Seagate Ultra Slim Portable 2018 not mounting...

Question

Seagate Ultra Slim Portable 2018 not mounting...

I noticed this week that my external Seagate - an Ultra Slim 2TB HD (2018) was getting really full at about 1.89TB, so I bought a new 4TB SSD Seagate Expansion drive and transferred about 250GB off of the old one. I also bought a new Mac Mini (OS BigSur 11.5.1) and proceeded to plug the old Seagate into it as well as the new 4TB Seagate Expansion Drive in order to ** the old 2TB one. The old 2TB HD will not mount. I tried mounting it on my old 2017 iMac ( Catalina 10.15.7) that I always used it on and same problem. I've checked Disk Utility and the casing(?) shows up but not the drive. I have so much of my life on there - the last 2+ years of music and video projects. I am feeling a dread I haven't felt in eons. Devastated if I lose this to a drive that has died. Any ideas?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Aug 2, 2021 6:24 PM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,654 points

Aug 2, 2021 6:41 PM in response to barryfromstratford

This exactly why you should be backing up, ALL hard drives dies so it is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. Also, investing slightly more money rather than the cheap enclosures that Seagate, Toshiba, WD use is well worth it.

Things to try before giving up and buying a high quality drive (for example a OWC Mercury Elite Pro) is to restart in Safe Mode and to try another cable.

If you have been backing up using Time Machine there is a good chance your data is safe.

Good Luck.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

93,400 points

Aug 2, 2021 7:15 PM in response to rkaufmann87

+1 to what rkaufmann87 is saying.

In addition to other external drives, I have three of those Slim Seagate's. I feel lucky to have only lost one of them over the last few years, but would never rely totally on just one of them for critical data storage or backups.

When I cracked open the failed 2T Slim Seagate to independently test the drive and enclosure, I found that it was actually the drive that had failed.

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Answer 3

Aug 2, 2021 7:49 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Ya, I was negligent. The last back up was May 2020 and you know, things just get away from you. I was going through the process of backing everything up this week. I had started the process and transferred 250GB to the other drive, but then it wouldn't mount the next day. So, ya, I've tried different computers, different cables, rebooting the computers with the drive plugged in, etc. I haven't been using Time Machine, but for my computers I use Carbon Copy Cloner. I think however, TM is probably a good thing to start doing at least monthly and getting my externals backed up regularly as well. A tough lesson. Will figure out how to do a safe start - is that the control-option-7-4 (I think) when restarting?

Thanks for your advice.

b

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