3tb WD external not working

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-JM

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Aug 8, 2014
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Hello, I have a 3tb WD My Book 1140 Media external hard drive, for about a year now. Has worked fine up intill now.

I turn on my computer and my hard drive sounds like it's starting up then it makes this noise sounds like its stuck on a lope over and over again. Then it stops making any noise, when I turn it off it makes the same shutting down.

The little light is on as well and blinking.

My mac laptop says it doesn't see the hard drive and it cannot read it/not supported. The disk utility shows up but it doesn't let me do anything.

This hard drive is very important everything is on there, all my work and personal stuff. it is very very important i get the stuff on it.

thank you
-JM
 
Solution
Wastedfun
With external hard drives, you have two major point of failures to consider.

1. The hard drive its self can malfunction
2. The usb controller can malfunction.

If you have tested the USB connection on multiple ports, and two different computers, then you may have to dig a little deeper. An easy step is to take apart the external HD case, and remove the drive. Then plug the drive in directly to an empty sata port inside the computer, plug in a sata power cord and boot the computer up.

If you computer boots extremely slow, that is a tall sign that the hard drive is failing or has failed. but wait it out and see if you can make it to windows. If you can make it into windows, see if it shows up under the disk management utility (right...
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Wastedfun

Wastedfun

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Aug 3, 2014
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4,560
With external hard drives, you have two major point of failures to consider.

1. The hard drive its self can malfunction
2. The usb controller can malfunction.

If you have tested the USB connection on multiple ports, and two different computers, then you may have to dig a little deeper. An easy step is to take apart the external HD case, and remove the drive. Then plug the drive in directly to an empty sata port inside the computer, plug in a sata power cord and boot the computer up.

If you computer boots extremely slow, that is a tall sign that the hard drive is failing or has failed. but wait it out and see if you can make it to windows. If you can make it into windows, see if it shows up under the disk management utility (right click on "My Computer and click Manage".

If it is there, and you can assign a drive letter to it, copy everything you need off it asap. If it is there, and says it needs to be initialized, don't do it yet because that may erase the data.

If by some good luck it shows up, and you get your data off it, proceed to run error checks on the drive to see if it is failing. But first thing is to always get your data off asap. If no errors and it shows up, chances are the USB controller or some connections in the external case failed.
 
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