Macbook Pro not recognizing WD external hard drive after disconnects without ejecting

[bvon]

I've got a Mid 2015 MacBook Pro running Monterey.
A WD 1TB My Passport quit being recognized by the system after several times of inadvertently being unplugged without ejecting. It's got a micro usb connection that would fall out a lot. The drive lights up and whirrs when connected and the light stays solid but I can't see the drive. Here's what I've tried.

Tried a different USB cable
Tried different USB port
Tried it on another computer w/ same result
Enabled see external disks
Looked for it in Disk Utility but it doesn't show up.
Looked for it with Terminal list command but it doesn't show up
Rebooted
Upgraded to Monterey
Tried WD Utilities
Removed it from external casing to plug in more directly but still is via usb micro interface. Not sure how to put it into another enclosure or interface.
Tried to manually force quit the fsck process from activity monitor but there is no fsck process running.
Downloaded a couple of different recovery programs Recoverit and Easus and it's not recognized.
It did show up with Easeus twice but when I tried to search the disk it spontaneously dropped/disconnected after 2 - 3 minutes.

Of course the files on their are not backed up. I was working my way towards that over the next few days. Anyway I'd like to get at them. I know data recovery would seem to be my next step but I thought I'd reach out to see if anyone had any other suggestions/recommendations. It seems the issue is from the frequent disconnecting without ejecting but I'm not sure what else to try.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Sounds like the connector is faulty which was causing it to disconnect without ejecting it properly. That can easily cause issues with the drive, including bad sectors/data loss.

Can you upload any photos of the bare drive and any adapter you were trying it with?

I recommend to not keep trying it, as it could be damaging it further. It may require professional data recovery, which can be quite expensive.

C

 

[TonyAguila]

I've got a Mid 2015 MacBook Pro running Monterey.
A WD 1TB My Passport quit being recognized by the system after several times of inadvertently being unplugged without ejecting. It's got a micro usb connection that would fall out a lot. The drive lights up and whirrs when connected and the light stays solid but I can't see the drive. Here's what I've tried.

Tried a different USB cable
Tried different USB port
Tried it on another computer w/ same result
Enabled see external disks
Looked for it in Disk Utility but it doesn't show up.
Looked for it with Terminal list command but it doesn't show up
Rebooted
Upgraded to Monterey
Tried WD Utilities
Removed it from external casing to plug in more directly but still is via usb micro interface. Not sure how to put it into another enclosure or interface.
Tried to manually force quit the fsck process from activity monitor but there is no fsck process running.
Downloaded a couple of different recovery programs Recoverit and Easus and it's not recognized.
It did show up with Easeus twice but when I tried to search the disk it spontaneously dropped/disconnected after 2 - 3 minutes.

Of course the files on their are not backed up. I was working my way towards that over the next few days. Anyway I'd like to get at them. I know data recovery would seem to be my next step but I thought I'd reach out to see if anyone had any other suggestions/recommendations. It seems the issue is from the frequent disconnecting without ejecting but I'm not sure what else to try.

I had a somewhat similar problem with my 2TD WD Passport external drive, but without the intermittent disconnect. I tried running Disk Utility to try and fix it but Disk Utility kept on indicating that the volume, container, or device couldn’t be ejected.

Finally I decided to boot into Recovery and run Disk Utility there. No volume would be mounted in Recovery so Disk Utility should not show the same problem. (To be honest, I had already tossed the drive into the trash but had second thoughts and gave it another try.)

In my case, since this was one of two Time Machine backup drives, I didn’t care much for the content, so I just erased and reformatted the drive. In your case, you could try running First Aid instead of erasing it. It might just fix the problem… at least in the short term. If you can get it to mount again afterwards, you will have a chance to save the contents. Try booting into Safe Mode first. Safe Mode performs disk checks (fsck) as well. Good luck!