Is my external HD dying?

[R.Youden]

I have an external hard drive which has all my iTunes, Photos and Movies on. Yesterday I noticed that when I was transferring a file sometime it stopped with an error that the disk couldn't be read / written too. Now when I am playing iTunes it paused for about 2 seconds before carrying on with the song.

Is this an issue with the hard drive or maybe my mini?

 

[2ndPath]

I would try to check the disk using disk utility for a start. This might provide more information of the problem. It could just be a filesystem error, which disk utility might be able to fix. It could also be a hardware problem of the disk. I would not suspect the mini to be the source of the problem right now.

 

[R.Youden]

I just rebooted my mini and the drive wouldn't mount. I then tried to mount in on my MacBook Pro and it tool about 5 attempts before I mounted so I think the drive may be on its last legs. Bugger!

 

[R.Youden]

Well,

I managed to get it working for a while but now it has packed in again.

When I try and connect the drive it says that the drive can not be read by this computer.

I have tried to use Disk Warrior and no joy with that, it can't read the drive at-all.

I have also tried on multiple machines and even on Windows but it appears to be OK in Windows (well the trouble shooter says it is fine) but it does not appear in Windows explorer.

How successful is data recovery in cases like this?