Problems mounting External HD to my MacBook Pro & PC Machines.

Please help, I have asked friends and nobody can find a solution....

I have a Western Digital "My Book" external hard drive that will not mount to MAC or PC machines.

**Using Mac Book Pro. OS X 10.6.4

- Immediately after connecting the external HD, I get a pop up window that reads, "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
- I am have used Firewire 800 port & USB. Both ports work for with other external devices.
- The drive DOES show up in Disk utility. But not on my desk top.
- I have tried mounting the external disk through Disk Utility, and it does not mount.
- I have tried properly ejecting the external disk in Disk Utility, and it does not eject. The hard drive "Thinks" for a moment, then returns to a normal state. The drive never disappears from the Disk Utility.
- I have tried verifying the external disk through Disk Utility: It immediately stops with an Error in red. The error states, "This disk needs to be repaired."
- I have tried repairing the external disk through Disk Utility: It immediately stops with an Error in red. The error states, "Disk Utility can't repair this disk." Then a drop down box prompts me to back up as many files as possible and reformat the disk.
- In Disk Utility-->Info, the Hard drive states all correct information regarding connection Bus, Name and Type. It even states the HD is MS-DOS (FAT-16) formatted, and writable. Under Mount Point, its correctly states the hard drive in "Not Mounted".


**Using PC towers
- Immediately after connecting the external HD, I get a pop up window that reads, "The disk you inserted in not readable by this computer. Then I get a prompt to reformat.


I would erase and reformat but I have a movie project on this hard drive and can not afford to erase this footage.

I have tried using DISK WARRIOR, but DW will not work because the first thing you have to do is select the failed drive. Since the WD HD has not failed, I am unable to use DW to solve my problem.

I'm hopping someone out there can save my live along with my movie.

My sincerest thanks,

Tim

There's no question the drive is defective. What I don't understand is why Disk Warrior refuses to work on the drive? Have you tried to access the drive with Disk Warrior and run a scan?

- In Disk Utility-->Info, the Hard drive states all correct information regarding connection Bus, Name and Type. It even states the HD is MS-DOS (FAT-16) formatted, and writable. Under Mount Point, its correctly states the hard drive in "Not Mounted".

Click to expand...

Could that be the reason? It has been a while sine I used Diesk Earrior but does it even understand FAT 16 at all?

Thank you both for your time and advice:

Chsag,

No, I have not tried "scanning" with disk warrior. From what I remember, I would open Disk Warrior, a drop down box would appear asking me to please choose a failed disk. since the disk is spinning, I am unable to select the it. I never reached an option to "Scan". Did I not explore all my options with Disk Warrior?

Slydude,

I actually just read on another post Disk Warrior does not work on FAT formatted drives, only HFS+. Is there another data recovery program that I could use?

Here is a similar post where a gentleman has the exact same hard drive and similar problem.

Problems with WD external drive file system format [Archive] - MacRumors Forums

To the best of my knowledge FAT 16 was never used as a drive format option on Macs but has been used on DOS/Windows machines though it has not been widely used for some time. I'm thinking that you will need a PC disk utility to fix this (if it can be fixed). I'll have to leave suggestion of an appropriate program to others though.