External hard drive not showing up after Macbook restored to factory settings

[346546463]

Help!

My Macbook Pro was restored to factory settings at the Apple Store as it had a few problems. This was fine because i had backed up all my data using an external hard drive with time machine.

However I plug in my external hard drive to put all of my files back on my laptop, but the hard drive doesn't show up on the desktop or finder. It does show up in Disk Utility but it says I have no files on it. I defiantly backed it up the previous day, there should be over 300 gb on it. I plugged it into a PC to see if it works on there but it didn't show up on windows either.

The only thing i thought it could be is the Partition format for the external hard drive is Mac OS Extended and the Mac hard drive is Mac OS Extended. Could this be the problem?

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Weaselboy]

The external drive format should not be an issue. If you had the wrong format the original Time Machine backup would not have worked. What exactly do you see when you look at the drive in Disk Utility? Can you select the drive in Disk Utility then maybe post a screenshot for us to see? Does Disk Utility show that there is data on there?

 

[CoastalOR]

OP: Since you Mac was reset, check your Finder>Preferences>General and verify that "External disks" is checked under "Show these items on the desktop:".

 

[346546463]

The external drive format should not be an issue. If you had the wrong format the original Time Machine backup would not have worked. What exactly do you see when you look at the drive in Disk Utility? Can you select the drive in Disk Utility then maybe post a screenshot for us to see? Does Disk Utility show that there is data on there?

Thanks for your reply.

I have sent to MacBook and hard drive to a computer shop for them to have a look at it so don't have it on me at the moment. When I updated to Yosemite a while back, it automatically encrypted my laptop and I didn't turn it off because I thought it would keep my files safe. Now that the external hard drive is broken, apparently there is no way of getting the data back because it was encrypted. On disk utility it said that it could not be mounted. The disk shows there is no data on there, do you think this means it has somehow been wiped?

Thanks

 

[Weaselboy]

On disk utility it said that it could not be mounted. The disk shows there is no data on there, do you think this means it has somehow been wiped?

From what you are describing, it does not sound like you did anything to cause this. It sounds more like the drive just up and died.

 

[komatsu]

Thanks for your reply.

I have sent to MacBook and hard drive to a computer shop for them to have a look at it so don't have it on me at the moment.

Where they not able to tell you there and then?

For your sake, I hope they are not going to make a huge song and dance over what could be a very simple issue.

 

[346546463]

Where they not able to tell you there and then?

For your sake, I hope they are not going to make a huge song and dance over what could be a very simple issue.

I hope so too. They are saying that the hard drive is dead, and because the computer was encrypted when backed up they are unable to retrieve the data. It's annoying since the only reason I kept the encryption on when updated to Yeosmite was to protect the files!

 

[komatsu]

ok, can find out what sort of failure it has experienced?

 

[346546463]

I think it's just corrupted. It has been working fine up until now though, I have never had any problems with it before.