Is My External Drive Defective?

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Level 1

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Is My External Drive Defective?

I'm using an external Seagate HD for Time Machine backups. Occasionally, it would spin for long periods of time and I'd get error messages saying it couldn't backup for various reasons.

While entering Time Machine shows the drive appears to be backing up properly, when I run DIsk Utility to Verify or Repair Disk, I get the following errors:

The Verify or Repair Disk Permissions are always dimmed and not accessible.

Should I be concerned the drive might be failing?

Thanks!

iMac 2.6GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 12, 2013 5:27 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

238,841 points

Aug 12, 2013 10:00 AM in response to Peter WP

Hi Peter,

First, turn off Time Machine, then in Sys Prefs>Spotlight, add that external drive to Spotlight's Privacy Pane.

See if DU can then repair the drive.

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Answer 2

Peter WP Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 12, 2013 12:02 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks for the suggestion, but I follow your instructions and get the same errors seen in the screen grab.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

238,841 points

Aug 12, 2013 2:14 PM in response to Peter WP

Is it still getting the can't unmount message? If so...

Then Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), try repairing it in Safe Mode.

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Answer 4

Peter WP Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 12, 2013 5:30 PM in response to Peter WP

After rebooting in Safe Mode, I got the same results using Disk Utility.

And now after rebooting normally, Time Machine generates an error saying the drive is Read Only and it won't back up at all.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

238,841 points

Aug 13, 2013 11:03 AM in response to Peter WP

In Finder, do a Get Info on it, is it locked? What Rights does it say?

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Answer 6

Peter WP Author

Level 1

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Aug 14, 2013 7:13 AM in response to Peter WP

I'm the administrator and Get Info shows I have Read and Write Privileges.

I decided to partition the Time Machine drive with the logic that if there's a future error, I would be able to trace it to either the Time Machine partition and hopefully conclude the fault lies with Time Machine and not the drive itself. If the other partition fails, I might conclude it's the drive itself.

Repartitioning the drive snapped the drive out of its funk, although who knows for how long.

I've got plenty of space on the drive so partitioning it shouldn't cause any problems.

Thanks for your time in trying to troubleshoot my problem.

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

238,841 points

Aug 14, 2013 9:29 AM in response to Peter WP

Hmmm, quite curious, please let know how it's going. 🙂

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