External HDD data disappearing randomly in Finder

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21 points

External HDD data disappearing randomly in Finder

Hello

I don't know if this is a unique issue or not, but over the past week or so, the data from my external hard disks randomly disappears from my Finder window. I use WD HDDs, and this happened with one and then with a second drive.

The data still exists on the drive, as shown by the Finder window, however the folder and file structure disappears and hence cannot be accessed. The only way to access the data is to disconnect and then reconnect the drive. However this is now happening every few hours and is not practical to reconnect each time.

I have tried scanning the drives, I even formatted them, re-installed Catalina on the iMac to check if it is a MacOS bug, but the issue persists. Both the drives are around 4-5 years old. There are other drives connected to the iMac but no such issues in them.

Has anyone else faced a similar issue? Is there a solution? Or is this a case of a dying hard disk?

(this is regarding my 2017 27in iMac)

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Sep 30, 2020 6:18 AM

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Answer 1

hibhaven Author

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21 points

Sep 30, 2020 7:24 PM in response to BDAqua

Mmm the problem did start occurring around the time of the security update, but at times since the updates happen on their own I am not sure if this issue started occurring just after the update. But then, I constantly have 4 such HDDs connected to my iMac, whereas only 2 of the drives are showing this issue.

Out of the 4 drives, one is a Transcend SSD and 3 are WD drives. Of these 3 drives, 2 started showing this issue in the past 7 days.

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Answer 2

hibhaven Author

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21 points

Oct 9, 2020 4:05 AM in response to hibhaven

Okay, I just purchased a new WD 6TB HDD from amazing, and guess what, the new 6TB WD HDD started giving me the same problem. I copied some data into the new drive, and after a few minutes, that data started disappearing from the Finder window. So frustrating. Now how do I resolve this issue?

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Answer 3

hibhaven Author

Level 1

21 points

Oct 12, 2020 7:44 AM in response to hibhaven

The only way I could resolve this problem was by formatting the iMac and reinstalling MacOS. I guess it was an issue with the OS (which is weird), but this was the only way I could resolve the issue.

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