Disk-Utility and WD External Hard Drive

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I have an iMAC running Snow Leopard OSX 10.6.8 and a WD 3TB external hard-drive. iMAC disk-utility says I need to repair the external hard-drive disk. If I run the repair disk and repair permissions, for the external hard-drive, will I lose the 1.5TB of documents, pictures, movies, etc.., that are currently stored on my external hard-drive ?
 

pigoo3

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If I run the repair disk and repair permissions, for the external hard-drive, will I lose the 1.5TB of documents, pictures, movies, etc.., that are currently stored on my external hard-drive ?

When you get this message (Repair Disk)…it's possible that the HD is dying/wearing out. Normally with a good drive there should be not be any issues with losing data when Repair Disk is done. But if the drive is failing/dying…anything can happen.

One way to guarantee you won't lose any data is…have everything backed up on a separate HD.

- Nick
 
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MAC and WD External Hard Drive

Hello Nick and thank you for your reply. Follosing a hard-boot, the WD external hard-drive icon, appears. Then, I get this error: "The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off". This occurs, even though I did not eject the disk, improperly. Then, the WD external hard-drive icon, disappears. I replaced the power adapter and the USB cord that runs from the MAC to the WD external hard-drive and this helped give me some temporary stability, but, eventually, the icon disappears. Then, I decided to execute the disk-utility, which showed me that there were "minor" errors that needed to be repaired. I use the WD external hard-drive as extra storage, so, there is no back-up. I am concerned about running the risk of executing the disk repair, with the data on the disk, so, I see my options as getting a Cloud account and moving the data there, or, I could purchase another WD external hard-drive and Best Buy will transfer the data, drive to drive, for $100.

Thank you again for your helpful reply.
 

pigoo3

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Follosing a hard-boot, the WD external hard-drive icon, appears. Then, I get this error: "The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off". This occurs, even though I did not eject the disk, improperly.

You should avoid doing hard-boots (or hard shut downs). This is exactly why you are getting this message. To turn the computer off properly…you should use the sleep, restart, or shutdown commands.

If you do this hard-boot thing frequently…the file structure of the hard drive gets messed-up/corrupted…then you get this message…then the disk need to be repaired.

Repair the disk…then avoid doing the hard boots or hard shut downs.:)

- Nick
 

pigoo3

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I use the WD external hard-drive as extra storage, so, there is no back-up.

All data should be backed up to prevent unwanted loss (assuming that the data is important & the user doesn't want it lost). Whether an internal or external drive.

More than likely if you did the disk repair…everything would be fine. But you never know…the rare situation could happen…and the data lost. So that's why I say the data should be backed up before doing the repair (just in case).

One other option is (depending on how much data we are talking about). You could copy this data from the external HD temporarily to the computers internal HD (if you have enough space on the internal drive). Then do the repair. If everything goes fine (no data loss)…then you could delete the data copied to the internal HD.

But as I mentioned (for the future)…everything on your computer (internal & external HD's) should be backed up to prevent loss. HD's sometimes can fail/die very suddenly. And if the data is not backed up…it will be lost.

- Nick
 

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