Seagate Portable Drive no longer being recognized on Macbook Air running Sonoma

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Seagate Portable Drive no longer being recognized on Macbook Air running Sonoma

I've been using an external hard drive (Seagate Portable Drive Model number SRD0NF1) with my Macbook Air (13 inch 2018 running Sonoma 14.2.1) for quite some time. About 2 days ago, it stopped recognizing the drive. There is power going to the drive via the thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port. But it's no longer getting mounted.

I downloaded NTFS for Mac by Paragon to see if it could detect the drive. It does but gives an error when I try to access it from the software. See screenshot below.

Any thoughts on how to fix this? BTW, I've tested both the cable and the port with another Seagate drive which is working fine.

Thanks!

Zal650

Posted on Mar 16, 2024 6:33 PM

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Answer 1

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Ronasara

Level 6

15,519 points

Mar 17, 2024 10:08 AM in response to Zal650

It's good that you have confirmed that the cable and port are working. Have you checked the disk with Disk Utility? Can it see the drive? If so, run Disk Utility's repair function. You may have to run it multiple times until you are able to receive an ok result. If not, the disk may be failing. How old is it?

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

157,782 points

Mar 17, 2024 2:25 PM in response to Zal650

Ok, I think I see a potential problem.

The Seagate is formatted with two volumes:

EFI to make it bootable, formatted with FAT32
The larger 5TB partition is formatted MS-DOS << If this equates to ExFAT, no issue, but if this refers to FAT32, then it shouldn't work as FAT32 is limited to 32 GB volumes (Windows) or up to 2 TB (for other OS's) ... so this should be ExFAT. I'll double-check this when I get a chance with one of my Macs. (I happen to be using my Windows gaming rig to respond to posts at this moment.)

To use a drive for either a Mac or Windows PC, it would have to be formatted in either FAT32 or ExFAT, depending on the drive's storage size. NTFS would be primarily for Windows, as although Macs can read NTFS-formatted drives, they can't write to them natively. You would need a 3rd-party kernel extension to be able to.

So, a couple more questions:

Was this drive last formatted with a Windows device?
Is the data on it critical, or can you completely erase it to start "fresh"?

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

157,782 points

Mar 16, 2024 8:45 PM in response to Zal650

Based on what you have provided in your post, it appears that this external drive has failed.

One other thing you can try is to use DriveDx to see what it reports. Should it report errors as well, then what you should do next will depend on how critical that data are on this drive.

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Answer 4

Tesserax

Level 10

157,782 points

Mar 17, 2024 11:50 AM in response to Zal650

Thanks for trying DriveDx. Yes, please post the app's report. Be sure to use the "Additional Text" button at the bottom of the forum's editor as that report may be long.

From what I can see so far, that drive may be ok ... but the additional report details can verify that.

In the mean time, I will do a bit of research to find out how to be troubleshoot the connectivity problem.

I do have a few questions before I get started, if you don't mind:

What is this drive formatted with? You mentioned using NTFS for Mac. Is it formatted for NTFS?
If you connect this drive to another computer, can it get mounted successfully there?
Do you have any type of Anti-Virus app running on your Mac?
Finally, if you go to the Apple Logo > About This Mac > More info... > System Report... > Hardware > USB or Thunderbolt. Does this drive appear on one of these port's busses?

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Answer 5

Ronasara

Level 6

15,519 points

Mar 17, 2024 11:27 AM in response to Zal650

My guess is that the disk has failed. The last thing I would try is to use Disk Utility to reformat it if possible. I suspect that it won't work, however.

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Answer 6

Zal650 Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 17, 2024 1:39 PM in response to Tesserax

Don't mind at all ... thanks for diving into this!

I'll start the long self test in a bit. For now, here are responses to your questions:

What is this drive formatted with? You mentioned using NTFS for Mac. Is it formatted for NTFS?

-> I'm not sure. I want to say NTFS because earlier I used to select that option incase I wanted to use the drive on a windows laptop. Now, I just use APFS. When I view the drive via the NTFS for Mac software, it lists the File System as MS-DOS (FAT)

If you connect this drive to another computer, can it get mounted successfully there?

-> I don't have another laptop at home. I'll check on a friend's windows laptop later today and let you know.

Do you have any type of Anti-Virus app running on your Mac?

-> No.

Finally, if you go to the Apple Logo > About This Mac > More info... > System Report... > Hardware > USB or Thunderbolt. Does this drive appear on one of these port's busses?

-> For Thunderbolt, no. But on USB, yes. I've attached screenshots for both below.

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Answer 7

Zal650 Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 17, 2024 10:40 AM in response to Tesserax

Thanks mate. I downloaded and ran DriveDX and interestingly enough, no errors!?! I did run the short self test with nothing detected. I'll run the full self test but that could take some time (~805 minutes according to DriveDx). The drive is still not showing as mounted in Finder. I've attached the screenshot from DriveDx if in case you see anything unusual. I'll post the results of the long self test later today.

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Answer 8

Zal650 Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 17, 2024 11:03 AM in response to Ronasara

@Ronasara ... thank you! I just ran Disk Utility and the First Aid option .... no errors reported. I've attached a screenshot of that and one of the Media Info screen. One odd thing I noticed is that the Volume Capacity and Used Space is exactly the same. However, I'm pretty sure there were a few gigs still available before this issue came up. I had planned to move some of the files off of this to another external drive that's why i remember.

Let me know if you feel there's anything else I can try. Thanks again!

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Answer 9

Zal650 Author

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5 points

Mar 17, 2024 2:42 PM in response to Tesserax

Was this drive last formatted with a Windows device?

-> I'm 90% certain I had formatted this using an older Macbook but back then I did have a windows laptop for work (which is why I selected a format option that would allow access from either).

Is the data on it critical, or can you completely erase it to start "fresh"?

-> The data is old family pictures and videos that I don't have duplicates of so really don't want to lose.

BTW, I did kick off the long self test via DriveDx ... looks like it will be running well into the night.

Cheers!

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Answer 10

Zal650 Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 21, 2024 5:32 PM in response to Zal650

Quick update on requested info:

The Long Self Test on DriveDx came back with no errors.
Tried connecting the portable drive to a Windows 10 laptop. OS immediately requested that the drive be formatted. Here is the view from Disk Management:

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Seagate Portable Drive no longer being recognized on Macbook Air running Sonoma

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