Penfold5kt wrote:
i plugged it into friends Macbook and it mounted and read. I started transferring data off it and an hour later the Macbook shut down and it will no longer mount or read.
Why did the laptop shut down? Was it only running on battery or did macOS crash? Very important detail & distinction.
Again, it doesn’t show in disk utility.
Does the physical drive appear in Disk Utility? You may need to click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.
i will not repair the drive as it is the only copy I have and need the data on it. Any help would be appreciated.
Then contact a professional data recovery service if the data is important. Otherwise you will need to perform a low level block for block (bit for bit) clone of that drive to another drive of the same or larger capacity so you can use the clone to experiment. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any macOS GUI apps which have this functionality since most of them only support file level "cloning".
People should have a backup of their computer and all external media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data. The more important the data, then the more backup copies a person should have of that data.
It really helps if you would also provide the exact model of the Macs (both yours and the friend's and exact version of macOS...not just Sonoma).
Also, what is the exact make & model of the drive and the file system used on it?
Are you using any third party software to manage this external drive?
How are you connecting this drive to the Mac?
Disconnect all other external devices in case one of them is causing a problem.
Make sure to connect the drive directly to the computer. And try a different adapter and cable. Also try using each of the other USB ports especially on the other side of the laptop.
If you are already connecting the drive directly to the computer, then perhaps try connecting the drive to a powered USB3 hub in case the drive requires more power than can be supplied by the computer's USB ports.
Try booting into Safe Mode to see if that makes any difference (if you are using any third party software to manage this external drive, then Safe Mode is not an option since that software will be disabled).
