external drive failed from macbook pro

[stuart2102]

hello there MacCommunity...i dont know where to ask of my concern but im hoping i could find any suggestion here to address my problem about failed external drive that i use to my macbook the other days, it happens when i transferred a files from my macbook to my external drive, and then decided to cancel it and after that i click EJECT on the left side of the finder window, to my surprise after a few seconds it prompted in my screen the words "the drive is not properly ejected" and then i cant access anymore my external drive if i will put it back and connect to my macbook it only flashing the light of my external drive but wont be detected by my laptop even if i went to utility disk to look for it if is there but still nothing, i cant reformat or use recovery application my external too because cannot be found. Hopping for your knowledge about this if there is i would be happy

 

[Floris]

I had this on my niece her laptop, what fixed it was in two situations these two things. Simplest one was putting it in the other usb port and boom, there it magically was. It was able to see it and mount it.
The other situation was a bit more tricky, but it seems that just unplugging everything from any port, shutting down the system completely, booting it back up, and then putting it in the drive, solved it the other time.
Sometimes the simplest things might just solve a situation like this. hopefully you get lucky as well.

 

[stuart2102]

I had this on my niece her laptop, what fixed it was in two situations these two things. Simplest one was putting it in the other usb port and boom, there it magically was. It was able to see it and mount it.
The other situation was a bit more tricky, but it seems that just unplugging everything from any port, shutting down the system completely, booting it back up, and then putting it in the drive, solved it the other time.
Sometimes the simplest things might just solve a situation like this. hopefully you get lucky as well.

Oh ok will try the first option ill find other usb port or cord to use it, hope it works, thanks
[doublepost=1475553801][/doublepost]so bad still didn't work the first option suggested, the second option i did that before when i first received the prompt message that it was not properly ejected so i shut down my macbook and turn it back and connect my external drive but still nothing happen, tsk tsk tsk so bad...

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Oh ok will try the first option ill find other usb port or cord to use it, hope it works, thanks
[doublepost=1475553801][/doublepost]so bad still didn't work the first option suggested, the second option i did that before when i first received the prompt message that it was not properly ejected so i shut down my macbook and turn it back and connect my external drive but still nothing happen, tsk tsk tsk so bad...

The drive itself may be faulty, is it ok on another machine???

 

[Fishrrman]

There are ways to "get data back" from a drive that is no longer mountable (assuming there's no hardware damage), but they involve work...

Observation:
A number of years ago, with SCSI, one could use the old "Drive Setup" utility (the forerunner of Disk Utility) to "write new drivers" to a problem drive.
BUT -- with USB, there seems to be no way to do this (if the drivers get corrupted, making a drive un-mountable).
A serious weakness of USB that has been there from the beginning...

 

[stuart2102]

The drive itself may be faulty, is it ok on another machine???

i never tried yet, i will try it later in my uncle windows laptop
[doublepost=1475648857][/doublepost]

There are ways to "get data back" from a drive that is no longer mountable (assuming there's no hardware damage), but they involve work...

Observation:
A number of years ago, with SCSI, one could use the old "Drive Setup" utility (the forerunner of Disk Utility) to "write new drivers" to a problem drive.
BUT -- with USB, there seems to be no way to do this (if the drivers get corrupted, making a drive un-mountable).
A serious weakness of USB that has been there from the beginning...

ive notice that sometimes my macbook pro usb port wont detect if i connect my flash drive, so what i did i will transfer it to another slot or take it out and insert it again then thats the time that it will be detected by my laptop

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"i never tried yet, i will try it later in my uncle windows laptop"

Unless the windows laptop has software on it that is specifically designed to "see" Mac-formatted drives, the only message or indication you may see (when mounting the drive in windows) is the option to re-initialize.

It will re-initialize into a WINDOWS format.

You DO NOT want to do this.

You DO want to try the drive on another Mac.