My unsolvable external hard drive problem

I have a WD 250gb hard drive, its pretty much full up. The hard drive has the problem where is can not be repairable 'Mac OS X can't repair disk' so it recommends I back the hard drive up and re-format. Thats where i'm struggling I have plenty of space on my iomega 1tb so I want back up my WD on to the other. When I try a straight transfer of all the files it will always come across a fault with one of the files through the transfer. So it would appear it is not possible.

I have looked across the internet for a solution but really cant seem to find one, maybe I have not looked hard enough.

Has any one else had this problem, what do I do with the hard drive?

Is it always one file, or just random faults with any file.

The disk itself may not be damaged but the software that keeps track of the disk format may be damaged.

Your best bet is to get as much off as you can, and note which files will not copy. Then go back and try and copy off any troublesome files. Get all you can off, but if some files just wont copy over you maybe out of luck.

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.

I was hoping that wasn't going to be the only solution. But had a feeling it would be.

It always stops on one file, says it can not complete it the transfer due to fault with 'File name'. So il delete that file restart the transfer and it will find a fault with another single file. I have tried this about 3-4 times but lost patience so sort of left the hard drive to one side.

So it looks like i'm going to have to dedicate a day to fixing the hard drive.

fault with the filename

Try renaming the file, especially if it has any /\: odd characters in it.

Once you get all you can off then you may be able to reformat the old drive. If the reformat goes OK you can always just use the old drive as a double back-up of those files you transfered over

yeah il have to take the time out to try and offload the important data. I was hoping to back it up clean it up and use it as a new hard drive. Il think il have a go at it tomorrow.

Word of advice, I once had the exact same issue (albeit with an NTFS-formatted Windows external HDD; but disks is disks, regardless of the file system), and it turned-out to be a hardware flaw.

There was actually something physically wrong with the logic board on the drive; and while it worked ok for a few weeks after I formatted it, eventually smoke started to come out of it! (Luckily, where I was wary of it, I'd only been using it for back-ups & so lost nothing; and I was there as it started smouldering & so able to unplug it before it actually caught fire!)

This probably isn't the issue here; but I'd still advise you to only use your drive for back-ups of things already saved somewhere else, and never leave it running unattended, just in case it decided to catch light like mine!

Wow, was that a Western Digital?

So perhaps my problem really is unsolvable. Im thinking I might just keep the hard drive as it is, I can still copy stuff from it, just cant store anything else on it. But I did want to store the data and use it as a new one like I said. Im having second thoughts.

I think I will just buy a new one..

Thanks for the replies!

jake1357 said:

Wow, was that a Western Digital?

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As a matter of fact, it was! Think I'll avoid that manufacturer in the future if at all possible!

jake1357 said:

I think I will just buy a new one..

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I would

WD is as good as the rest. Purchase the drive with the longest warranty period. Seagate was offering five years a couple of months ago.