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ClGc

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 13, 2020
1
0
Dear Macrumors community,

Running MCP2015, 10.15.4
I was using a seagate external HD yesterday to review (a large number of short) videos. on checking those (with space) I noticed some of them where buggy, slow, glitching and sometimes impossible to watch.
Thinking it might have to do with spotlight indexing, I prevented spotlight from looking into this HD, then kept trying. no changes. I couldn't eject the HD so I unpluged the cable (sorry), and also went on the put back spotlight how it was (I don't recall in what order).

Since then the HD has been undetected. It doesn't show in Disk Utility, or Disk Warrior, or in terminal diskutil list.
I have tried rebooting several times, including in safemode, reset NVRAM, reset SMC, other cables, other port, other computer, other OS (windows 10) with no luck. The light on the HD is on, it's turning, it's heating (a bit, not hot). Other hard drives work fine.

It does show in System report, under USB :

Expansion:
Product ID: 0x2322
Vendor ID: 0x0bc2 (Seagate LLC)
Version: 0.00
Serial Number: NA832JA5
Speed: Up to 5 Gb/s
Manufacturer: Seagate
Location ID: 0x14600000 / 11
Current Available (mA): 900
Current Required (mA): 144
Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

(note: under windows 10, I also see a "expansion" USB device poping, but that's it, I can't find it or access it anywhere else. Note that expansion never was the name of the device)

Also, when looking at the console when plugging it in, it show this (among a couple of normal other lines) :

Screenshot 2020-04-13 at 11.50.00.png


I have a feeling I might have messed up with spotlight. Seeing "destroyed" looks bad.
Is there any way to clear spotlight (or external devices settings memories) from my mac ?

Any other ideas on how I could explore further in trying to save this ?

Thanks for your help !
 
Sounds to me that the disk was on it's way out more than anything else and right now it's toast. Given that nothing is showing up I also have to ponder if the platters are bad or if it's the controller itself.

You're seeing "Expansion USB" because that's the internal name for the drive.

You can't cause the level of issues you're seeing just by modifying spotlight settings.

Time to break out the backups methinx...
 
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It was a mistake to just disconnect the drive without dismounting it or powering off the Mac before trying that. NEVER do this with a drive connected to your Mac again!

You wrote:
"under windows 10, I also see a "expansion" USB device poping, but that's it, I can't find it or access it anywhere else. Note that expansion never was the name of the device"

If you connect the drive while booted to windows, does it mount on the desktop?
If so, can you open it, browse around, copy something from it?

If the drive will mount under windows, but NOT using the Mac OS, it's a software problem (not a hardware problem with the drive).

The goal here is to:
- Get your stuff OFF OF IT any way you can (Windows or Mac)
then
- REFORMAT the drive which will put new drivers on it and perhaps you can "start fresh"...
 
If it doesn't show in Disk Warrior, odds are it is a hardware problem. If it is...no software will help.

You can certainly try software recovery...but I would say your odds are not good. The free version of Disk Drill will at least let you know what—if anything—is recoverable. Full recovery requires a paid license. There are a handful of similar recovery tools, others will have favorites too. Perhaps there are free or lower-cost tools to try.
 
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