Seagate FreeAgent Desk fw 1Tb Mounting Issue

Question

Seagate FreeAgent Desk fw 1Tb Mounting Issue

I've been running my Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1Tb Hard drive as a time machine for a good few years now and all of a sudden the Time Machine partition fails to mount and back anything up. I run the repair option within Disk Utilities and it suggest that it cant mount the disk, and that I should back up the files from it and restore it. It then mounts in read only format where I can access any files that i've put on there outside of Time machine, but the Backup data folder won't allow me to transfer the time machine backups from the last few years to a new drive. I have since bought a new hard drive for backing up current work but seeing as it has versions of my work going back to 2012 I'm worried that I cant get the backup data off it. Can anyone point me in the right direction. I run it using the 800-400 firewire cable with the external power supply plugged in.

When i saw this I feared for the worst:

But I'm able to access the files, but its now a read only disk

Is there a way to copy those file (see last picture) into a new 'Backup.backupdb > Black-Mac' folder on a new, bigger hard drive?

Any help would be great.

Thanks

Davsoundnorton

MacBook 13-inch Late 2007

2.2 Ghz Intel Core Duo

4 Gb 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM

Mac OSX Lion 10.7.5

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Apr 15, 2015 11:24 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 16, 2015 9:06 AM in response to davsoundnorton

Clone the drive to a newly prepped HDD. Then use Disk Utility to partition and erase the old drive. This should indicate whether the drive can still be used or if it has truly failed.

Do not try to copy anything using Drag and Drop. Follow the procedure for cloning a drive:

Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility

1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.

2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.

3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.

4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag

it to the Destination entry field.

5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to

the Source entry field.

6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the new backup drive. Source means the Free Agent - old - drive.

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Answer 2

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Apr 16, 2015 9:02 AM in response to davsoundnorton

The drive is malfunctioning. Put it aside until you're sure you'll no longer need the data, then erase and recycle it. Meanwhile start a new backup on another drive—preferably, more than one drive. Don't trust any of the data on the old drive unless absolutely necessary.

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