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External Hard Drive Makes Buzzing Noise/ Not Reconized by Mac

MaskedPhantom

MaskedPhantom

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 26, 2007
178
0
New York
Hello all,

I've got a serious issue that needs to be solved, one way or another. I have a Seagate FreeAgent 1.5 TB External Hard Drive with two partitions on it: one for Time Machine, and one for extra storage. Yesterday, I tried to plug the drive in and nothing happened. It didn't light up; it wasn't recognized by my Mac. Just a strange buzzing noise that occurs every 2-3 seconds. So, I left it alone overnight. Woke up this morning, plugged it in, and same results.

I'm extremely upset and concerned over this. Losing this data is not an option, as there are more than just backups on this. It should be noted that the day before this started, it took a short tumble off my desk, and when trying to eject it yesterday, the drives would not eject so I had to pull it out. Please, if you know of any way to get it working again or to salvage the data on this thing, please help. I've attached an audio clip of what the drive sounds like when plugged in.

Please advise.
 

Attachments

  • Hard Drive Buzz.m4a.zip
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J

jag-mac-2010

macrumors newbie
Mar 1, 2010
12
0
Interested to hear the advice you get - I'm just switching to Mac (Mac Pro Nahalem) and brought my Seagate esata drive over to my Mac the other day. While I was copying some files, my OS stopped responding, and I left it sit overnight. In the morning it still didn't respond, so I had to do a hard shut down.

After that the Mac would boot (got a blinking folder and question mark) so I called Applecare and they helped me get the OS reinstalled. But in the process I tried powering off my Seagate drive and now when I go to plug it into the Mac, I get a message that says drive cannot be read, need to initialize it.

I have all my client files on it, so I hope to hear something that might help me with that one, too. I even tried putting it back on a PC, but the PC says it must be formatted before use.
 
Darth.Titan

Darth.Titan

macrumors 68030
Oct 31, 2007
2,905
753
Austin, TX
If it fell off a desk the drive could very well have been damaged, but don't despair yet. The drive itself may be okay, but you may need to remove it and put it in a different external enclosure.

If that doesn't work, all you're left with is data recovery services which can be very pricey. Unfortunately data loss is always an option. Multiple backups are a good thing because hard drives die all the time. It's inevitable.

I wish you luck
 
MaskedPhantom

MaskedPhantom

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 26, 2007
178
0
New York
I've removed the drive from its enclosure, which was an absolute pain! Never again am I buying an external drive; I'll just buy an internal and get my own enclosure. Not worth the hassle.

Anyway, I don't have an extra enclosure hanging around, so I tried powering it up with it semi-removed from the enclosure. No luck. I guess it's the drive itself. I'm going to be heading over to Geek Squad in Best Buy soon and will see if they can extract the data themselves... I hate this! :mad:
 
J

jag-mac-2010

macrumors newbie
Mar 1, 2010
12
0
Hey I found my solution!! After trying two software programs (Recover my Files for PC, and StellarPhoenix for Mac), neither of which worked as I had hoped. But I read somewhere that Linux can usually mount damaged drives, so I installed Ubuntu on my old PC and was able to plug the drive in. Ubuntu read it just like it was normal. I was able to copy my files onto the desktop there, where all 124GB are safe and sound and ready to migrate to to my Mac.
 
MaskedPhantom

MaskedPhantom

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 26, 2007
178
0
New York
jag-mac-2010 said:
Hey I found my solution!! After trying two software programs (Recover my Files for PC, and StellarPhoenix for Mac), neither of which worked as I had hoped. But I read somewhere that Linux can usually mount damaged drives, so I installed Ubuntu on my old PC and was able to plug the drive in. Ubuntu read it just like it was normal. I was able to copy my files onto the desktop there, where all 124GB are safe and sound and ready to migrate to to my Mac.
Click to expand...

Glad it works for you! However, I tore apart my hard drive and passed the point of no return, so this isn't an option for me. :p Still waiting for enough extra money to take it to get data restored. Sigh... :(
 
Consultant

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
Sounds like drive is damaged from it being dropped.

jag-mac-2010 said:
Hey I found my solution!! After trying two software programs (Recover my Files for PC, and StellarPhoenix for Mac), neither of which worked as I had hoped. But I read somewhere that Linux can usually mount damaged drives, so I installed Ubuntu on my old PC and was able to plug the drive in. Ubuntu read it just like it was normal. I was able to copy my files onto the desktop there, where all 124GB are safe and sound and ready to migrate to to my Mac.
Click to expand...

Physically damaged drives are not going to magically work in a different OS.
 
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