Please Help - External Drive issues - Will Pay

[DoubleJ94]

Hello everyone!

New to the site.
I came here to hopefully get my newest issue resolved. I will gladly pay someone 80$ if they help me to resolve what's going on. Hopefully that doesn't go against policy.
I will do my best to explain and include pictures.

Soo, I couple days ago my 1TB seagate external drive started giving me issues. Which it never did before.
basically the drive is extremely slow taking a couple minutes for finder to even open the drive and files, barely navigable.
I use this drive for my time machine that used to automatically update, also using it to store large files.
Being a dumba** I never partitioned the drive meaning the backup folder is in the same main location as my other files. (see picture)

I could care less at this point about the backup files as my computer is working fine ATM. What I really care about is all the other files that contain a ton of old memories.
Upon trying to in the least copy the files over to another 2TB drive I thought I had to purchase. It will not allow me to do so, I keep getting "error code -8058" which has something to do with the permissions. I have looked into this and delete the plist with little prevail and led to another error.

It seems that I can only read and not written (see pictures)
As soon as I plug in the drive. Mac notifies me that macOS can not repair disk. (see pictures)

I've managed to recover around 30 gigs but I truly need all of it.

What I've tried:
-byte by byte backup using Disk Drill (Gets to around 30 gigs and then goes extremely slow. Says will take 100+ hours)
-Disk utility repair. First Aid. Did not work.
-Disk drill data recovery methods. Same thing.
-Other data recovery software all doing the same that I've tried.
-Took it to a local computer store that essentially did the same thing I did as it was just some college kid trying to copy and paste using other data recovery software.
Ended up charging me 80$.

Please help.

Greatly appreciate it.!!
I promise whoever can help me find a resolution to this. I will pay them 80$

 

[harryb2448]

Afraid it is bad news about your drive. Personally always keep 2 backups on seperate SSDs and use SuperDuper cloning software. Professional recovery firms can charge hundreds of dollars for their service but that is your only option.

 

[MacInWin]

I think Harry is right. But there are some things to try before going the recovery firm route:

1. On the Get Info screen with the drive, click on the lock icon, enter an admin password and change permissions for you to be able to read and write to the drive. Then click on the little circle with dots and select "Apply to enclosed items..." and wait until the permissions all get updated. It could take a while to finish, particularly if you have a large number of items in the TM backup.



If that works, you should be able to copy the files, as long as the drive holds on. It is failing, so mucking about with tools that hammer it heavy, like Disk Drill, etc., is probably not a good thing until everything else has failed.

Try to copy the folders one at a time instead of selecting them all at once. And don't select anything in the TM backup folder at all. That is the "backups.backupdb" item. Just leave that alone. Copying that can take a very, very long time and will slow the copy process to a crawl.

If you have problems copying folders one at a time, try opening the folders and copying the contents instead of copying the folder. The destination can be in folders, but do as "select all" inside the folder to see if you can see what file/files slow the process down. In an emergency, you can skip those and get off the drive what you can, then go back to the troubled ones and see if you can copy them one at a time.

 

[pigoo3]

Thread moved to better area (Other Hardware).

Thanks,

Nick

 

[ferrarr]

If you purchased a new drive already, did you format that drive? The permission error may be coming from that drive.

Since you have read access on the old drive, that will allow you the ability to copy the files.

 

[DoubleJ94]

Afraid it is bad news about your drive. Personally always keep 2 backups on seperate SSDs and use SuperDuper cloning software. Professional recovery firms can charge hundreds of dollars for their service but that is your only option.

Thank you for the reply.

Yea thats what I'm thinking I will have to do from now on. It's unfortunate I'm just trying to see what my options are before sending it out.

 

[DoubleJ94]

If you purchased a new drive already, did you format that drive? The permission error may be coming from that drive.

Since you have read access on the old drive, that will allow you the ability to copy the files.

I believe I did format it in order to partition the new drive and create 2 volumes that way this issue doesn't happen again.

I don't think the permissions issue is coming from the new drive but I will double check.

Thanks!

 

[DoubleJ94]

Thread moved to better area (Other Hardware).

Thanks,

Nick

Understood. Thanks

 

[DoubleJ94]

I think Harry is right. But there are some things to try before going the recovery firm route:

1. On the Get Info screen with the drive, click on the lock icon, enter an admin password and change permissions for you to be able to read and write to the drive. Then click on the little circle with dots and select "Apply to enclosed items..." and wait until the permissions all get updated. It could take a while to finish, particularly if you have a large number of items in the TM backup.

