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WD My Passport 1TB won't mount anymore

anothermacdude

anothermacdude

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2015
6
0
Hello,

I'm using a WD my passport air 1TB on macbook air. Yesterday it got disconnected without ejecting by accident and this morning, it failed randomly.

I now cannot mount the drive anymore, it does appear in system information on my mac, but not in disk utilities. I tried using data rescue 4 to no avail.

I tried using WD drive utilities as well, which sees the drive but says "no volume found". I therefore cannot run a SMART test or anything on it.

Please help, I have no idea where to look anymore -- i have been on help and support forums all day looking for a solution to a similar issue without being able to.

I have VERY important data (300GB of my travel videos and photos) on this drive and I am very scared to lose it.

Thanks in advance for any advice!
 
One of the reasons the disk might be showing in System Information but not in Disk Utility is that the Macbook can still communicate with the enclosure but the disk has failed. It happened to me with my last external drive.

There is a few things you might try - using a different USB port, possibly a different cable or connecting a disk to a different machine (possibly Windows one). If you won't be able to open a drive anymore, I guess there is not much more you can do unfortunately and the drive failed.

You could possibly also try to take the HDD out of the enclosure and try putting it in a different one. I've never done that before so I might be completely wrong but it could work.

I assume you don't have any backup of that external drive - Time Machine / Crash Plan / Off-site to recover your files?

I hope you are able to recover your files! Good luck!
 
Hello there,


I'm sorry to hear that you are having such a problem. Since you already tried the WD Drive Utilities the only thing else you could do is try to use a different USB cable. A damaged cable could cause such symptoms. If changing the cable doesn't work you might consider using the services of a data recovery company to recover the data. You can check the list of WD Data Recovery Partners here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=OvMUBv . Good luck.
 
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Thank you for you replies. Being on a trip currently in Bolivia, I don't have any tools at my disposal or anything. Its also practically impossible to find a different USB cable for WD (they're particular) so I can't try that either.

I found a data recovery company in La Paz, I'm gonna go see them and try to figure out if they can help me, and if it's gonna cost me an arm and a leg...
 
I see, in that case I can imagine your options are pretty limited.

Just one thing, WD doesn't use any special cable - I have owned a few WD drives and they all use standard USB cable as far as I can see.

Good luck with the data recovery company!
 
Well, I've decided against visiting that place after all, because on top of this I have major food poisoning and I'm feeling too sick to even head out! :(

I don't know where I might be able to find a new cable but I'll have a look around the city later on. Is it possible that the cable could fail like this randomly? I'm hoping that's all it is, but I doubt it. I'll try anyway, you never know...

Thanks again for your kind assistance and advice everyone.
 
That's not good but I remember that from my South American travels! :-(

You should be to, it's a pretty standard USB cable however I think it's not just the cable - however it's worth a try.

No worries!
 
Have you checked to see if theres a new firmware available for the passport? I had a WD Passport 1TB a while back that showed the same symptoms, upgraded to the newest firmware and haven't had any issues since while being connected 24/7. In fact before the firmware update the drive would disconnect itself randomly but it has not done that since I updated. Might be worth a shot before you spend money on a new cable or pay for data recovery.
 
Connect it to other Macs to see if they can mount it. See if Dish Utility or Disk Warrior (you can purchase and download it) can repair the drive.

If you can get your Mac to mount it, restore it from your Time Machine or CCC backup. If no backup, you know now why you need to address that problem in the very near future. All HDs fail; it is when, not if.
 
MCAsan said:
Connect it to other Macs to see if they can mount it. See if Dish Utility or Disk Warrior (you can purchase and download it) can repair the drive.

If you can get your Mac to mount it, restore it from your Time Machine or CCC backup. If no backup, you know now why you need to address that problem in the very near future. All HDs fail; it is when, not if.
Click to expand...

@MCAsan You should read the thread before posting. To repeat myself:

First, I've obviously tried all the solutions you propose and more.
Second, I've been traveling for 6 months, how the hell exactly do you expect me to backup a backup drive? By carrying my office with me?
With a 50L backpack and under 10kg, I can't backup my backup of my backup: I have one external drive in case anything happens to my MBA, on which I can't store this much data - and that's it.

@fr4c the drive is NOT detectable so there's no way to update the firmware - which I've tried.
 
I have a related problem. I bought a new WD my passport for mac and plugged it into my macbook pro mid 2012. Nothing showed up in the finder or under disk utility. The only sign of it being connected is under system information-USB where it shows my passport 70B8. I think it should pop up as soon as I plug it in. Can anyone suggest a reason for this?
Thanks
 
patrickh1 said:
I have a related problem. I bought a new WD my passport for mac and plugged it into my macbook pro mid 2012. Nothing showed up in the finder or under disk utility. The only sign of it being connected is under system information-USB where it shows my passport 70B8. I think it should pop up as soon as I plug it in. Can anyone suggest a reason for this?
Thanks
Click to expand...

I would try the obvious solutions first - different USB port / different Macbook / different laptop/computer in general / different USB cable.
 
Hi guys,

So this company is not guaranteeing any recovery, they're asking me to buy the exact same hard drive, a model with a similar serial number and fabrication date. They're telling me that they'll basically use a broken component from the new drive to link to the old, and make it work that way.

They only charge me $200 if they are able to recover the data on my drive, which is more than affordable.

But my question is the following: how do I manage to find a similar disk with the same properties? I dont think that's possible online, unless there is a service to look up a serial number and stuff?

Thanks for your help...
 
MyPassport from WD is one of the most common external hdd out there so it should be easy to find these. I would go by model year possibly, trying to find the same. Try contacting WD, which model exactly is it but there shouldn't be too many versions of them (also there might be only minor - visual changes between models so it might not even matter).
 
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