Suddenly an external hard drive stopped being readable on my mac. Tried everything. It blinks. I can't even reformat it.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iMac 27″, macOS 14.6
Cables, Drive Enclosures and Drives can fail at anytime without warning.
1) Try plugging the cable into a different port.
2) Try a different cable if the cable is replaceable.
3) Test that external drive plugged into a different Mac.
To be honest the drive you have uses a pretty low quality enclosure which tends to cause overheating which leads to failures. If you plan on replacing the drive, please do not make the same mistake again and buy an External Hard Disk based on its low price. Purchase a quality drive such as the OWC Mercury Elite Pro which is not expensive and has excellent cooling. I have some that are 15+ years old that still work fine, the HD's have failed over the years however replacing the HD is a 5 minute job and only takes a simple screwdriver. Replacing the HD is another plus over the drive you have which is completely throw away (or please recycle it) so that makes replacing the drives less expensive.
Just food for thought!
By the way, OWC is a USA company and they will ship overseas however shipping can get expensive. If you are not in the USA, please let us know and we can provide a list of distributers all over the world.
Thank you for replying.
I tried all of those methods.
I even plugged into a PC, aware that it might screw the disk for my mac.
This is one of those passport drive. Bigger I open up
and slide them into those external decks. This one I can't do a thing.
Western Drive. Is there a way to outmanoeuvre the mac-drive connection.
Sort of jump start it? I can't even format it. Really strange. Thank you.
+1👍
You're welcome.
From you description, it sounds like that drive has completely failed and needs to be replaced.
Why is my external hard drive blinking but not readable on iMac?
