Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

rokusho1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 22, 2011
10
0
I bought a G-Drive 500GB external hard-drive for my macbook, I have used around 200GB. It would generally work fine (although sometimes it would randomly disconnect) but now it won't connect to any device at all. Anyone know what to do?
 
I bought a G-Drive 500GB external hard-drive for my macbook, I have used around 200GB. It would generally work fine (although sometimes it would randomly disconnect) but now it won't connect to any device at all. Anyone know what to do?
Sounds like a dead or nearly-dead HDD. Leave it alone for some days, then use a cheap USB 2.0 enclosure and try to recover as much data as possible. In such cases i used the Finder first, to copy the entire drive contents to a different HDD. And if that did not work, i used Prosoft Data Rescue. I was not able to recover all data (approximately 75 percent recovered).

Edit: Sometimes it is just a faulty Bridge-chip in the enclosure, like in my (2003?) LaCie 80 GB external drive. An different enclosure solves the problem (i can recommend InXtron enclosures).
 
Thanks for the advice, I'll try over the weekend and get back to you on the results
 
I know this thread is a little aged, but thought I would reply if anyone else has landed on this with similar issues: try a different USB cable (or 3 different ones!)

I had a similar issue with my 500GB G-Drive Slim - it used to connect, but then it just quit one day. I thought I would try the same USB cable I was using for my G-Drive slim to power up my 500GB G-Drive Mini (which I usually hook up with a firewire 800 cable and I know is working properly). Well wouldn't you know, it didn't connect. The power lights showed up on both drives, though. Then I went and grabbed the USB cable that came with the HD and voila! My G-Drive Slim is now connecting and working properly. Not all USB cables are created equally it seems - apparently some just don't provide enough juice to power a hard disk.

Lesson learned - always use the cables (power or other) that came with the device!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.