External hard drive failure?

Hi,

I'm a newly convert from Windows to Mac. Have a question, earlier today I dropped a photo frame to my external drive and Mac Mini. The OS froze immediately I had to cold reboot my Mac. Thankfully Mac seems to boot OK but my external drive won't mount. I can't find it on Finder. On Disk Utility I managed to see it (occasionally) and tried to do Repair Disk.

After a long process DU said it can't repair the disk and it immediately disappeared from DU. So is this a tell tale sign of hardware failure? I plugged it in Windows and it's Disk Manager can see the disk but of course it can't read it since it was formatted with MAC OS FS.

Anyone has a suggestion to try? It's my time machine backup drive so I'm not too worried about the content so I can just erase it all if I have to.

Thanks!

It does sounds like a hardware failure of some sort since Disk Utility can't even see the drive. Just to be sure, try a different cable and USB port on the Mac. If that doesn't work, then I'm afraid you need a new drive. Or perhaps even just the enclosure for it.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm going to try plugging it in to my Windows laptop and get Disk Manager to reformat it (if I can).

If that works I may use it again as my Time Machine drive. However does anyone know how to verify disk integrity? Is there a software you can use to check if the disk is OK?

xpscapable said:

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm going to try plugging it in to my Windows laptop and get Disk Manager to reformat it (if I can).

If that works I may use it again as my Time Machine drive. However does anyone know how to verify disk integrity? Is there a software you can use to check if the disk is OK?

Click to expand...

TechTool Pro is the only one I am really familiar with that will do a surface scan. Actually Drive Genius will also, but I have version 2 and quite honestly don't think very highly of it. TTP is an excellent piece of software, but pricey.

I plugged it in again on my Windows laptop and now that one won't read it. So I'm pretty sure the drive is toast.

Darn, I guess I have to get a new external drive.