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External hard drive not appearing?

Community Beginner ,
Mar 11, 2019 Mar 11, 2019

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I was checking my scratch disc in PS preferences & noticed that my external hard drive which I use as my primary scratch disc is NOT showing up in the scratch disc preference section. I use one empty external hard drive as my #1 selection for scratch disc. #2, & #3 are other  external hard drives. I opened up the empty hard drive  to be sure it didn't crash & it did open. My question is : Why does it not appear in the scratch disc section while the other drives do appear?

Thanks

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correct answers 2 Correct answers

Community Expert , Mar 12, 2019 Mar 12, 2019

If you are going to assign a external scratch drive in Photoshop Mac, it must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or it will not show up in the Photoshop Scratch drive list, even if it is showing up in the Finder or Desktop. If it's already MacOS Extended, run Disk Utility First Aid on it.

Gene

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LEGEND , Mar 14, 2021 Mar 14, 2021

One thing worth double checking is whether you can create a file on that partition. It might be that Photoshop hides read-only areas.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 11, 2019 Mar 11, 2019

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Hi Joel.  Are you using Mac or Windows?

[EDIT] I should have asked about Photoshop as well, in case you are using an old version.

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 12, 2019 Mar 12, 2019

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Hi Trevor,     Sorry, I should have mentioned I am using a Mac. Also in the Scratch Discs portion of preferences there are only 3 disc listed. Two external drives & my system Mac drive.

Thanks for the help.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 11, 2019 Mar 11, 2019

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If Windows, you may need to assign it a drive letter in Disk Management:

assign+it+a+drive+letter+in+Disk+Management

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Community Expert ,
Mar 11, 2019 Mar 11, 2019

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Bob I had the same thought, but that does not work for me.  Seven of the drives that show in Disk Management are external.  They are all formatted NTFS Basic, but only seven are available for Photoshop Scratch.  There does not appear to be any clues in the Status column either.   Google suggests that file format is the key with OSX, but I don't know how current that information is.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 12, 2019 Mar 12, 2019

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If you are going to assign a external scratch drive in Photoshop Mac, it must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or it will not show up in the Photoshop Scratch drive list, even if it is showing up in the Finder or Desktop. If it's already MacOS Extended, run Disk Utility First Aid on it.

Gene

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 13, 2019 Mar 13, 2019

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Gene,

Thank you very much, that worked!

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New Here ,
Jun 24, 2020 Jun 24, 2020

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I'm having this same issue with my Transcend external disk.
As I was looking up how to format to Mac OS Extended, it looks like I need to erase the disc in the process.  Is there a way to format without erasing the data on the disc?

 

Jon 

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LEGEND ,
Jun 24, 2020 Jun 24, 2020

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No, formatting always wipes a disk. Don’t forget you need a backup!

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New Here ,
Mar 14, 2021 Mar 14, 2021

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Hi, I tried the suggestion above but my external drive still does not show up in the list of scratch disks.
I created a new partition and made sure it is MacOS Extended (Journaled), ran disk utility first aid on it and I still only see my internal HD listed. See attached screenshots.
Any help is welcome!

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LEGEND ,
Mar 14, 2021 Mar 14, 2021

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One thing worth double checking is whether you can create a file on that partition. It might be that Photoshop hides read-only areas.

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New Here ,
Mar 14, 2021 Mar 14, 2021

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That worked!
I opened PS, saved a file to the new partition and now the drive magically appears in teh list of scratch disks. 
Didn't change any read-only settings, so it seems a bit of a UI bug to me, but thanks a lot, this solved it!

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Explorer ,
Oct 12, 2021 Oct 12, 2021

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I did the same thing still no show.

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Explorer ,
Dec 15, 2021 Dec 15, 2021

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There is no disc utility?? on a mac

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 23, 2022 Jun 23, 2022

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I'm working on a new Mac Studio and thought the suggestions here wouldn't help but just saving a file from within Photoshop the external drive did the trick! I thought it might be the brand of external drive or the APFS formatting, but apparantly not. Thanks so much!!

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New Here ,
Mar 23, 2023 Mar 23, 2023

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Saving a file from PS to the scratch disk worked for me too. This had been a previously functioning scratch disk that suddenly PS didn't see. Thanks for the resolution!

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New Here ,
Jan 07, 2024 Jan 07, 2024

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great, that magic worked for me!

 

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New Here ,
Mar 04, 2024 Mar 04, 2024

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LATEST

brilliant! saving a file to the samsung t7 drive suddenly made it appear as a scratch disc. Previously I formated it as mac extended.. blah blah or APFS and both did not work. Saving a file to it did!!!!

 

thanks for the tip

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New Here ,
Apr 28, 2023 Apr 28, 2023

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Mac Mini 1 using USB 3 External HDD, partitioned to MAC OSx Ext. - saved a file and now recognised by PS.

Thank you!

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 22, 2022 Sep 22, 2022

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Worked!

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Community Beginner ,
May 04, 2023 May 04, 2023

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this worked for me! thank you!!!

 

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New Here ,
May 18, 2023 May 18, 2023

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What if I am using Windows?

 

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New Here ,
Jul 23, 2021 Jul 23, 2021

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I have Photoshop on Windows 10.  My external hard drive does not appear in Scratch Disks. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop.  No change.  I need to store on the external hard drive ("E" drive) because scratch disks are full on the internal hard drive.

 

 

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New Here ,
Apr 24, 2022 Apr 24, 2022

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Did you find a solution? Please let me know asap if you did.

 

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Community Beginner ,
May 23, 2022 May 23, 2022

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I was really hoping this "saving a file from PS to the drive in question" solution would work, but no dice, so far. 

Windows 10.  Photoshop CC, latest.  D:// drive.  NTFS.  Healthy. 

The only thing different from some of the above, that I have to report, is that mine is actually an *internal* drive, not external.  Not that that should matter, but thought I'd mention it. 

My external and main C:// drive show up properly in Scratch Disk list.

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