External hard drive suddenly became "unreadable" and the disk utility offers not repair options. The drive is visible in disk utility but may not be mounted... any suggestions?

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Level 1

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External hard drive suddenly became "unreadable" and the disk utility offers not repair options. The drive is visible in disk utility but may not be mounted... any suggestions?

I have a WD My Passport 070A Media 2.0 TB external hard drive that has suddenly become unreadable on my laptop (MacBook Pro circa 2006 with 10.4.11) and I have tried on a MacBook Pro 2011 running 10.6.8 with the same results. I had tried opening disk utility to repair the drive, but on both machines the drive is visible in the left column, with no indentation below the drive. When I select the drive in the first aid portion the only options highlighted are info and eject... I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions to repair the drive. I am currently in Belize and am not home for 3 weeks yet. I'm hoping for a fix while I am down here, otherwise I may have to wait... I appreciate any assistance!

-Christina

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Jul 20, 2013 3:38 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

238,979 points

Jul 20, 2013 8:37 PM in response to clzweig

Hi Christina,

It's quite possible the AC PSU has given out, if It's only Bus powered as it appears, that's the worst idea ever & asking for eventual problems.

What Format is it?

Did you install any WD SW?

Your best bet is DiskWarrio...

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

But others that may work…

Drive Genius…

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php

TechTool Pro…

http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

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Answer 2

Jun 11, 2015 1:39 PM in response to BDAqua

Hello there,

I got the same problem. I cannt click disk recovery option. What should I do? It was formated to make macbook air comatible.

Pls help...

Sunita

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

238,979 points

Jun 11, 2015 1:45 PM in response to sunitakharel

Hello Sunita,

What brand/model is it?

Open Activity Monitor>Show all Processes, is fsck or mdworker running constantly?

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Answer 4

Jun 11, 2015 2:12 PM in response to BDAqua

my laptop is macbook air and hard drive is thinkpad.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

238,979 points

Jun 11, 2015 2:45 PM in response to sunitakharel

Do other USB things work in that port?

Did you install any Lenevo software?

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Answer 6

Jun 11, 2015 2:51 PM in response to BDAqua

Yes it does work with other devices and I did not download any Lenovo software before.

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

238,979 points

Jun 11, 2015 3:57 PM in response to sunitakharel

Have you done a PRAM reset, CMD+Option+p+r...

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

In fact, do 3 in a row, takes a bit of time.

Might also try this...

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, see if it can mount then.

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Answer 8

Limnos

Level 10

411,109 points

Jun 12, 2015 7:09 AM in response to sunitakharel

sunitakharel wrote:

my laptop is macbook air and hard drive is thinkpad.

Even the earliest MacBook Air ran OSX 10.5 or higher and you may have a much newer system on yours. Realize you posted to the OSX 10.4.11 forum with limited readership these days. Rather than posting as a continuation to a topic answered 2 years ago you would be better off posting a new topic to the OSX forum for your your particular system version.

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