External hard drive/backup data issues

[Elrich]

I had an external Toshiba drive that died on me several months ago, after two years of use. I considered going to nothing but cloud backups, but I didn't want to have to rely on having an Internet connection to access it.

I did some research online on drive reliability, and bought a G-Drive 1TB USB drive. Now, two months later, this drive refuses to show up in the Finder! Disk Utility displays it, but claims (inaccurately) that the drive is 100% full, and that it's not writeable or repairable.

But I'm not ready to give up on it. Any recommendations of ways to repair it/recover the data?

Fortunately, most of the data (mainly my music files) is backed up on a Buffalo 1TB hard drive, which has been in use for at least five years, but is the size of the average paperback book and needs an external power source, so it's not ideal for traveling.

Also, is there ANY small USB drive I can rely on for a reasonable period of time? Or should I just go to the cloud and live with paying a monthly fee?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

G-Drive drives are actually very reliable. I have had several of them and never had an issue. With hard drives, it is not a question of if, but when a hard drive will fail. They all do - some faster than others. I am not convinced that your drive has failed, it may have just suffered some corruption at some point. Personally, I don't recommend going to an only cloud-based backup system, partly for the reason you mentioned.

-Which model Mac?
-Which version of OS X?
-Was the drive ever not ejected properly before disconnecting it?
-Does you Mac go to sleep with the drive connected?
-How is the drive formatted - GUID > OS X Extended (Journaled)?

You could always use a utility like DiskWarrior, which is amazing at repairing damaged file structures on hard drives, as long as there isn't any physical issue with the drive itself. You could also try a utility like Techtool Pro or Drive Genius to run a full surface scan of the drive to see if it is indeed failing mechanically.

C

 

[Elrich]

It's a MacBook Pro, 13-inch, made in mid-2012.
OS 10.11.5
Yes, there have been cases where the drive was accidentally "improperly disconnected"
I have my Mac set to stay awake for a long time, but I think it would (maybe has) gone to sleep with the drive connected. Certainly a few times that I've manually put it to sleep with the drive connected.
I don't recall how the drive is formatted, and I'm not sure how to get that information in its current state....

It was weird. I started up in the morning and the drive mounted as usual. The Mac was left on, and when I came back in the afternoon, the drive had disappeared from the Finder and there was no getting it back. Today nothing has changed.

Budgetarily, buying Disk Warrior isn't an attractive prospect, but I may have to in order to get things back to normal. Some years ago at my then-office, Disk Warrior did manage to save a good chunk of files from a messed-up Mac...

 

[Elrich]

Decided to swallow hard and spend the money. Sure enough, within a few minutes Disk Warrior had rebuilt the directory and the disk was again mounted! Another satisfied customer!

 

[Elrich]

Whoops, spoke to soon. "Directory cannot be rebuilt due to disk hardware failure (5, 1507)." It mounts, but nothing displays when you click on it... the little "wait" thing just keeps spinning...

 

[Elrich]

Second time was the charm -- it's working fine now.

 

[Elrich]

Well, so I thought. I found that I could view the FOLDERS, but if I click on one, it wouldn't display the contents. The little spinner thing in the corner of the finder window just keeps spinning endlessly.

Neither Disk Utility nor DIsk Warrior have anything more to offer. DW says it can't be rebuilt due to hardware failure. DU failed when I tried to run first aid on the drive.

 

[Elrich]

And actually, now when I view the mounted disk in the finder, it appears to be empty.

 

[JonnyFire]

Hello, for future purchases I reccomend to stay away from Western Digital MYpassport (usb 3.0), got two of them f*ed up,
Lacie usb (2.0) powered have proven to be safer and travel-proof

 

[Cory Cooper]

Did you happen to have FileVault enabled before this issue started?

C

 

[John Colon]

Hey Elrich, I am having the same issue as you. Have you resolved this issue and if so can you please help me!

 

[Elrich]

The drive has been working fine since then. I don't quite remember what I did to resolve it, other than just maybe disconnecting it and then connecting it again!