For example, for an external drive named “MiniMe,” the command would look like this: To re-index only for a specific drive, use the /Volumes path. The command asks the unix tool mdutil to reindex the spotlight database for everything on the computer, including external drives, mounted disk images, etc. This basically asks for temporary super user status, which is why Terminal may ask you for your password (it may not if you’ve used a sudo command recently or are already logged in as a super user or root. Open Terminal and use the following command string to do so: If the aforementioned Spotlight control panel approach doesn’t spur a reindexation of the drive, you may need to initiate it manually through the command line.
Manually Rebuilding Spotlight via Terminal Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot. Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes or more.