View attachment 34340

If that works, you should be able to copy the files, as long as the drive holds on. It is failing, so mucking about with tools that hammer it heavy, like Disk Drill, etc., is probably not a good thing until everything else has failed.

Try to copy the folders one at a time instead of selecting them all at once. And don't select anything in the TM backup folder at all. That is the "backups.backupdb" item. Just leave that alone. Copying that can take a very, very long time and will slow the copy process to a crawl.

If you have problems copying folders one at a time, try opening the folders and copying the contents instead of copying the folder. The destination can be in folders, but do as "select all" inside the folder to see if you can see what file/files slow the process down. In an emergency, you can skip those and get off the drive what you can, then go back to the troubled ones and see if you can copy them one at a time.

Really appreciate the reply and help.

I am unable to select the circle with the 3 dots in permissions. The area is greyed out :/

I'm thinking I will have to give the transferring 1 by 1 a try and doing process of elimination to see what can and can't be transferred.

I will keep you updated.

Thanks

 

[DoubleJ94]

Do you think a data transfer kit would be useful or help at all?

I'm thinking that time machine was backing up so much that the drive became full and because I stored everything in the same location it was unable to delete the other folders. Making the drive full and unable to remove files. Leading to the extremely slowed down drive and eventually becoming corrupt.
I'm thinking if I can somehow get permission to delete the large backup folders drive that it will speed the drive up enough to be able to recover the other wanted folders. Thoughts?

 

[MacInWin]

I am unable to select the circle with the 3 dots in permissions. The area is greyed out :/

In the image I don't see your account name at all. The dots are greyed out until you change something in the permissions area because there are no actions until you make a change. You could try giving EVERYONE read and write permissions if you cannot add your own account to the drive.

 

[DoubleJ94]

In the image I don't see your account name at all. The dots are greyed out until you change something in the permissions area because there are no actions until you make a change. You could try giving EVERYONE read and write permissions if you cannot add your own account to the drive.

Ahh I see what your saying.
Just tried to do that but got this error message. See image

 

[MacInWin]

That is a permissions error. Are you logged into an Admin account? Did you unlock the lock icon with an Admin password?

 

[MacInWin]

Here is an article with some things to try to fix the 8076 error. How to Resolve the Error Code 8076 on Mac - Software Tested

I can't say if they work or not.

 

[DoubleJ94]

That is a permissions error. Are you logged into an Admin account? Did you unlock the lock icon with an Admin password?

Yes I am the admin and logged in as one.

Appreciate the link I will check it out.

 

[DoubleJ94]

Seems that after removing the Plist and restarting that I am some what able to move some files from the drive. The process is extremely slow and the .mp4 files seem to be corrupt.

it will be a whole other project to fix the files but at least I'm getting somewhere. Really appreciate the help.

 

[pm-r]

The process is extremely slow and the .mp4 files seem to be corrupt.

it will be a whole other project to fix the files but at least I'm getting somewhere. Really appreciate the help.

I cannot help thinking that if you have someone with a working copy of Diskwarrior 4 or better, I would sure be inclined to give that a try and use its Recovery option.

But I have no idea what Mac OS version or Drive format your Mac and hard drive are using and if they are compatible. Diskwarrior used to be an excellent utility application for resolving such a problem.

But it sure sounds like that drive is on its last legs and its last few spins or reads and file recovery attempts.


- Patrick
=======

 

[DoubleJ94]

I cannot help thinking that if you have someone with a working copy of Diskwarrior 4 or better, I would sure be inclined to give that a try and use its Recovery option.

But I have no idea what Mac OS version or Drive format your Mac and hard drive are using and if they are compatible. Diskwarrior used to be an excellent utility application for resolving such a problem.

But it sure sounds like that drive is on its last legs and its last few spins or reads and file recovery attempts.


- Patrick
=======

I will have to look into this. Thanks!!

Agreed. I do not trust it after all this.

 

[techiesteve]

Disk Warrior hasn't been updated for some time now, it won't run under Catalina or Big Sur, or run over APFS disks. I still use it, installed on an external HD running High Sierra 10.13.6, I find it will boot on Macs up to 2017. Even if it does not offer to rebuild, if it offers a preview you be able to copy off the data you require. If it halts copying files, miss out whatever it failed on and restart copying. Good luck.

 

[badshoehabit]

Jumping on the back of this for help too because my Seagate 1TB drive is also playing up in a similar fashion to DoubleJ94 - slow to load, endlessly 'preparing back up' then if it does start and I leave it for hours (eg overnight), I get a message saying I didn't eject the disk properly when I've not touched the connection and it registers only an old back up. It's several years old so is it time for a replacement?