

Device-utility says sort of of "incorrect shutdown" . . ("Problem beim Beenden").
Maybe i switched power off too early or during the shutdown-process.

Drive-Genius scans the hardware - the surface of the disks. No problem, no bad block.
It could repair catalogues and so on - if the VOLUME were mounted . .

what a mess . . i know: it´s a very small thing . . but i have to mount the disk as a volume, that´s the problem.

best, Klaus

ok, I see; what does disk utility states about the mount point?

2nd Question: you've a OS-9-mac, maybe for the scanner?
I'm asking cause there have been some workarrounds with it.

[Ray West]

Hi Klaus,

I know a bit more about the mac, thanks. Google for stuff - you'll find the answer - there is tons of it.

use something like 'your operating system' os x, jaguar or whatever you use, then volume then incorrect shutdown

so your search could be like 'os x volume incorrect shutdown' then in the 'search within results' refine it more. There are numerous issues wrt shutdown not functioning. and some unix like commands to recover stuff.

For more specific help, you need to give specific details - I don't even know your os.

It seems to me, that it may be something it does on startup, possibly expecting info being written prior to shutdown, which an unclean shutdown fails to do. Can you do a roll back, or something - no idea if macs can, or what it is called.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi Klaus,

I know a bit more about the mac, thanks. Google for stuff - you'll find the answer - there is tons of it.

use something like 'your operating system' os x, jaguar or whatever you use, then volume then incorrect shutdown

so your search could be like 'os x volume incorrect shutdown' then in the 'search within results' refine it more. There are numerous issues wrt shutdown not functioning. and some unix like commands to recover stuff.

For more specific help, you need to give specific details - I don't even know your os.

It seems to me, that it may be something it does on startup, possibly expecting info being written prior to shutdown, which an unclean shutdown fails to do. Can you do a roll back, or something - no idea if macs can, or what it is called.

Best wishes,

Ray

Excellent suggestion Ray, besides Google I would also search Apple's fora (http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa) and even post there.... who knows!

Good luck 8-O!

[Klaus Esser]

Excellent suggestion Ray, besides Google I would also search Apple's fora (http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa) and even post there.... who knows!

Good luck 8-O!


Hi Ray, Nicolas!

I did that all . . no success.
BUT i have a programm "Data Rescue", which can recover broken files and save them to another drive. That´s what i´m doing at the moment. Seems to be the only one to scan the raw-content of the disk without having it mounted.
The problem was the "superblock", some kind of "toc" (table of content). I think i made a mistake while shutting down - i don´t know: never happened to me in about 20 years of Mac-practice - and may have killed some catalogue-entry or so . . . . . , bahh.
Nevertheless: i could fix it and saved my relevent data . . uff.

Thanks to all for your kind support and clues!!!!!!

best, Klaus

[Asher Kelman]

Yes Kalus,

That works fine,

When you are finished, do a sort for size and delete all the image files below 50k, there will be thousands of them.

I put things into iview and then sorted them there.

You may be lucky and get some sorted by directory already.

Kind thoughts!

Asher

[Klaus Esser]

Yes Kalus,

That works fine,

When you are finished, do a sort for size and delete all the image files below 50k, there will be thousands of them.

I put things into iview and then sorted them there.

You may be lucky and get some sorted by directory already.

Kind thoughts!

Asher

Thank you, Asher!
I´m sure i can work it out fine. Have recovered 60GB of the most relevant files until now and they´re in the original file-structure. :-)
Now i´ll recover some favourite movies, which i recorded from TV. That´s the biggest part of the disk . . ;-) Amongst them my beloved Ken Burn´s "Jazz" dcumentation.

best, Klaus