Ext WD Hard Drive Not Recognized by iMac or Time Machine and data erased
I have an iMac that runs the most recent version of Snow Leopard on it. I have had a 500 gig Western Digital(WD)external hard drive connected to it for months and it had been working with Time Machine flawlessly until yesterday.
The particular WD drive I have is very small and thin and draws power directly from the iMac through the USB cable. Yesterday I went to access content on my WD drive and found the drive was missing from my desktop and I could not locate the drive in Finder either. I checked the WD drive and found that although it was plugged into the USB port it was not powered on. Very odd since it can only be powered down by unplugging it or turning off the iMac. Anyway, I unplugged it from the USB port and then plugged it back in and it powered up however it did not reconnect to the iMac. I then powered off the iMac completely and restarted it, but the iMac still does not recognize the WD drive however the Western Digital icon in the system tray, at the top the screen, was present (it was missing until I cold booted). I right clicked the WD icon and it indicates the external hard drive is connected but it shows that 0% of it is used and it appears all my data has been erased.
Other than installing the most recent Snow Leopard update a week ago or so, I have made no changes to my system. I use the iMac and WD drive daily and it worked fine just the day before. Does anyone know what would cause these problems? I am not sure if the hard drive failed and erased itself or if this was a software or iMac problem. So the situation right now is that it appears the WD drive works, it has been erased along with all of my Time Machine backups and I can't get the iMac or Time Machine to reconnect to the WD drive.
Any suggestions or advice that anyone can offer on this problem is appreciated.
The particular WD drive I have is very small and thin and draws power directly from the iMac through the USB cable. Yesterday I went to access content on my WD drive and found the drive was missing from my desktop and I could not locate the drive in Finder either. I checked the WD drive and found that although it was plugged into the USB port it was not powered on. Very odd since it can only be powered down by unplugging it or turning off the iMac. Anyway, I unplugged it from the USB port and then plugged it back in and it powered up however it did not reconnect to the iMac. I then powered off the iMac completely and restarted it, but the iMac still does not recognize the WD drive however the Western Digital icon in the system tray, at the top the screen, was present (it was missing until I cold booted). I right clicked the WD icon and it indicates the external hard drive is connected but it shows that 0% of it is used and it appears all my data has been erased.
Other than installing the most recent Snow Leopard update a week ago or so, I have made no changes to my system. I use the iMac and WD drive daily and it worked fine just the day before. Does anyone know what would cause these problems? I am not sure if the hard drive failed and erased itself or if this was a software or iMac problem. So the situation right now is that it appears the WD drive works, it has been erased along with all of my Time Machine backups and I can't get the iMac or Time Machine to reconnect to the WD drive.
Any suggestions or advice that anyone can offer on this problem is appreciated.
iMac, iPad, Mac OS X (10.6.3), Time Machine Western Digital WD External Hard Drive
