external HDD help

[Blindinlight]

i bought a seagate 500GB external HDD a few months back, now all of a sudden the hdd isnt coming up, ive tried disk utility, its not showing up there either.
Ive tried connecting it to a windows based pc to see if i can reformat it and it would show up either..
ive pretty got everything on here, so returning it wouldnt suit me

any help?!

Thanks a ton in advance

[hughvane]

I suspect you've hit the Seagate firmware issue Seagate Drive - The Current Firmware Issue... - Mac Forums There may be solutions there that work for you.

[Blindinlight]

unfortunately, no, the models they said that have been effected arent mine
i have barracuda 7200.10
though there are people saying that updates are making 500GB units unbootable, which is a very stupid thing to release..

[hughvane]

Okay, Plan B. If the drive is spinning okay when powered on, the indicator light is showing, but nothing is mounting to the desktop or showing in Disk Utility or System Profiler, then the culprits are likely to be the controller in the enclosure or the connecting cable. Is the connection USB or firewire? Either way, try a different cable, or swap the cable ends if it's firewire.

If that doesn't make a difference, maybe you need to spend a little money and buy an ATA/SATA-USB2 adaptor (US$18). Pull the drive out of its enclosure and connect it to your Mac via the adaptor. That'll enable you to get to the data you want.
In fact, you can continue to use the external drive 'bare' without the need for an enclosure. Just keep dust off it with a paper tissue. I made a case out of polystyrene for my Hitachi 'bare' external HD.

[Blindinlight]

yeah, ive found one for £15 which ill probably get
ive already taken it apart, and it seems to be running fine, though there are a few odd sounds coming every now and then

[WishingDigiJosh]

unfortunately the problem you've run into is becoming more common, firewire and usb bridgeboards are built so cheaply by most external enclosure companies with relatively low-grade parts... you'll pay a price premium, but companies like G-Tech, Glyph, & CalDigit have a much higher quality component list.

[JCruikshank]

unfortunately the problem you've run into is becoming more common, firewire and usb bridgeboards are built so cheaply by most external enclosure companies with relatively low-grade parts... you'll pay a price premium, but companies like G-Tech, Glyph, & CalDigit have a much higher quality component list.

I do not agree that CAlDigit has high quality. I have 3 of their FireWire drives and all failed because of faulty power supplies.
All 3 of them.
I have G-Tech G-RAID 3 and very happy about it.