07-16-2011, 11:34 AM

I've had a Seagate FreeAgent 500GB external hard drive for a little over a year, and its just about to give up the ghost. Initially I made 3 different partitions: A BackUp partition for Time Machine, a Media Partition (songs, pics, etc) and a Share partition that would be available for my PC to connect to. About 9 months ago, the BackUp partition croaked; Time Machine told me that there was an error on the disk. When I tried to repair it with Disk Utility, it couldn't do it. Obviously, I was frustrated about the whole thing, but since I didn't anticipate needing any of those back-up files, I just set Time Machine to back-up to the Media Partition and moved on.
Now, about 4 months ago, my secondary computer, an iMac G5, wouldn't boot (this was the computer that the external hard drive has been connected to). Fortunately, we have a powerbook that we've been using all summer instead. But, now that I have a little free time, I'm trying to recover my computer. I think I have that nut cracked, but in the process, I discovered that my external hard drive is having a lot of issues.
My Share partition is no longer available (just like the old Back Up partition) and the Media partition is accessible, but in Finder, there aren't any files. Disk Utility can't do anything for either of the drives, although it recognizes that there are 808,000 files on the Media partition. Disk Warrior was also no help.
The error that disk utility reports - and I think this is key - is that the drive cannot be unmounted. Also, I must force eject the drives always; it no longer properly ejects.
All this, and a little google research, lead me to believe that the hard drives might be fine, but its the interface board, etc in the External drive housing that's causing my problems.
I'm planning to disassemble the external hard drive, and connect the harddrive itself with a SATA-USB, and try recovering them that way.

Does that sound reasonable? Any other suggestions?

Thanks!!

07-16-2011, 01:20 PM

Thats what I would do we keep one of these at the shop for that reason although not sure its this particular brand. Micro Center - Eagle Technologies Eagle Tech ET-CSKESU2-BK 2.5"/3.5" SATA Drive Docking Station w/Card Reader, USB Hub, eSATA and OTB ET-CSKESU2-BK

07-18-2011, 07:11 AM

Thanks for the confirmation. I'll order a SATA-USB rig today and let you know how it turns out.
On a side note, I disassembled the external hard drive yesterday - that was quite an odyssey. When did they start using so much glue on computer/associated hardware cases?

07-18-2011, 10:28 AM

To make it easier to void the warranty if still in warranty if opened also cheaper mfg
process.

07-18-2011, 04:12 PM

So, this may initially seem off topic, but I'm starting to wonder if my computer failure (alluded to in my initial post) and my hard drive failure are related. Long story short, I thought that my computer problem could be resolved by reinstalling OS X, but in the process of trying to figure out how to Archive and Install (vice erasing the whole hard drive), I discovered that my system hard drive is also having some sort of problem - disk utility can't verify the disk, stating "Invalid Record Count".

Not sure if they're related, but it's a heck of a coincidence. I describe the whole thing in a little more detail on the Apple Support Forums, if you're interested.

Does that mean anything...? I hesitate to even suggest it, but virus? Or, could it be power surge / black out related? (No, I don't have a UPS; been meaning to get one for years...)