Back up hard drive.

[tjrngold]

My computer running Catalina 10.15.7 will not recognize my Seagate ext. H.D. I backed up my computer in November on my Seagate 1TB but today my Mac doesn't recognize it at all. Any suggestions?

 

[chscag]

How about when you go to Disk Utility, does it "see" the Seagate?

You also stated you backed up your computer in November to the Seagate, what did you use to make the backup? Time Machine?

 

[tjrngold]

My computer running Catalina 10.15.7 will not recognize my Seagate ext. H.D. I backed up my computer in November on my Seagate 1TB but today my Mac doesn't recognize it at all. Any suggestions?

 

[tjrngold]

How about when you go to Disk Utility, does it "see" the Seagate?

You also stated you backed up your computer in November to the Seagate, what did you use to make the backup? Time Machine?

Thanks for your reply. Under disc utility there was no seagate found. I did use time machine for my Nov. backup

 

[chscag]

That's not good news if Disk Utility can not see the drive. How old is the drive?

There's a possibility that it may have failed. But before deciding that, attach the drive to another USB port and if possible, try using another cable to attach the drive.

If those do not work for the drive to be recognized, then like I said above, the drive may have failed.

Sometimes the hard drive itself is okay but the enclosure or the enclosure electronics have stopped working.

 

[MacInWin]

Is it possible this drive is not powered by the USB port, but by some external power supply? I know, it's the first question tech support asks, but there is a reason for it.

 

[tjrngold]

That's not good news if Disk Utility can not see the drive. How old is the drive?

There's a possibility that it may have failed. But before deciding that, attach the drive to another USB port and if possible, try using another cable to attach the drive.

If those do not work for the drive to be recognized, then like I said above, the drive may have failed.

Sometimes the hard drive itself is okay but the enclosure or the enclosure electronics have stopped working.

Thanks again. My suspicion is that the Seagate has failed. These days, with the prices so reasonable, it is probably best to just get a new unit.

 

[krs]

Exactly which model of Seagate is the drive?
I have had externals fail only to find out it wasn't the drive itself that failed but rather the USB-SATA bridge.
Took the drive out of the enclosure, installed it in a different enclosure and everything worked just fine.
One of the reasons I no longer use WD which used to be my "GoTo" drives.

 

[MacInWin]

@krs, I've done the same thing with LaCie, Seagate and WD drives. I'm beginning t think that more often than not a "drive failure" is really the interface failing.

 

[krs]

@krs, I've done the same thing with LaCie, Seagate and WD drives. I'm beginning t think that more often than not a "drive failure" is really the interface failing.

That has been my experience.
I can't even remember if I ever had an actual failure of the mechanical part, ie platters, head, motor.
The most recent one was a quite old 1.5TB 3.5-inch WD - turns out the board that is part of the drive to provide the SATA interface failed.
Luckily I had a second WD drive of exactly the same type - unplugged the board from that and the dead drive came back to life.
But unfortunately, buying a replacement board is around $US40.-, not really worthwhile considering I just bought a 2TB 2.5-inch USB 3.0 portable for $C 69.-
But at least I can easily get all my data off.

PS: Makes me a bit uneasy about the reliability of SSDs which are essentially all electronics.

 

[MacInWin]

I had one recent failure of a drive. The heads got stuck to the disk by a force known as "stiction." I opened the drive case, tapped the heads gently and they retracted. I put the cover back on, attached the drive and made an immediate copy of everything on it, then erased and disposed of the drive. So physical drives DO fail, but most of the time it's the electronics.

 

[chscag]

Took the drive out of the enclosure, installed it in a different enclosure and everything worked just fine.
One of the reasons I no longer use WD which used to be my "GoTo" drives.

I purchased a handy adapter from OWC some time ago that can be used in place of an enclosure so that you can extract the data from the drive.

It's really not worth it to place the drive in a new enclosure as USB 3 enclosures are rather expensive. At least for a good one. Besides if you have an AC powered drive enclosure that failed, about the only way is to use the OWC adapter or one like it.

 

[MacInWin]

I have one of those, too, and use it the same way.

 

[Rod]

Just two questions; was the drive new or old? Did you erase it and format it before use and sorry this is three; did you upgrade or update your computer operating system since you last used the backup drive?