external drives gone

[31flies]

Hey All,

Last week everything was fine, this week external drives (containing all my audio) are gone. They show up in disc utility I can't repair them: "stopped verifying...needs to be repaired..." and then when I attempt repair: "Disc utility can't repair this disc. Back up...reformat..."

They are both WD 1TB drives connected via USB to iMac OSX V.10.6.8.

What the heck can I do at this point?

Thanks!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Are they in a dock or case? It could be the controller for the enclosure. You might try moving them to another enclosure or get a dock. USB 3 recommended if your machine supports it, or a Thunderbolt.

[mikehalloran]

It can be the housing. It can be your USB ports. What year and model iMac?

That both went down is unusual. Step one is to reset your NV RAM. Boot while holding down the Command-Option-p-r keys and let the chimes ring three times.

When you run Disk Utility, do you get the exact same results every time? On a bad drive, DU fixes problems one at a time. Keep running it until the readout is the same three times in a row. I once had to run it over 50 times till it repaired the drive to the point that I could get the data off. Btw, if that works, the HD is bad - get your data off and replace it ASAP.

I like USB docks since the drives can be lifted out and replaced without taking things apart. If you don't have USB 3 or Thunderbolt, USB 2 docks are inexpensive. This lets you raw drives.

[Timeline]

If you were set up in raid, its over.

[mikehalloran]

If you were set up in raid, its over.

Raid 0, probably. Raid 1, not at all. I cant imagine anyone running RAID over USB 2 but people do strange things.

Is there a Time Machine backup? If not, why not?

Without knowing the setup, we're shooting in the dark.

[Timeline]

If you were set up in raid, its over.

Raid 0, probably. Raid 1, not at all. I cant imagine anyone running RAID over USB 2 but people do strange things.

Is there a Time Machine backup? If not, why not?

Without knowing the setup, we're shooting in the dark.

You're right M.

[Shooshie]

Are they in a dock or case? It could be the controller for the enclosure. You might try moving them to another enclosure or get a dock. USB 3 recommended if your machine supports it, or a Thunderbolt.

I've had this happen many times over the years. Only rarely have I been able to revive the disk. Usually it's the disk that's out. I take it out of the enclosure, put a new drive in, and at least I can get a new blank disk out of the deal. Sometimes by messing with the drive, plugging it in, unplugging it, messing around with it... I can get the failed drive back to life long enough to duplicate it, if I don't already have a copy. But trying another enclosure is great advice. Sometimes that works.

I've been backing up my hard drives to USB3.0 Flash Drives. If I ever get USB3.0, that's going to be a neat system. As it is, they default to USB2.0, so it takes forever to load one, but once it's loaded, I can pop it in a drawer, and there's my backup... until next time. They're making them at 256GB, 500GB, and even 1TB now, though the latter is outrageously expensive.

I have Time Machine backups on my major drives, but I've got like 15TB of data, so I can't keep them all backed up in TM. The Flash Drive is my answer to that.

Sorry about the failed drive. That's always a disappointment. It can be tragic if you've got your life's work on there, and it's not backed up elsewhere. I keep a lot of redundancy, but once in a great while I lose something big that I've been working on. The last one was in 2009, but I was able to piece back together about 85% of it from various redundancies. Just not the whole thing.

Maybe if you put the disk in another enclosure, you might be able to get it to work long enough to back it up. I'd try getting a Firewire 800 enclosure (if your computer has Firewire) and put the drive in it. There's about a 10% - 20% chance that it may work with another enclosure. Worth a try. It's happened for me before.

Shooshie

[Timeline]

Nice post Shooshie. I bought a USB 3 card and it works fine unless you load it down with too much USB power use which at least on this card is lacking badly.

[Shooshie]

Thanks, Gary.

BTW, when I suggested putting the drive in a Firewire enclosure, I wasn't just expressing a preference. Story: I dropped a Firewire disk while it was operating. Actually, I accidentally pushed it off its shelf with the vacuum cleaner, when I was distracted by fighting animals. (I've got a temperamental cat who at that time did not like our new kitten, about last July) The darn thing fell first to my desk, then bounced to the floor. Ouch! As I said, it was a Firewire drive, and it would not work. I tried everything I could to revive it, but it was dead. ["It's DEAD, Jim!"] But like Captain Kirk, I couldn't take "dead" as an answer. I tried one more thing. I put it in a USB enclosure, and it worked! Thinking it just had to get itself sorted out, I put it back in a firewire enclosure, but it did not work. SO, I returned it to the USB enclosure, and... yep, it's working to this day. Not one misplaced file. 100% restored! (no, it doesn't make sense to me, either)

So, I figure if the USB side of another drive failed, maybe it would work under Firewire — my scenario, reversed. It's worth a try.

Shooshie

[rockitcity]

Thanks, Gary.

