WD External Hard Drive Problems

[natoquick]

Hi all,

So I just upgraded to Snow Leopard a few days ago, but was then away for a couple days and just found a big problem with my external hard drive. It's a Western Digital My Book Studio Edition 500 GB drive. I have it connected via Firewire 400 to my iMac. I've owned the drive about 14 months.

Now to the problem: My computer won't recognize the drive, and the power button will not turn off the hard drive. I tried restarting, then disconnecting everything and reconnecting, next I connected via USB, checked it with my roommate's computer and nothing recognized it.

Some additional background: A couple months ago I was having issues where my computer would go to sleep, and then on restart I would get messages to the effect of improperly shutting down a peripheral, and the drive wouldn't be recognized. A quick restart of my external HD fixed it every time. But then that issue went away.

I tried searching and didn't find anything.

Thanks in advance!

-Nathan

 

[BlueRevolution]

You can't use the drive's power button to turn it off?

 

[natoquick]

Yeah, the power button doesn't work.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Call WD. I think their drives have a 3-year warranty. That has nothing to do with your computer or OS.

 

[jdwashoe]

Try unplug and cool down period.

I've noticed my WD's 400 FW externals also don't show, let alone mount, on a few times a year.

I've a chain of 3 - 1/2 TB's + other FW connections. They stay on months at a time. But every few months one will just get too warm and the solution is to shutdown - pull it out of the chain,- let it sit 30 minutes unplugged to cool off.

I can then add it to the back on the end of FW the chain after spin up.
Symptoms are often a slow Blue ring or white bar flashing. Ring sets power button often unresponsive until after cool down.