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PLEASE HELP - USB DRIVE LOCKED

T

TinaBelcher

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 23, 2017
1,257
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My usb drive just froze, and when I tried to put it back in it says it cannot be locked up due to an error.

I had my whole life on that usb drive!! It's almost like it deleted everything off it.

I even tried on my iPad and I could type in my password and all there was left was my folders without ANY files in them. I'm heartbroken!

Can anyone help me unlock and recover my files?
 
have you tried rebooting?

and BACK THAT DRIVE UP! it is, as ppl learn over & over, essential to have (at least) one backup of your files...
 
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There's a saying that if your data is on only one drive, it's in danger.
You may have just found that out, for real.

Try this:
1. power down, everything off
2. disconnect the drive that has a problem
3. boot up the Mac, get to the finder
4. connect the problem drive, and then... just... wait. Let it sit there a while.
5. give it some time, 20, 30 minutes.

WHY I'm suggesting you do this:
Sometimes the finder will try some behind-the-scenes things to "repair" a drive that is giving problems mounting.

We don't know if it's a software problem (software or directory corruption), or perhaps a hardware problem (something mechanically broken).

Software problems can sometimes be worked out. There is "data recovery" software (such as "Data Rescue") that you could try on the drive.

A hardware problem is more serious. If something's actually broken, like the drive motor or the head that moves across the platters, the only way to get the data back might be a professional data recovery outfit. These are VERY expensive -- expect to pay thousands of dollars.

DON'T try writing anything to this drive.
If you can get it mounted again, the best thing to do would be to get ANOTHER drive, and start copying stuff from it to a "known, good" drive.
 
All good advice above. I'll add: have you changed anything ELSE in the equation? For example did you upgrade macOS between the last time when it worked fine and now? If so, do you have another Mac running the former version of macOS? If so, try connecting to that one. Big Sur/Monterey has some issues with some USB stuff.

If you manage to get it working with any option, immediately get "your whole life" stored on that one stick onto something else or maybe even a few something elses. That stick may be about to fully conk- perhaps too many writes over a long time- so any success begs for salvaging whatever you can from it to something else. If you do revive it once, I would have ZERO assumptions that all is fine again.

If everything fails- even trying to open it on a Windows machine too (Macs can be more finicky than Windows), you may have a dead stick or stick damaged beyond simple solutions. That can get into professional recovery software needs or even professional (human) services... but the latter can be crazy expensive.

Hopefully, you've backed up "your life" or much of it on other types of storage so that losing one stick is not a complete loss. As others have said, learn from this: never trust a single storage medium for anything important to you. At least 2 or ideally 3 (with at least one off site) backup is the best way to maximize the chances of this kind of situation never happening again. Trusting one thing- including "the cloud"- is often unknowingly inviting this exact type of disaster.

I hope the suggestions offered in this thread work for you.
 
Last edited:
TinaBelcher said:
Sandisk usb-c (double sided)
It's password encrypted
On a Mac
Click to expand...
"on a mac"? look in disk utility (in the utilities folder); is the drive mac formatted?

can you try it on another computer? have you restarted your mac? (and again, if/when you get in to it, MAKE A BACKUP)....
 
bogdanw said:
I guess it’s this one SanDisk® iXpand Flash Drive Luxe https://www.westerndigital.com/products/usb-flash-drives/sandisk-ixpand-luxe-usb-3-1-type-c
Open Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app) and run First Aid on the disk.
See from “Select your disk in Disk Utility” https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210898
Click to expand...
It’s the dual kind
097A22F1-368C-4B18-B6A1-485F303DAFF7.jpeg
 
Sad. I've lost so much data from USB drives - I stopped using them a handful of years ago. Even spinning USB drive reliability has gone down the tube... The office I work at bought 20-30 WD passport drives and almost half failed.

Over the last 5 years I tried a few USB drives that claim to be high end and just transferring a few thousand files resulted in melted plastic, burning smells, and death (for the drive). I wouldn't trust these things for anything other than a temporary transfer medium.

Sorry for your loss. :(



Cloud is really the only way to go these days.

What I do is: External Lacie drive for time machine backups and EVERYTHING is in iCloud (120+GB photos/videos and about 49.6GB in iCloud Drive). A few things I back up to my OneDrive account every few months.
 
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TinaBelcher said:
Please, DON'T!!! From day one this piece of sh*t has been burning hot and now it's corrupted and lost my entire life.
At this point it's saver to save everything in iCloud or Google Drive. I plan on doing that.
Click to expand...
what? store your files on your mac, and backup to time machine. or store them on a flashdrive, and make a copy of that. have your data in (at least) 2 places, always.

and have you tried the suggestions in this thread?
 
BigMcGuire said:
Sad. I've lost so much data from USB drives - I stopped using them a handful of years ago. Even spinning USB drive reliability has gone down the tube... The office I work at bought 20-30 WD passport drives and almost half failed.

Over the last 5 years I tried a few USB drives that claim to be high end and just transferring a few thousand files resulted in melted plastic, burning smells, and death (for the drive). I wouldn't trust these things for anything other than a temporary transfer medium.

Sorry for your loss. :(



Cloud is really the only way to go these days.

What I do is: External Lacie drive for time machine backups and EVERYTHING is in iCloud (120+GB photos/videos and about 49.6GB in iCloud Drive). A few things I back up to my OneDrive account every few months.
Click to expand...

This is the same thing I've concluded! Clouds have become more stable and reliable today!
 
fisherking said:
"on a mac"? look in disk utility (in the utilities folder); is the drive mac formatted?

can you try it on another computer? have you restarted your mac? (and again, if/when you get in to it, MAKE A BACKUP)....
Click to expand...
I've tried disk utility. It refuses to open it up. First, it requires that I unlock it, but I can't even put in my password due to the corruption, so there's no way I can even continue...
second, I tried it on my MacBook as well... I tried restarting my mac...

I tried using Disk Drill and made a copy of the drive, but nothing is working
 
TinaBelcher said:
I've tried disk utility. It refuses to open it up. First, it requires that I unlock it, but I can't even put in my password due to the corruption, so there's no way I can even continue...
second, I tried it on my MacBook as well... I tried restarting my mac...

I tried using Disk Drill and made a copy of the drive, but nothing is working
Click to expand...
sorry to hear that. when you got the drive, did you format it for mac before using it? if not, you might try to find someone with a PC, see if they can access the data.

having everything in 2 places is essential; and keep in mind that icloud is not a backup per se for documents etc...
 
fisherking said:
sorry to hear that. when you got the drive, did you format it for mac before using it? if not, you might try to find someone with a PC, see if they can access the data.

having everything in 2 places is essential; and keep in mind that icloud is not a backup per se for documents etc...
Click to expand...
Yes, I formatted it on a mac so it was password encrypted, and only used it on a mac since 2018.
I don't own a PC, but I want to try it at my workplace tomorrow (if I can remember) and see how it reacts.

I know. But I only have 256Gb on my MacBook and 500Gb on my iMac, so those 128GB felt like a huge deal having on a flash drive and keeping personal stuff off my mac...
 
TinaBelcher said:
Yes, I formatted it on a mac so it was password encrypted, and only used it on a mac since 2018.
I don't own a PC, but I want to try it at my workplace tomorrow (if I can remember) and see how it reacts.

I know. But I only have 256Gb on my MacBook and 500Gb on my iMac, so those 128GB felt like a huge deal having on a flash drive and keeping personal stuff off my mac...
Click to expand...
always make a copy of any drive that has important data, ie you could backup the flashdrive to another drive...
 
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