BTW, when I suggested putting the drive in a Firewire enclosure, I wasn't just expressing a preference. Story: I dropped a Firewire disk while it was operating. Actually, I accidentally pushed it off its shelf with the vacuum cleaner, when I was distracted by fighting animals. (I've got a temperamental cat who at that time did not like our new kitten, about last July) The darn thing fell first to my desk, then bounced to the floor. Ouch! As I said, it was a Firewire drive, and it would not work. I tried everything I could to revive it, but it was dead. ["It's DEAD, Jim!"] But like Captain Kirk, I couldn't take "dead" as an answer. I tried one more thing. I put it in a USB enclosure, and it worked! Thinking it just had to get itself sorted out, I put it back in a firewire enclosure, but it did not work. SO, I returned it to the USB enclosure, and... yep, it's working to this day. Not one misplaced file. 100% restored! (no, it doesn't make sense to me, either)

So, I figure if the USB side of another drive failed, maybe it would work under Firewire — my scenario, reversed. It's worth a try.

Shooshie

Not that this is likely to help the OP, but I wonder if in your case Shooshie, could it have been the firewire port on the case that got fried? I have had that happen and it also took out another drive on the FW bus. Still, might be worth a try to put it into another case. Worst that could happen is it works!

[Shooshie]

Not that this is likely to help the OP, but I wonder if in your case Shooshie, could it have been the firewire port on the case that got fried? I have had that happen and it also took out another drive on the FW bus. Still, might be worth a try to put it into another case. Worst that could happen is it works!

That SHOULD be the explanation. I put the drive in another Firewire enclosure. (the original was damaged) It would not work. That's why I said it makes no sense to me. Is it possible that an SATA drive has firewire and USB drivers in it when used in a Firewire enclosure? Could the firewire driver on the disk have gotten damaged? Like I said, it makes no sense, but I'm using it right now as a USB drive. Never fails to fire up. I'm sure there's an explanation. I just don't know what it is.

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

I gave up on FW enclosures and docks around OS 10.6 when I got my iMac. I'm still not sure if it is FW or those crap Seagate drives I had then. I have ceased caring, ya know?

Anyway, I had OWC put an eSATA port in my 2010 iMac and now I use one of those inexpensive docks to host my SSD.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/ ... /add_eSATA

Someday, I will install it internally – get my son-in-law to help – but till then, it works great.

Since I have eSATA, I can use it to diagnose HDs with TechTool Pro and repair them enough with Disk Utility to get data off if need be. USB and FW do not pass some of the protocols that TTP and DU use. I have not had DU fail in that task on over 50 disks. As I have mentioned before, I sometimes have to run it many times before a drive is ready.

Since I stopped using Seagate, I have only had to do this on three WD drives, each over 5 years old. Now that they're so cheap, I make my customers change every 4 years (except the internal drives on the iMacs around here but I have the toolkit coming for those from OWC).

[Timeline]

(except the internal drives on the iMacs around here but I have the toolkit coming for those from OWC).

What will the toolkit do for you?

[Timeline]

Thanks, Gary.

BTW, when I suggested putting the drive in a Firewire enclosure, I wasn't just expressing a preference. Story: I dropped a Firewire disk while it was operating.

I put it in a USB enclosure, and it worked![/b] Thinking it just had to get itself sorted out, I put it back in a firewire enclosure, but it did not work. SO, I returned it to the USB enclosure, and... yep, it's working to this day. Not one misplaced file. 100% restored! (no, it doesn't make sense to me, either)

So, I figure if the USB side of another drive failed, maybe it would work under Firewire — my scenario, reversed. It's worth a try.

Shooshie

One old Apple trick would be to unplug all ports and most importantly the power plug to the computer for 30 minutes. This resets the ports and sometimes a spike or something shuts them off. This can happen to just one port like your firewire. Just saying S, did you try that then?

[mikehalloran]

(except the internal drives on the iMacs around here but I have the toolkit coming for those from OWC).

What will the toolkit do for you?

Intel iMacs are difficult to take apart. Suction cups are required -- depending on the year, you may need other tools as well such as a heat gun to melt the glue that holds the glass. From 2009, you need a special heat sensor to get around using Apple OEM hard drives that you can't buy anyway -- which sensor depends on the year. Anyway, OWC has kits with the right tools and correct sensors. My issue is that it requires two hands... But that's where having a son-in-law who works at Apple comes in handy.

One old Apple trick would be to unplug all ports and most importantly the power plug to the computer for 30 minutes. This resets the ports and sometimes a spike or something shuts them off. This can happen to just one port like your firewire. Just saying S, did you try that then?

Yea, that suggestion can't work. You are forgetting that the PRAM battery must be removed first. Since the OP has an iMac, see above -- you have to go through the same procedures to change the NV RAM (PRAM on a PPC or older Mac) as you do an HD, meaning there's no easy way to do this.

Since what you are doing is setting the NV RAM/PRAM, resetting it by rebooting and holding the Command-Option-P-R keys, letting it chime three times is the right procedure. The last time the FW ports crashed on my iMac, I had to go through the procedure three times before it worked. USB ports can crash, too, and the restore procedure is the same.

Then there is that the OP can see the drives but not repair them. Not a symptom of crashed ports.