My MacBook Pro sees my external drive when it isn't there.

[fenevar]

This is a common problem with me, but generally easy to fix. My external drive becomes unplugged very often, and if it happens very quickly consecutively, my Macbook will start to see it when it's not there. This usually is resolved by me restarting my computer. But recently (I use Plex, by the way), after a restart, although i can access my external drive, and everywhere in Finder I see it listed by the name I gave it (which is "TOTEM"), through Plex, it is only seen as "TOTEM 1", as if there's already something plugged in by the name of "TOTEM". But nowhere through Finder can I find a phantom device plugged in. Any idea how to fix this?
[doublepost=1530247822][/doublepost]Screenshots of volumes from the perspective of Finder, then of Plex.

 

[fenevar]

It happened again, I need help please.

 

[Fishrrman]

The important questions:

Why is the external drive "becoming unplugged very often"?
Is this something you're doing?
Or is the drive disconnecting "by itself"?

Having said that, so long as the drive "appears to be there", but YOU KNOW it's unplugged, I'd say....
... just ignore it.
Don't mess with the drive icon, just "leave it alone".

If you need to access something on the drive, plug it back in.

 

[fenevar]

The important questions:

Why is the external drive "becoming unplugged very often"?
Is this something you're doing?
Or is the drive disconnecting "by itself"?

Having said that, so long as the drive "appears to be there", but YOU KNOW it's unplugged, I'd say....
... just ignore it.
Don't mess with the drive icon, just "leave it alone".

If you need to access something on the drive, plug it back in.

I don't really know why it disconnects so often. It's not necessarily becoming unplugged as... well, the cord simply gets nudged and the external drive disconnects. The cord's still attached in both locations, but it's extremely sensitive to movement. And the thing is, when it shows it's there and it isn't, when I plug it in I'm not able to access anything. That's the typical problem which I can solve by restarting the computer, but the new problem is that the computer is making images of the drive that I can't find, so when another one shows up with the same name it adds a number. This makes Plex hard to work with, because whenever a new number is added, I've got to add that location to the places where Plex finds its files, and Plex has to load all the files again with new locations, now in TOTEM 2. I suppose in the scope of things it's really a minor inconvenience, but I feel like it could get out of hand, and I'd like to know if there's a way to fix it and erase these phantom drives which seem to be nowhere yet affect how my computer sees the drive.

 

[Fishrrman]

Are we talking about a 2016 or a 2017 MacBook Pro with USB-c?
You might try a different connecting cable.

Others have reported here that some USB-c cables seem to have somewhat flimsy connections to the USB-c ports, and can be dislodged easily...

 

[fenevar]

It's a Late 2011 Macbook Pro, the external drive is connected with a USB cord.