External Hard Drive quit mounting

[Freeman22]

Hello, I have a 4TB Seagate external hard drive that suddenly quick mounting yesterday. I tried on 3 different Macs and same result on all...It has been fine for the last 3 years but now when I plug it in it starts spinning up then stops. That has been the case before yesterday, but it still mounted. It is not showing up in the disk utility either...I have a tremendous amount of data on that drive so it is important that I can access it. Can someone tell me what I should do?

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum. It sounds like the drive is dead. Sorry about that. However, it may be possible to get the data off the drive, if the problem is the interface in the enclosure and not the actual drive.

How long does it spin when you power it up? Does it make any noise when powering up?

One thing that you might be able to do is to remove the actual drive from the enclosure and use another enclosure or attachment kit to get the data off the drive itself.

But be prepared to be disappointed. If the drive is dead, it's dead. Recovery can be done by professional companies, but it's not cheap.

Don't do anything to the drive with any "rescue" software, either. The data may be safe if it's an interface problem, but if you start mucking with it, you could erase some or all of the data.

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

If you've tried everything and it still won't mount, there really is no easy way to extract the data from that drive. However, the internal workings of the drive may be okay but the electronic interface (drive carrier) may have failed.

It may be possible to remove the drive itself from the carrier (electronic interface or drive case) and place it in another case and have it working again. Note though.... not all drives can be disassembled that way and revived by using another case.

Last resort is to use a data recovery service if the data is important to you. Data recovery services can be expensive although there are several who offer discounts.

 

[MacInWin]

Great minds, Charlie!

 

[Freeman22]

Welcome to the forum. It sounds like the drive is dead. Sorry about that. However, it may be possible to get the data off the drive, if the problem is the interface in the enclosure and not the actual drive.

How long does it spin when you power it up? Does it make any noise when powering up?

One thing that you might be able to do is to remove the actual drive from the enclosure and use another enclosure or attachment kit to get the data off the drive itself.

But be prepared to be disappointed. If the drive is dead, it's dead. Recovery can be done by professional companies, but it's not cheap.

Don't do anything to the drive with any "rescue" software, either. The data may be safe if it's an interface problem, but if you start mucking with it, you could erase some or all of the data.

It spins up for about 10 seconds before it stops. It sounds like it's trying to engage but then stops...

Thanks for the quick response also. I started to look at rescue software, but wanted to get others' professional advice first.

 

[MacInWin]

Not great news, but you could try something like this to see if the drive itself is recoverable.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EHDTRJ6/?tag=macforums0e4-20

I'm not endorsing the above, I have no idea if it works well, or if it will work with your particular drive, but something like that might make it possible to mount the drive, get the data off of it.

 

[krs]

Thanks for the quick response also. I started to look at rescue software, but wanted to get others' professional advice first.

I would hold off with any "Rescue software" avilable on the net.

I assume you tried a different cable.

And which specific model of 4TB external is it?
Check if the drive in your external is a standard SATA drive, if that is the case and a different cable didn't help, I would rack open the external enclosure and try an adapter like the one Jake mentioned.

I have had a few external drive failures, all turned out to be SATA - USB3.0 bridge failures or issues with the cable.