# External drive has disappeared from desktop



## michaelt0420 (Apr 20, 2009)

I have an external LaCie drive that has disappeared from the desktop. It's connected via Firewire. I've rebooted a number of times. It reappeared once but when I had to restart to complete an upgrade it disappeared again. I'm running 10.4.11 on a G5. Any ideas? Thanks.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

When you open Disk Utility, does it show up in the list of drives on the left side. It should show up as a disk, with a volume under the disk. If it doesn't show up at all, then you have some really bad problems. If it does show up, click on the volume and then the mount button in the top bar of the window.


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## michaelt0420 (Apr 20, 2009)

I guess I'm in bad shape because I already tried disk utility and it does not show up. Thanks for the quick response though.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

The next thing to do is to try the hard drive in a different enclosure. It could be the bridge of the enclosure went bad, and the drive is still good. Also, trying a different hard drive in the enclosure you have will also tell you if it's bad. If the disk shows up in Disk Utility, then your hard drive is bad. If not, then I'd bet the drive is good, and you just need a new enclosure.


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