[herbsman]

Weird issue here.

I have a mac mini server that for whatever reason, intermittently fails to recognize HDs after it's ejected from the system.

1. External HD in USB enclosure plugged into the mini
2. I unmount/eject the HD from the mini
3. I plug the enclosure back into the mini
4. Mac doesn't recognize it
5. I plug the enclosure into a different mac
6. New mac recognizes the HD, but the partition is unmountable.
7. I plug back into the mini, and it's as if the HD doesn't exist.
8. I plug in a completely different HD with the same enclosure and that one is not recognized either
9. tried using different cable, different port, even a completely different enclosure, and same results.


I ran a : diskutil list from the command-line and I see nothing with regard to the external.

Is there another command I can run that will make the mini see the drive? The only way to resolve this is by rebooting it completely which causes issues because a lot of folks use it as a file server. Thank you

[jmiddel]

Maybe point 6 has a clue: even another Mac does not see your partition. It's not the enclosure, cables or mini. So either your HD is failing or there is corruption. Try running DiskWarrior, if it does not find trouble you may need a new HD

[herbsman]

HD seems fine I think it's the crappy enclosures I have. They are extremely cheap and shoddily built, made in China from some brand probably out of some teenager's garage. I noticed this issue started to only happen after I tried daisy chaining them through firewire and disks from both enclosures (same model enclosure) would immediately eject themselves.

Same exact problem happened on my test mac too

[jmiddel]

I use enclosures from OWC USB 2.0 Bus Powered Portable Enclosure Serial-ATA 2.5" NoteBook Hard Drive Solution, for 2.5 drives, they are $20 and work very well, I have a few of them for different backups.