Why won't first aid repair iMac or LaCie external drives?

I disconnected my LaCie drive and successfully repaired my iMac HD using Disk Utility first aid. What next do you recommend? Should I sacrifice all the Time Machine backups by reformatting the LaCie drive, under the assumption it is corrupted or failing?

woodmeister50 wrote:

Now that you have one thing out of the way, try plugging back in

and use Disk Utility on it and see what happens.

At your first suggestion, I plugged the LaCie back in. I do not see it in Finder nor on the desktop. Without restarting and hoping it will reappear through that process, I thought I would report progress first and see what now pertains as a remedy. If it does not appear as such, how would you reformat the LaCie drive?

KiltedTim wrote:

Does it appear in Disk Utility?

As I earlier noted, when I select first aid in Disk Utility, it just spins (loading disks). In the past, after several minutes (~10 mins) both drives appeared on the list and I could attempt to repair it, but the LaCie disk often just did not appear...ever. Should I wait those several minutes and answer you more accurately? Or, is this long delay evidence of a classic problem.

By the way, while writing this reply, a dialogue box appeared on the desktop simultaneously with the opening of Disk Utility. It reads: macOS can't repair the disk "TM Backup," which is the LaCie drive. It further states, "You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to the files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can." Both drives now appear on the Disk Utility, so this might provide an opportunity to reformat the LaCie drive. If so, please instruct me how to do that using Disk Utility.

woodmeister50 wrote:

That is a statement that the drive is on its death bed.

It won't be long until it is no longer functional.

If I erase its contents and reformat it, will that eliminate the corruption or merely prolong the death bed watch?

woodmeister50, KiltedTim, and macjack:

Absent specific directions, I have attempted to erase and reformat the LaCie drive. It has been underway now for over three hours, and the progress bar seems not to have changed from its first indication of progress. That seems to suggest it will not erase or reformat; possibly, it indicates that it will take hours longer than I ever imagined. Any thoughts?

I have abandoned the erasure and reformatting of the LaCie external drive. I believe it has now failed completely, although I hoped for a different conclusion. Like KiltedTim, I too have tried unsuccessfully to get a full lifetime out of my LaCie external drives over the years. I think I have owned four of them, one was replaced at no cost to me, and the other three have failed to continually serve as Time Machine backup drives. At one time, we concluded the problems were associated with my shutting down the iMac when not in use rather than just putting it to sleep, as other Apple discussion forum participants had suggested. Now I believe the product might not be worth its cost. So, I am now without an external drive for backup, and I solicit satisfied customers who can suggest alternatives to the LaCie external drives. I need one at least as large as my iMac's 1TB HD, so as to reduce problems with Disk Utility's first aid capacity. Also, I wish the rest of us could find in this forum a list of recommended products in support of our Apple products that you experts know have survived the test of time.

Thanks; I appreciate the suggestion.