Reformat external back up hard-drive

[jozi]

Recently had updates installed on iMac for Lion os.
Now my 2TB WD external HD will not back-up.
Disc Utility says it cannot repair the disc and that I must back-up as many of my files as possible and then reformat the disc and restore backed up files, but I have over one and a half TB's of files on the external drive and very little available space on the imac's internal drive.
What is the point of installing updates to make an os work more efficiently when in fact it just causes more problems?
Do I now have to purchase another large external HD just to transfer my existing files onto before reformatting the WD drive and then transfer the files back onto the WD or is there any other option?

 

[blueroom]

A backup means a copy somewhere else. If the data is important to you then you need a to figure out a backup solution such as another drive.

Plus those WD drives are having real problems with Mavericks.

 

[yjchua95]

Recently had updates installed on iMac for Lion os.
Now my 2TB WD external HD will not back-up.
Disc Utility says it cannot repair the disc and that I must back-up as many of my files as possible and then reformat the disc and restore backed up files, but I have over one and a half TB's of files on the external drive and very little available space on the imac's internal drive.
What is the point of installing updates to make an os work more efficiently when in fact it just causes more problems?
Do I now have to purchase another large external HD just to transfer my existing files onto before reformatting the WD drive and then transfer the files back onto the WD or is there any other option?

Western Digital has issued a statement saying that several WD drives will not work with Mavericks and will result in data loss.
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/11/01/western-digital-warns-customers-of-mavericks-external-hard-drive/

 

[Weaselboy]

A backup means a copy somewhere else. If the data is important to you then you need a to figure out a backup solution such as another drive.

Plus those WD drives are having real problems with Mavericks.

Western Digital has issued a statement saying that several WD drives will not work with Mavericks and will result in data loss.
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/11/01/western-digital-warns-customers-of-mavericks-external-hard-drive/

Just to clarify, there is absolutely nothing wrong with these WD drives. It is the software applications WD supplied as utilities with the drives that is causing the conflict with Mavericks. I have not seen reports of this software causing trouble with Lion like the OP has.

OP>> There has not been any known issue with Lion and WD drives. I suspect it is just a coincidence your drive picked this time to die on you. If you can't get Disk Util to fix the drive and there is important data on there you might want to try an aftermarket disk repair solution like Disk Warrior. In any event, it sounds like you need to replace the drive.