[X-Newbies] Missing internal hard drive

[Tony Johansen]

On 18/2/2006 2:30 PM, "Lynn Persing" <lpersing at adelphia.net> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I just realized a few days ago that the internal 20GB hard drive in
> my G4 sawtooth is not appearing on my desktop anymore.  I installed a
> second internal 80GB drive a couple years ago and have OS X.3.9 on
> it, which has been my startup and main drive.  The old 20GB contains
> all my old files (and OS 9) from my Performa days.
> 
> I also added an external LaCie drive to use for backup of my 80GB
> drive, which has been working nicely for a couple months.
> 
> A couple weeks ago, I had some funky problems where my machine booted
> and couldn't find it's system folder, and I ended up reinstalling
> X.3.9.  Everything has been running smoothly until a few days ago
> when I noticed that my old 20GB, OS 9 drive was gone.  I'm not sure
> how long it's been gone because I really only need to get something
> off of it occasionally.
> 
> I started up my disk utility and I can see the drive, it shows as a
> 19. something or other GB drive, and I can see my missing drive's
> name below it, but it's greyed out.  I can run verify and repair on
> the drive and it all tests ok. If I click on the greyed out name of
> my drive, and click the mount button, I hear a click but it does not
> mount of my desktop?
> 
> I tried a demo version of Data Rescue to see if files were still on
> the drive, and it appears that all my files are there (I couldn't
> recover them with the demo version.)
> 
> My question is....is my drive belly up or is there just something I
> am missing as far as getting it to mount?  The fact that I can see it
> and that Data Rescue found all the files on it, makes me think that I
> just don't know how to make it mount.  Any ideas?  I've never had a
> hard drive failure in all my years of computer use (knock on wood),
> so I don't know what to expect.
> 
> Thanks in advance to anyone who might be able to help!
> 
> Lynn

Lynn, 

First of all don't despair :-)

I had a not too dissimilar problem recently with a partition on a drive that
would not appear on the desktop and yet in DiskUtility I could see it and
verifying and repairing the disk gave me the re-assurance that everything
appeared to be ok. But...still no access.

The recommendation from all authorities was DiskWarrior. It is available as
an online download that you can then burn direct to CD (for near instant
use) if you don¹t have a copy yet. Find it here:

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

I was very lucky, I did not need to use DiskWarrior in the end. After 2 days
missing in action, the partition in question simply appeared on the desktop,
without any action at the time by me. One of life's little mysteries.

Hopefully yours too is just taking an extra nap for a while. Otherwise try
DiskWarrior - it seems to be the best thing for these situations if luck is
not on your side.

Tony
http://www.tonyjohansen.com
A Life Of Art