500gb WD Elements SE Portable Hard Drive not recognised in finder or disk utility.

Question

500gb WD Elements SE Portable Hard Drive not recognised in finder or disk utility.

Hey guys,

I own a Macbook Pro with retina display, and have been using my 500gb WD Elements SE Portable Hard Drive with it for half a year now. It has worked perfectly to store all of my TV shows and movies on, as well as some school work. Until recently I haven't had any problems with it, however, as of a few days ago it has not been recognised in finder or disk utility, meaning I cannot access any of the files on it.

This is a major problem for me as it has about 200gb worth of my files on it and I can't afford to lose them. Also, I am going on holidays in half a week and I really want to take my drive with me so I can watch TV and movies while I am there.

Any advice on how to get my mac to recognise the drive again would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Harris

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012), Mac OS X (10.7.5), WD Elements SE Portable Hard Drive

Posted on Jun 26, 2013 12:41 AM

Reply

Answer 1

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Jun 26, 2013 3:35 AM in response to HarrisGalloway

then either the drive inside the enclosure has failed or just the electronics in the enclosure have failed and the physical drive is still OK.

But the only way to tell is to disassemble the enclosure and remove the drive and then connect that drive to your mac with a SATA to USB adapter.

But if the drive is still under warranty doing that will void the warranty on it. so you have 2 choices, if the drive is still in warranty.

Return it for a new drive and lose your data.

Remove the drive from the enclosure and get your data, that is if the drive itself is still good, and continue using it with the adapter as a backup drive.

Reply