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Joel Conison
Participant
March 11, 2019
Answered

External hard drive not appearing?

  • March 11, 2019
  • 10 replies
  • 90874 views

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

      Correct answer Test Screen Name

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

      10 replies

      R
      Rachel29247643pl06
      Participant
      July 4, 2024

      Hi that could help someone today because I've tried everything here and didn't work until I did this:

       

      What did not work: 

      1. I did give access to Photoshop in preference.
      2. I did format my disk with the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) 

      What worked:

      • BUT it didn't worked until I went back to Disk Utility and selected AFSP and format again.

       

      Then it worked and Photoshop even asked me he want to have access to my external disk.

       

      So basically I formated twice. Don't know why.

      nicholasw52485545
      nicholasw52485545
      Inspiring
      April 12, 2024

      s

      D
      donm99
      Participant
      January 31, 2023

      Driving me crazy for days - For me, (Windows server 2019 on AWS), I had attached a new Volume to my EC2 to be used as a scratch disk, but I hadn't set the permissions correctly for users (i.e., Photoshop without Admin elevation).  Make sure you have read/write/modify set for your user - if you can save a .psd file to the scratch disk root from Photoshop, you're probably ok.

      M
      MarthaKaren25883236x8yb
      Participant
      February 1, 2023
      Thank you. I called Apple Support and they walked me through a process to
      reformat the new drive. I wish I could remember all the steps because it
      will need to be done with each new drive.
      M
      MarthaKaren25883236x8yb
      Participant
      August 30, 2022

      My new external hard drive is a T7 Samsung Portable SSD - it formatted to Mac automatically. I don't see a way to change the format to "OS Extended" or Journaled as stated in a correct answer. Can someone please advise?

       

      T
      tylerjpoole
      Participant
      August 5, 2022

      Hi! Another thread helped me out. Which is to check and see if photoshop has permissions.  Posting this here for others to find. https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/scratch-disk-not-recognized-with-photoshop-2020-update-macos-catalina/td-p/11159050

      G
      Glenn P Martin
      Participant
      July 27, 2021

      I had save a Photoshop file from within Photoshop onto the external drive first, then it appeared in the scratch disk list.

        UBABTechSupport
        UBABTechSupport
        Participating Frequently
        January 31, 2022

        I was having an issue where the only drive listed was my main HDD, as soon as I tried saving a file to the drive I use as a scratch disk it became listed.

        W
        Walter5E1F
        Participant
        July 23, 2021

        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.

         

         

          S
          SKmar2417863391d0
          Participant
          April 25, 2022

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

           

            gener7
            Community Expert
            gener7Community Expert
            Community Expert
            March 13, 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

              J
              Joel ConisonAuthor
              Participant
              March 13, 2019

              Gene,

              Thank you very much, that worked!

                Peru Bob
                Community Expert
                Peru BobCommunity Expert
                Community Expert
                March 11, 2019

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

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

                Trevor.Dennis
                Community Expert
                Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
                Community Expert
                March 11, 2019

                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.

                  lynn hurst
                  lynn hurst
                  Participant
                  August 21, 2024

                  Hi Trevor, I'm having a similar problem. One of the external drives not appearing in the scratch disc list has appeared there previously and been used without problem.  I just installed a Samsung T7 Shield but have no idea how to format it. Thanks for your help

                  Trevor.Dennis
                  Community Expert
                  Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
                  Community Expert
                  March 11, 2019

                  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.

                  J
                  Joel ConisonAuthor
                  Participant
                  March 12, 2019

                  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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