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Is my external hard drive screwed now?

Y

Yumid

macrumors member
Original poster
May 11, 2014
59
3
So i was watching a movie that was saved on an external hard drive plugged in. Half asleep I unplugged the hard drive while the movie was playing and all of a sudden the drive started making noises. Red light started blinking for like 2 minutes and when I plugged it back into my mac it wouldn't read for about 5 minutes. Red light just kept blinking.

Then it instantly starting working again. Still works fine the next day but I'm curious if something may have happened inside it thats causing a 'slow death'? Is there a chance of it crashing and losing everything soon based on that one mistake where I pulled it out while it was reading pretty heavily? Not to mention its reaction afterwards.

Only reason I'm asking is because I'm about to do a massive software install and the plan was to put it all on that drive. About 700gb worth. Don't wanna go through all that if I need to re do it cuz the drive crashed.
 
satcomer

satcomer

Suspended
Feb 19, 2008
9,115
1,973
The Finger Lakes Region
It's not good on OS X by just removing any drive from OS X by just pulling the cable out of the Mac. It is because the OpenBSD system and you first unmount the drive by dragging to the Trash. Don't worry because the Trash will turn into a Eject icon. You also could just highlight the mounted drive and the on the keyboard press the command button+e and the drive will unmount, this then will eject the drive also.

So in your case to fix the port on your Mac do a Reset Pram. Plus turn off the external girl a minute and then turn it land plug it back into your Mac. Then use /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app on it do a repair disk/permissions on it to be sure.
 
Y

Yumid

macrumors member
Original poster
May 11, 2014
59
3
I have no idea what you just said? haha.

I wasn't under the impression I had to fix anything? Do i? Im just asking if I did damage to my external drive by accidentally pulling it out while it was playing a movie.
 
Fishrrman

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,348
12,464
OP wrote above:
[[ I wasn't under the impression I had to fix anything? Do i? Im just asking if I did damage to my external drive by accidentally pulling it out while it was playing a movie. ]]

Suggestion, do this:
1. Shut down the computer - leave the drive attached
2. Reboot the computer

Does the drive re-mount OK on the desktop?

Double-click the drive icon, check its contents in the window that opens.

Are the things that should be there..... there?

If all looks OK, don't worry about it, but remember in the future to always drag the drive's icon to the trash to dismount it BEFORE you unplug it (or turn off the power to the drive)...
 
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