My external hard drive won't show up anymore...please help...

Hi guys, I'm desperately in need of some help!


I have been working on a documentary and have been storing all my high definition video (captured from the Canon 7D SLR cam) onto an external hard drive. I have started editing this footage using Final Cut Pro. I then saved the project and turned off Final Cut. I then came back later, started it all up and realised that my external hard drive was not showing on the desktop anymore. I can't seem to find it anywhere. It's now un-recognisable. Here's my set up...


I have a Western Digital Elements 1TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive connected to my iMac. I am currently running Mac OS X Version 10.5.8, with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.


The hard drive has not been dropped or hit in anyway. I have had it for about 4 months and it has never given me any problems. It was not un-plugged from the iMac suddenly either.


I tried disconnecting the hard drive and plugging it into my macbook, and it still didn't show up (but it usually does). I then took the drive and tried to connect it to a windows PC...again, it didn't show up. It did however, seem to mysteriously stop the internet connection from working. Every time it was plugged in, the internet stopped working. When we took it out then the internet would work immediately. ? ?


Can anyone help me please?


As long as I can recover the video footage I'm happy. There is a lot of irreplaceable work on there.


I would appreciate any help. Thanks guys!

Can you feel the drive spinning up? What about the external power source for the drive, is it working? Try plugging it into a different outlet. If that doesn't work, find another power supply with the same output rating and see if that works. If it still doesn't work, it is possible that the drive died. I hope that you backed up that data.

Have you tried using Disk Utility to see if the drive shows in there when connected?

DaFlake said:

Can you feel the drive spinning up? What about the external power source for the drive, is it working? Try plugging it into a different outlet. If that doesn't work, find another power supply with the same output rating and see if that works. If it still doesn't work, it is possible that the drive died. I hope that you backed up that data.

Click to expand...

That's what I don't get...do people really back up the back up? Where does it end...

@ DaFlake - Yea, the drive is spinning. The unit is vibrating as normal with is humming sound. The power source does work fine too. Can a drive simply just 'die' totally out of the blue?

@ Kevriano - Thanks for that Disk Utility tip. The drive DOES show up within Disk Utility when connected to the imac, however I am unable to click on any of the options on that screen, which are; Verify Disk Permissions, Repair Disk Permissions, Verify Disk and Repair Disk. (Those buttons are not live and cannot be pressed)


Any more ideas guys?

I've been told that a programme called 'Disk Warrior' could be used to recover the disk. Anyone recommend it or know anything about this programme?

Thanks.

Give this a shot - with the drive disconnected open case and disconnect the multi ribbon lead but leave power lead in. Power up until it stabilizes then shut down and reconnect and reassemble. With luck it will show up on desk top.

Also, when I turn the iMac on with the hardrive already plugged in I get an message come up on the screen saying:

...............

Disk Insertation

The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.

(initialiaze...) (ignore) (eject)

............


I always press the ignore button. I'm worried that initialize will wipe the drive?

That error sounds a little worrying. It means that for whatever reason it's in an unreadable format. At least it shows in DU though.
Out of interest, run Disk Utility again, and go to the erase tab, to see if it will give you the option to re-format (don't click anything!) If it will there may be hope.
Disk Warrior is a very good utility, but I have no experience of using it to recover external drives like this. It is generally used when file directories have got messed up on OS system drives.
No doubt it's a possibility though, but I suspect that there may be more useful data recovery software that will cost around the same.

codda said:

That's what I don't get...do people really back up the back up? Where does it end...

Click to expand...

The OP never stated that this was a backup drive. He/She simply said that there was data on the drive that they needed to recover. Not all external drives are used for backup.

A backup of data is another drive that contains an up to date COPY of the data you have on another drive.


To the OP, it sounds like the partition may have failed. Is it possible that you disconnected the drive without properly ejecting it? I have seen this happen on drives that were pulled out without the eject. If this happens when the disk is being written to it can cause what you are seeing. I would recommend a data recovery program to try and retrieve what you need.

DaFlake said:

The OP never stated that this was a backup drive. He/She simply said that there was data on the drive that they needed to recover. Not all external drives are used for backup.

A backup of data is another drive that contains an up to date COPY of the data you have on another drive.


To the OP, it sounds like the partition may have failed. Is it possible that you disconnected the drive without properly ejecting it? I have seen this happen on drives that were pulled out without the eject. If this happens when the disk is being written to it can cause what you are seeing. I would recommend a data recovery program to try and retrieve what you need.

Click to expand...

Or both...correct..? I am going to be buying an external soon and plan to use as a backup/drive....

If you use it as a backup drive and a regular drive, you will need to backup the data that is stored solely on that drive to a different location. Redundancy is the key...

Thanks guys.

@ Kevriano - Disk Utility DOES give me the option to erase. So I guess it's hopeful.

All though it's not an Apple problem, I went done to the Genius Bar and was told that I'd have to use a data recovery plan. Again, the drive was not mounting on the macbook there.

I'm not giving up at all. My next plan of attack will be Disk Warrior.

CORRECTION!

The drive was NOT mounting on the macbook at the Genius Bar. Apologies.

Ok, if you can reformat, then there is a chance of data recovery, because it would just seem that the drive has lost a format sector somewhere.
Looking into Disk Warrior, I think it will be useful here, as it can rebuild directories, and is a very useful tool to have anyway.
Please keep us posted on your progress. Such a shame you can't just re-format, it would save you some money.

To bigreubs:

If the drive electronics have failed or there is some problem with the drive's firmware and it won't mount, recovery software might not work. It's worth a try, however. I recommend trying Data Rescue III by Prosoft. If anything can be recovered on the drive, it can do it.

You can download a trial version first and test it to see if it can get at your data. If it's successful, buy a license. $99.00 US

Regards.

Thanks guys.

I'm going to try using a Recovery programme. I will keep you all updated via this thread.

I'm also going to get some quotes from some professional data recovery companies. Let's hope it don't cost a fortune.

I'm also going to get some quotes from some professional data recovery companies. Let's hope it don't cost a fortune.

Click to expand...

Well if you do, make sure you're sitting down.....

Regards.

Try OS Disks

When all else fails, start up with OS installer Disk 1. Follow the prompts to install the OS. If you're lucky when the time comes to select the drive to install on, your Drive icon will appear. It may have an exclamation mark and be more yellow than green but, if you hear the drive grinding away, wait for a few minutes. Big drives can take a long time. If you get the green icon, back out and restart from your hard drive -- don't install the new OS.

If the drive does not mount, try a complete installation of the OS. You will not lose your data but, if you updated the OS, you will lose your settings.

My external no longer shows anywhere

I am using a Macbook Pro intel with 2.8ghz dual core and a 1TB western digital external HDD using usb 2.0. I was using the hd to store movies, pictures, and other random files and would frequently watch movies directly from the hd. My computer would frequently go to sleep with the hd connected, but I would never disconnect the hd. Once waking the computer up I would get on several occasions the error message stating the hd was disconnected improperly. I used "onyx" several times to repair disk permissions, clean my computers HDD, and other random things and on more than one occasion I was able to get the hd to work properly again. Well the computer fell asleep and did the same thing a couple times more and now I am unable to get the hd to show up anywhere....even in Disk Utility. The hd still lights up and I can feel it vibrate as if it is spinning, but for the life of me I cannot get it to show up anywhere on my macbook pro or anyone else's mac. The only difference in the behavior of the hd aside from it not showing up is the light is just solid instead of blinking like it used to when I would connect it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!