External HD is blinking after turning off Mac

[Silly John Fatty]

I have a 3TB Western Digital (My Book Studio or something like that) external hard drive, which I had used with my 27" iMac that I sold, and now with my mid 2010 Mac Pro.

The weird thing is, when I turn off the Mac, but the HD is still connected, the light is still blinking. I'd understand if it was when the Mac is put to sleep - but when it's turned off? I never had this problem with the iMac.

So I unplugged the Firewire cable from the Mac to the HD to see what would happen, and it stopped blinking. Another time that didn't work and so I had to remove the power cable from the HD.

Anyone know why this is like that? Is the HD failing?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Silly John Fatty]

At some point I plugged the power cable in the external hard drive again, and there were sparks around the I/O I remember that this had already happened to me once. Scary!

 

[thedeske]

Sparks? sparkle and burn.
Sounds like it's time to yank the HD from the case and use it in a dock

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Sparks? sparkle and burn.
Sounds like it's time to yank the HD from the case and use it in a dock

What do you mean, and why?
I bought the drive in June 2013 by the way, so it's fairly recent.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Someone else:

my mac pro has been doing this for years if i miss the connection and touch the case. only happens with powered devices.best if you plug in your device before powering it.

Not exactly the same case but that never happened to me when I first plugged in the device, and then only the power supply. I guess that's the correct way to do it.

Does anyone believe there's still any danger here, except myself?

 

[Ifti]

I believe you need to back that data up from that drive, just in case......

 

[Silly John Fatty]

But why do you guys say this, do you believe it's because I did something wrong with the drive (unplugging from the drive instead of the wall first) or because you think something is wrong with the drive itself?

I've continued to use it for a bit and had no problems at the moment, no sparks also when I first unplug it from the wall.
I guess when I unplugged it from the drive, but it was still powered in the wall, there was simply some electricity in the cable, and when I touched the metal casing of the drive (well, not of the drive, but of the metal "box" in which it is), it made some sparks. Could that be the reason? Still dangerous?