WD My Passport for Mac won't mount on my Mac Pro

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Hi! I'd like to know if you recovered the info in your WD My Passport, and how did you work your problem with your WD My Book. I'm having the same problem. It won't mount. The light is on, after a while it makes a little sound, like it's working, but I can't see it anywhere.

I need URGENT help.

Hope you can answer.

Dear natifur,

Allow me a comment based on wanting you to get the best possible help possible here: The question was asked almost three years ago and the OP's profile shows she has not been active in a long time.

It is always best to start a new thread in these forums so you get full attention without diluting help the OP deserves. Some experienced helpers will not respond to "tag-ons" like yours because it is so hard to help multiple users in a single thread. Surprising, "exact same problem" seldom exists once we run down all the symptoms and causes.

So you can start your own thread in the forum area that matches your Mac computer model. Also, pretty much all you need to know about the WD drive issue was already posted in this thread. Go back and give my response of 8 Aug 2014 a read, trying the suggestions. If that does not get you working again, then by all means start a new thread including full details of your Mac, its sub-model, and its Mac OSX version. Historically we are not very good at guessing! 😉

AJ

Thank you so much!

I'm now looking for a powered USB Hub and a "Y" cable as you recommended on your comment.

I tried posting on my own, but apparently I can only comment on previous post. I don't know why.

I have a MacBook Pro, just updated the MacOSX, and I bought my WD My Passport about a year ago, the light still goes on when I connect it to my MacBook, and it makes a little sound like when it used to work. I'm guessing (or want to believe) the cable is the problem. I sometimes can see it in my Disk Utility, and sometimes can't. I tried to eject it but didn't appeared any message, and couldn't repair it either. I'm thinking, since it isn't making a right connection, of course it can't be repaired, but I'm no expert.

I really hope you can help me!

Does the drive appear in Disk Utility?

Plug in the drive, then run Disk Utility by clicking on spotlight and typing "Disk U". It will appear in the list on the left.

If it does, select it (on the left) and click Repair (on the right).

The message you saw (eject before disconnecting) is definitely what you get when you forget to eject first.

Historically, the problem has been that many USB-powered drives can't get enough power from a USB port after they begin to age. The Passport is bus-powered, getting all its power from a USB port. Not the best solution for a desktop computer.

To get such a drive going again, you need one of two workabouts:

1) a powered USB hub (has its own power supply to make up the shortfall) that goes between the external drive and the computer.

2) use a "Y" USB cable to get power from two USB ports simultaneously (such as http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/USB2AYMBPB/)

Also, WD uses an odd proprietary formatting scheme that is of itself a problem area. WD makes very good bare drives but the enclosures into which they put them to make an external drive are not very good and not particually Mac-Friendly. The formatting makes them harder to use.

Once you get the files you need off the external, consider erasing and reformating it to Mac Extended Journaled using Disk Utility. That often makes the drive more reliable without having to revert to USB hubs or special cables. It gets rid of the proprietary formatting that seem to contribute to the problems.

I have three external drives. All have WD bare drives inside but none are in WD encosures. By far the best enclosures for Mac external drives are those from OWC:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

I have two of the desktop model shown and one of its portable version for my MacBook Pro. All three have given me superb service and zero problems.

Ocsculptor Jan 6, 2015 12:23 PM
Re: WD My Passport for Mac won't mount on my Mac Pro in response to Phyllis Ormsby

HI, I have a some what similar problem. I am afraid the drive is in big trouble. In the middle of copying files, I accidentally unplugged it. Now it WILL NOT MOUNT! It shows up in disk utility and passes verification and repair with flying colors. BUT it won't mount. ( I tried both the disk and its indented partition) the partition remains grayed out and I get an error when I click on the mount button.

What's worse it wont mount on my other macbook pro or even my sony vaio. On the sony it does not show up but under disk management it "volume appears to be OK" and I dont get a chance to repair it.

So am I screwed? I need the data but balk at 1000 dollar softwares that "may" fix it.

Any suggestion?

yup-data rescue 3--around a hundred bucks. Worked for me when my main HD was hosed. I guess you figured out that unplugging a drive while copying files is BAD, right? Yeah-I guess so and # 2-get a backup system going and Use it !! drives can and do fail eventually.

Good luck

John b

BTW I believe that you can download a demo of Data Rescue 3, and the demo will give you an idea of what it can recover. If it looks promising, you then can buy the software.

Yes, there is a free demo and now it is up to Data Rescue 4

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

I took a look at the upgrade (I have Data Rescue 3). When you go to check out in the purchase process, you find a Data Rescue 4 flash drive ("Bootwell") added to your "basket" for an additional $15. Any thoughts on the benefit of having the flash drive, as opposed to just running Data Rescue from another hard drive? I turned a spare 2.5" HD into a rescue drive a while back, with partitions for four OS versions, with my preferred disk utilities installed in each.

Can't see any reason to get the flash drive. The description is rather skimpy. http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_4_recovery_tips.php

"Introducing Data Rescue's NEW BootWell™ Technology. BootWell™ allows you to create a special secondary startup drive that can be used to recover files from your main startup hard drive. While being booted into BootWell™ it allows you to unmount your internal hard drive and get into a booted environment so you can recover files from your main startup hard drive and avoid the added steps of creating your own bootable copy of Data Rescue."

I found a solution for this problem after having it myself and than doing some research.

Here's the link to the solution: https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/download.html

#1: Just download the 10 day free trial and see if it'll bring back your External Hard drives.

#2: If it does bring your Externals back consider buying it, I'm going to wait until my 10 day trial is over before considering to buy it. That way during the 10 days Apple might come out with an update for Ei Capitan fixing this issue.

Best,

Sebastian

Dev Sebastian as discussed in this discussion, the problem is that even Disk Utility will not mount the drive. Your solution is to be able to write to an NTFS formatted drive, not to mount a drive. A NTFS formatted drive will mount on a Mac and a Mac can natively read the drive but not write to it.

Dev Sebastian wrote:

I found a solution for this problem after having it myself and than doing some research.

Here's the link to the solution: https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/download.html

#1: Just download the 10 day free trial and see if it'll bring back your External Hard drives.

#2: If it does bring your Externals back consider buying it, I'm going to wait until my 10 day trial is over before considering to buy it. That way during the 10 days Apple might come out with an update for Ei Capitan fixing this issue.

Best,

Sebastian

lllaass,

My problem was that my external drives weren't mounting with Ei Capitan..

Installing the Paragon NTFS Mac 14 allowed the drives to mount after I installed and restarted my computer.

So whoever is having this problem try my solution and save a ton of your time.

Best,