Suddenly Unable to Copy to/from External Hard Drive

[Reuby]

I've had a Seagate 1TB external hdd for a number of years (unfortunately it's the only place with all my data) and it has always worked until a few days ago. Now whenever I try and copy anything from the hard drive, finder will freeze after a few mb have been copied and won't go any further.

I'm using a Macbook Pro Retina and I've installed all the latest updates.

I can still see all the files on the external hdd, I just can't get them off of the hard drive anymore. Can anyone help?

 

[satcomer]

Sounds as if the external's hard drive is failing. Run a disk repair serve like DiskWarrior.

 

[Weaselboy]

Have you tried using Disk Utility to verify/repair the disk?

 

[nostresshere]

Have you tried using Disk Utility to verify/repair the disk?

I would go into this. I have run into a few issues with Hard drives as well, and this fixed it.

 

[Reuby]

Thanks for the replies.

I've tried verifying in Disk Utility and it came back with no problems, however I hadn't repaired the disk fully as it was taking so long so I'll give that another go.

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Sounds as if the external's hard drive is failing. Run a disk repair serve like DiskWarrior.

How likely is DiskWarrior to work? It would be a shame to fork out the money and nothing come of it.

 

[Weaselboy]

How likely is DiskWarrior to work? It would be a shame to fork out the money and nothing come of it.

That's a tough call my friend. If you have the only copy of your child's baby photos on there, I guess any price is worth a shot. But I know I would not spend $100 to maybe rescue a $60 drive. Just no way to tell without trying.

 

[Reuby]

So after using DiskWarrior I can still transfer small files between my mac and external hdd but I can't copy any large files (above 2GB), it starts off fine and then stops halfway through as some of it is unable to be read or written.

Probably a stupid question but is there any way to disassemble the external hdd and insert the disk into a cd drive and copy the files from there?

 

[Reuby]

Would removing the drive from the casing and placing it in a dock be worthwhile?

 

[Weaselboy]

Would removing the drive from the casing and placing it in a dock be worthwhile?

It is sure worth a try. Thing is sometimes those packaged external drives use a proprietary connector and won't work with an off the shelf enclosure or sled. No way to tell without trying it.

 

[sam6dogs]

Would removing the drive from the casing and placing it in a dock be worthwhile?

I have done this with 2 WD external drives with good success. Search Seagate's site or the web to find out what type of drive is in the enclosure, mine were both SATA.