Level 1

4 points

External drive and MacBook Pro 2020

Hello,

I'm contacting you because I own a 2TB G-drive (WD) external drive, and when I was transferring images from my MacBook Pro 2020 to this drive, the computer froze. After 5 minutes, I decided to force the computer to shut down while the transfer was still in progress, and when I turned it back on, only the G-Utilities disk was visible after several minutes, but the sub-disk that hosts all my data was no longer accessible.

I tried connecting the hard disk to my friend’s Mac, and the problem was the same. I tried resetting the computer's SMC, but same. I've also tried Disk Utility's FirstAid, but nothing either.

I should also point out that when I plug in the hard disk, it takes many minutes for G-utilities to appear on the Finder, and sometimes the Finder starts to freeze, and stops freezing when I unplug the hard disk. Sometimes, after many minutes, G utilities doesn't even show up and I get a "hard disk not readable by this computer" message.

I downloaded Stellar Data Recovery (free version) and they told me they could recover 96 Giga from my hard disk, i.e. most of the files.

In your opinion:

1) is the problem serious?

2) do you think I should pay for the data recovery software, store my data somewhere and format my hard disk, or do you think the hard disk (and the data on it) can be recovered without formatting it?

Thank you very much in advance for your advice, I'm afraid of losing a year's work... :(

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 13.4

Posted on Jul 4, 2023 7:46 AM

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

143,271 points

Posted on Jul 4, 2023 1:16 PM

¿should I stash the files and try to re-use the drive?

years ago, when drives of tiny sizes cost Thousands of dollars, the prize after a failure was a working DRIVE.

Today we know the prize is your DATA, and drives are really cheap.

If you took this to a technician today, they would immediately replace it with a new drive. That is because the risk that the drive would not 'come clean' or would quickly fail again is too high for a technician to spend all afternoon fiddling with.

If your time is 'free' then go ahead and try to repurpose the drive, AFTER you have a good backup plan in place. You may discover the drive does not work, or it may work but not be reliable, or it may work perfectly well for many years. Drives have always carried a limited number of 'spare' blocks that the drive controller can substitute for blocks that go bad in the field. But these are only deployed when new data are provided for that Bad Block (typically when the drive is erased and re-imaged.)

--------

Researchers did a really huge study of consumer-calibre rotating magnetic drives used in google server farms.

They found that the most common failure mechanism was the drive accumulated errors, then more errors, then a huge number of errors, then was unserviceable.

A drive with multiple errors was unserviceable in an AVERAGE (over a very large sample with wide variation) in about six months of 24/7 operation.

step one: Buy more drives and get a backup plan in place.

step two: THEN you can fiddle with this drive all you want, and are never "working without a net"

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36 replies

Jul 4, 2023 12:28 PM in response to eudesb42

eudesb42 wrote:

I bought this hard drive two years ago, took good care of it and thought it would be reliable

Every drive might fail on you. It makes sense to look for reliable brands of HDDs and SSDs … and then to work on the assumption that they could fail at any time, so you need to make periodic backups to limit the damage. If nothing else, a fire could burn down your house or apartment and take your computer and drive along with it, or a thief could break in and take all computer gear in sight. That's why it's helpful to make a couple of backups – and keep one of them off-site.

Jul 4, 2023 12:55 PM in response to eudesb42

eudesb42 wrote:

So it means that after trying to recover my datas from my external drive, I should try and see if Time Machine can find the logic in the way the datas got recovered by the Data recovery software ? Sorry for not being very accurate with my vocabulary, I try my best!

Unless the recovery software can restore nearly all of the structure of the original disk, you might just wind up with a huge pile of recovered files that Time Machine doesn't recognize as a backup.

You could be the one left sorting through all of these files to try to figure out how they fit together.

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 1:09 PM in response to Servant of Cats

Thank you for your answer.

When I connect my drive to my computer, sometimes the drive is recognized (without access to its contents), sometimes it stops being recognized for a few minutes. I then receive the notification "you have not ejected the hard disk correctly", and so I suspect that the cable is not in perfect working order. This is a drive that connects with a usb c to usb c cable (Thunderbolt 3 port on my MacBook). I've tried connecting my hard drive to my computer using my MacBook's power cable (Usb C to Usb C) and it doesn't seem to work any better.

But I still find it odd that the signal from my disk can be so inconsistent regardless of a cable problem. What do you think?

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 1:14 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Wow that's interesting, thanks.

I will definitely buy another drive for backup. Do you think that G-Drive is correct? It was advised by Apple when I bought my Macbook.

Otherwise, I think that there is no use asking for a professional to repair it, it would be expensive...

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 4:33 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hello again!

I tried again and here are the message displayed (Screenshots)

One other thing that I need to point out, is that when I tried to recover datas using Disk Drill, it loads and then I hear my computer whistling and it turns off and restarts and then displays a report saying that the Macbook "panicked"..... I feel like it is worse than yesterday... Thank you

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 5:34 PM in response to eudesb42

I am wondering if yesterday I didn’t click on Initialize by mistake when the message « The disk is not readable on this computer » got displayed. I am not sure about it, just wondering.

If I had clicked on Initialize, would there be a way to recover the data somehow?

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 6:36 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I need to think about which drive I am going to buy! Do you have any suggestion?

In the meantime I think that I would get the 2Tb iCloud plan, and I will reduce it once I get a proper backup.

At least iCloud is safer right? :)

Jul 4, 2023 6:38 PM in response to eudesb42

not much.

"On the cloud" is great for sharing photos, but is not a viable backup solution for everything you have. The stuff is not under your control, and is subject to sloppy handling, arbitrary changes in policy, theft, accidental deletion, data loss [are they making frequent backups using best practices?], and bankruptcy of the company that holds it. It can easily take three days to restore it at ordinary Internet speeds.

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 8:36 AM in response to eudesb42

What do you mean with the Mac Volume? The internal hard disk?

Jul 4, 2023 11:24 AM in response to eudesb42

To be used for a time machine restore, the drive must be Mounted -- that means Finder can see it on the desktop, which you complained it could not currently do i.e, 'not visible'.

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 1:15 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I will have my computer and my drive again in one hour. I will add screenshots of what happens. But thank you anyway for your help, I really appreciate.

Jul 4, 2023 4:42 PM in response to eudesb42

I think the version of Disk Drill you are using is too old to understand Apple File System. If you want to use Disk Drill, see if you can find a more recent version.

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 4:44 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I am checking. My MacBook has restarted like 5 times in the last hour… and now Stellar Data Recovery initializes for hours

eudesb42 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2023 4:45 PM in response to eudesb42

I uploaded my Mac to Ventura yesterday, believing that it would change something. But while my G Utilities was mounted before updating the OS, it doesn’t appear on Finder anymore.

Jul 4, 2023 5:06 PM in response to eudesb42

Um, what version of MacOS did you update FROM, exactly?

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External drive and MacBook Pro 2020