Problem with Western Digital

[bgsnmky]

I have a WD Essentials (I think that is what it is).

The warranty is out.

The unit will not show up on my Mac. (it had issues lately on my pc too) so I don't believe it is a set up.

Light in front does not stay on steady.
It comes in and out and finally goes out.

I have unplugged everything and plugged everything back in; rebooted etc.
You can hear it humming for a little bit while the light is on..as if it is thinking and charging up.

I have researched and found lots of people have this issue, but most of the forums were old.

I kind of just want to give up trying to fix it and just get it to someone to get the data off of it for me.!!

Question tho before I do it.

I read of some software people can purchase, to recover data, but I am thinking how can it if the unit cannot be recognized.

Suggestions on anything easy to try or should I just get it to a data recovery place.

(I have sent an email to WD also)

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Either the drive itself has failed, or the power supply or interface electronics. If you take apart the case & remove the drive, you can try to use it with a dock - I use this dock: http://amzn.com/B003UI62AG but there are several similar. Really handy for swapping drives back and forth.

 

[bgsnmky]

thanks...this looks good and not expensive.

Question as I just talked to WD and they are also sending me new cords. So I will try that too.

I am moving data from this 1TB that I used with my PC and now want to use the data on my Mac.

he is saying I need to format the drive for my mac to even recognize it.

So if that is true...everyone moving from PC to mac would have this issue.

So the whole thing is I have to MOVE the data (once I can get to it !!) to another drive...like my Live book duo.

So if I bought this dock..would I take the drive out of the case..and put it in the dock and hook it up to my PC??? or to the router..to get it to my live duo right?

(can't hook it up to my mac??) or can I hook it directly to my mac - even tho it was used for my pc)

 

[FreakinEurekan]

he is saying I need to format the drive for my mac to even recognize it.

Generally not necessary; Mac will recognize & read data from FAT, ExFAT, and NTFS drives which are the most likely formats that would have been used on your PC. Macs cannot write to NTFS without additional software, however; if it's currently NTFS you'll want to re-format it so that it is usable for read/write on the Mac. If you want to use the drive for Time Machine you'll want to format it to Mac OS Extended format.

So if I bought this dock..would I take the drive out of the case..and put it in the dock and hook it up to my PC??? or to the router..to get it to my live duo right?

The dock just takes the place of the case/power supply you currently have, it hooks up to anything (PC, Mac, and some Routers like AirPort Express that support USB drives). The benefit of the dock is that you can have a couple of drives and swap them out, e.g. I have two hard drives that I rotate on a weekly basis for Time Machine using the dock on my Mac. I also have a couple extra disks that I pop in once in a while to create a separate backup to take offsite.

 

[bgsnmky]

Thanks. Today WD is going to send out a new power cable and a new usb connector.
NOW someone else I was talking to said I shouldn't pull it out of the case as the case has software that would need to be used. Seems odd..as many people on here have.

i am going to first try the new cable and new usb then determine if I should bu one of these.

Thanks.

Generally not necessary; Mac will recognize & read data from FAT, ExFAT, and NTFS drives which are the most likely formats that would have been used on your PC. Macs cannot write to NTFS without additional software, however; if it's currently NTFS you'll want to re-format it so that it is usable for read/write on the Mac. If you want to use the drive for Time Machine you'll want to format it to Mac OS Extended format.



The dock just takes the place of the case/power supply you currently have, it hooks up to anything (PC, Mac, and some Routers like AirPort Express that support USB drives). The benefit of the dock is that you can have a couple of drives and swap them out, e.g. I have two hard drives that I rotate on a weekly basis for Time Machine using the dock on my Mac. I also have a couple extra disks that I pop in once in a while to create a separate backup to take offsite.