External HD not recognized, OSX freezing

[Qslim]

I just noticed that time machine hasn't been backed up in a few days, and the hd icon in finder isn't present. When I open time machine and select 'back up now', I am told that the backup volume cannot be mounted. The hd is connected as normal, the light is on (it's a WD, if it matters), but time machine can't see it and the drive will not show in finder. If it matters at all, twice today I have had my usage pegged past 100% because of 'diskarbitrationd', with three 'mount_hfs' running under it at about 40% each, and both times the system froze and I had to power down manually. I don't have any idea what this means, but thought that it may be relevant. Thanks for reading.

BTW, i'm running a macbook with osx 10.5

 

[chscag]

Sounds like your external WD is having problems.

Open Applications, Utilities, Disk Utility, and highlight the WD. Select First Aid, and do a verify and repair. Report back the results.

Regards.

 

[Qslim]

Thanks for the reply. I opened disk utility, and when I select the drive in question, the options to verify and repair are greyed out, so I cannot do either.

 

[chscag]

Hi again:

Looks like it's time to replace the WD. When Disk Utility refuses to repair a drive (options not available) it's usually because the drive mechanism itself has failed rendering the drive unreadable.

Unless the drive has data on it that you badly need, I would replace it. If there is data on it that you must have, post back and we can suggest some software that might work to get your data back.

Regards.