Seagate external HD stopped working

Ado86

Hello,

Not sure if this is right place for post as not purely mac issue - feel free to put it where it belongs moderators.
I have a free agent go 320gb external hard drive - approx 3 years old. Have been using it as my back up with Time machine.
Been working perfectly up until last week, never had problems but now it does not even power up and is not recognised at all by disk utility.
Any ideas what could be wrong with it ? Or how to fix it ?
And I don't have a back up of it ... :eek:

And second question - would I better off to buy a new hard drive and put everything onto it from the current version of data on my mac or how much would be reasonable to pay for data recovery - if this is even possible?

muggyog

First you need to determine if it is the drive(s) or the enclosure that is faulty.

Can you remove the drive(s) and test in another enclosure or even a Mac Pro ( asuming SATA drive)?

Ado86

Tried it in another MBP and wasnt recognised with that either - so presuming its a problem with the HD...
No idea what a SATA drive is !

muggyog

So you removed the hard drive out of the enclosure and dismantled a MBP and tested it in that?

I suggest you just connected the enclosure
to the MBP.

This is what is in the enclosure.

Its a 2.5 inch SATA drive.

You need to remove it from the enclosure ( box) and test it on its own. The enclosure provides power and converts from USB to SATA. As you said that it does not power up there is a strong possibility that the drive itself may be working but the enclosure is not.

This shows how the whole thing goes together.

Ado86

No no, sorry about confusion - its a portable external hard drive....

holystungun9

Ado86, i'll just run through the idea mentioned above to make sure you get it and can go from there.

You external drive is just a regular computer hard drive in a fancy box with some sort of connector lead for your computer. Different brands will make their box look snazzier or different from others but the drive inside is essentially the same thing (storage size and actual manufacturer will vary obviously though).

There is always a chance that when there is a problem, the internal hard drive may not be the problem and could be working fine. The connector to the drive may be the problem. So if that were the case, you could open up the box pull out that standard looking hd and with another connector lead or a cheap donor enclosure/box with lead, you connect the 'bare' drive to see if it reads.

You asked would it makes sense to buy another drive of do data recovery.
The first step I would take is to buy a hard drive enclosure (i.e. another little empty box which has the lead, so you plug in your old bare drive and connect to your mac to see if it reads. - if it doesn't well then your old box was fine and the problem is the actual hard drive. One possible issue, as mentioned above is that your drive being three years old may be a non SATA type connector and when you get your new enclosure your hard drive might not fit the connector as it is of an older type. If you take your old drive out you can have a look at the type of connector, it should be like the one pictured above (sata) it has a flat card sticking out at one end that has an off centre notch in it. (Don't know for certain but I think you should be ok as sata has been used for a while).
Those hard drive enclosures are cheape (depending on 'looks' more than anything and you can get one in a pc world or somewhere like that).

If this works then fine, if not (and even if it does work you should still get a new external drive. THey can die at anytime, but particularly after three years to be honest. Get your drive and copy over stuff form your computer or setup a new time machine or whatever you fancy.

Data recovery from your dead disk will cost you too much money if it even works and if your system is still fine then you yourself with a new drive should just copy everything over yourself.

Think that I've covered it but if there are any holes just ask or someone else hear will fill in the blanks.

Best of luck!