USB Esternal Hard Drive Help Needed

[joesenior91]

I was formatting my external hard disk earlier today and while it was formatting disk utility 'unexpectedly quit' Now my mac won't recognize my hard drive normally, it finds it in disk utility, but it wont format it. when i hit erase and leave it for a while it says 'preparing to erase' and doesn't do anything no matter how long i leave it. I tried using a windows machine to format the disk, but that found no sign of the disk. Is the disk fixable? or is it kaput? I got it from my last PC and use it a lot, there's obviously nothing on it at the moment but i don't want to spend more money on another drive.

cheers, Joe

 

[mad jew]

I think your drive has probably died and even if you get it working again, it shouldn't be relied upon for your data. Nevertheless, leave the disk for a day or so, cool it down as much as possible, and then try formatting it again.