Lchend Loc: Philadelphia, PA

I bought a 5TB Seagate HD at Best Buy in sept. I backed up my entire IPhoto library onto it. A month later, my computer did not recognize it! I know I should have gotten a second HD sooner but I didn't want to hear that from Seagate when I called them! They want $500-600 to recover my photos. I am at a standstill right now. Can't afford that. Any suggestions on what I can do to save all of my photos since 2008?

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Another cautionary tale concerning the necessity of backup and the unreliability of cheap, large, hard drives.

All depends on whether it's a corrupt file system issue or whether it's a mechanical or electrical problem with the drive. Is this an internal drive? Can you tell if the drive is spinning? (Place your hand on the drive - you should be able to feel the vibration if it's spinning) Do you hear any noises from the drive when you try to access it?

Lchend Loc: Philadelphia, PA

I can tell the drive is working and the light goes on. I don't hear any noises coming from the drive.

LarryFB Loc: Depends where our RV is parked

To format your new drive, you have a program called "Disk Utility" somewhere on you Mac. Use that to format your drive. It works, is easy, and doesn't take much time. As other people have said, Mac and PCs use different ways to format disks. Unless you purchase a drive that specifically claims to be for a MAC (and Western Digital makes some), you will have to reformat it.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Is the drive internal or external? Does your computer see the drive as a drive letter?

Lchend Loc: Philadelphia, PA

External drive. The computer doesn't recognize it at all.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Then it may very well be the interface instead of the drive (good news). First, try a different connecting cable , a different port, and if possible, try attaching it to another different computer. If that doesn't work, do you, or someone you know, have the ability to remove the drive from the enclosure and attach it to an internal SATA cable and power inside your computer (or another one if yours is a laptop)?

blackest Loc: Ireland

Does disk utility recognise that the drive is connected?

If the drive is spinning it may be corruption, normally the way i would work is do a block by block copy to an image file and work from there. unfortunately you will need a drive large enough to hold a 5TB image.

In the Terminal

diskutil list

(with the drive plugged in should identify two hard drives )

here is the result for my mac

/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS MacHDD 999.3 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

It has only the internal drive

if I had an external it might list something like

/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1
1: Apple_HFS George Garside 300.2 GB disk1s1
2: Windows_NTFS GRGARSIDE 199.9 GB disk1s2

As well.

It would be interesting to see if there is anything recognised with the external drive plugged in.

cat /dev/disk1 would do a raw read to the terminal

ls /dev/disk*
results in this for me

/dev/disk0 /dev/disk0s1 /dev/disk0s2 /dev/disk0s3

disk0s1 is my efi partion
disk0s2 is my os partition
disk0s3 is my bootrecovery partition
cat /dev/disk0s1 would output raw data to the terminal in this case the content of my efi partition.

if you can get disk1 to list then you may be able to recover most of your data with a program like testdisk.

If you can't you might find $600 is very good value for data recovery on a drive that size.

Just a thought but you said you got the drive in September and backed up to it. Now what did you do with the drive that you backed up from?

if you just deleted the photo's from that drive you may be able to recover a fair number from the original drive. Some may be overwritten but you should have a chance to get some of them back.

texaseve Loc: TX, NC and NH

I just buy drives specific for Mac - easier. I have had good luck with a couple external Toshiba drives. I am nervous about anything over 2T. More to lose.

10MPlayer Loc: California

I don't reformatting is any big deal. When you format a drive you're setting up a file system according to the operating system you're using. If you have a drive formatted for Windows and you want to use it for another system you need to set up the file structure to match that new system. It's not really a big deal. I format my SD drive every time I re-insert it into my camera. No big deal.

whitewolfowner

I don't know where you got that test from but I have seen several tests and they all show the same results. HGST's win slightly over WD but Seagate is way down the list. I think I even saw something somewhere Seagate was in trouble with the government.

whitewolfowner

Try getting this unit from newer tech. You take the hard drive out of the housing and insert it into the unit like the old cartridges. Good unit to have. This way you can take filled up drives, get a storage box for the drive and use it lie a cartridge when you want to access it. Preserves drives too because they are not always on. Below is the link for it at B & H. Other models are made to if you want different interfacing for it.


NewerTech Voyager S3 USB 3.0 Dock for 2.5"/3.5" SATA I/II/III HDD B&H # NENWTU3S3HD MFR # NWTU3S3HD

Lchend Loc: Philadelphia, PA

Thank you so much for all your replies. I will let you know how this turns out 😀

Lchend Loc: Philadelphia, PA

Thank you so much for all your replies. I will let you know how this turns out 😀

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Sorry for the cross-post - we said pretty much exactly the same thing - I like the Thermaltake enclosure with 2 fans.

https://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-Cooling-Enclosure-5-0Gbps-ST0020U/dp/B004G8QETI

Though a well-designed passive cooled case is probably ok.

BTW, the last time I opened a WD passport it was a consumer-grade Blue drive.