Time Machine Lost

Upon update to 10.13.3 a message said i could not use my backup disk (Toshiba 1TB, usb.) It will not mount and disk utility will not recognize it. I tried to erase it and it can't find it. When I plug it in it poles, blue light flashes. Do I have a dead drive or is it worth saving and how?



 Machine Specs: 27" iMac | 8GB DDR3 SD Ram | 1TB Drive | | Magic Mouse 2 | Apple Keyboard | macOS High Sierra 10.13.3

How old is the Toshiba drive? You could have had a coincidental failure of the drive and not related to High Sierra. Sometimes a major macOS update will set off an internal drive to fail because of all the additional activity when updating, however, that would have nothing to do with an external drive failure.

If your Toshiba drive will not mount at all, no software is going to be able to read from it. And the cost of software such as Drive Genius or Disk Warrior is as much as replacing the drive with a new one. Besides, a drive that has failed is not safe to use for any future backups. If the drive is still under warranty you may be able to get a RMA from Toshiba.

To add to what Chscag mentioned...when was the last time you successfully accessed this TM drive? As Chscag mentioned...maybe this issue is only coincidental with the OS upgrade/update...and maybe the drive failed prior to this.

- Nick

Thank you

TM had backed up to the drive the same day I updated to new OS

Thank you for your help