Suddenly, after years, WD Passport now 'Read Only' !

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bonji48

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Sep 19, 2017
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Help! I have a MacBook air that I purchased somewhere between 4-5 years ago and I maxed out the storage so I purchased a WD Passport external drive to use for my files. It IS formatted for MAC "Extended" not for Windows and I've had no issues until just recently. I mainly use it for work and use MS Excel daily and keep all the files on WD drive. Just yesterday I went to open a file I created the previous day and could not modify it; now its a 'read only'. I attempted to change it to read/write but even after unlocking I found that the options (read/write, read only, etc) were blocked out in light grey. Today when I've tried plugging the HD in to computer the white light begins flashing rapidly and doesn't always appear in finder window. I browsed the internet for solutions and have attempted to 'Verify and Repair disk' with no success. It said it needed to be repaired but would not complete the repair process. It might also be worth it to mention that I'm having other issues with my computer, as well. I'm using Mac OS 10.8.5 and have been unable to upgrade to a higher OS due to lack of space on my computer. While I use the HD for mostly work related items my IPhoto is filled with personal photos of my kids, iTunes music, etc that I had attempted to move onto the hard drive a while back but it wasn't working correctly and I was afraid I'd lose everything. So, not sure if things being out of date could effect it? Also, sometimes if I barely touch or move the HD or cable I get an error message saying that it wasn't properly disconnected…could it be that I need to replace the cable? It seems that this is a common problem except this is not a formatting issue where most are. Please help me! I'd like to not lose all of the files on my HD if possible!
 
Solution
norseman4
If that was an SSD based drive and it was used heavily they all come with extra, essentially hidden space. This is because the ability to write to those bits eventually fail and the drives firmware automatically copy that bit to a good bit in that 'hidden' section.

Eventually, if there are no longer any valid replacement bits, so the safety margin is gone. The next bit that cannot be written, or even at the time the safety margin is gone, the drive switched to read-only. This really is to protect the data that you have on the drive currently.

(At least this is what was explained to me when I was first looking at the first generation of SSDs many-many years ago.)
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norseman4

norseman4

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Mar 8, 2012
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If that was an SSD based drive and it was used heavily they all come with extra, essentially hidden space. This is because the ability to write to those bits eventually fail and the drives firmware automatically copy that bit to a good bit in that 'hidden' section.

Eventually, if there are no longer any valid replacement bits, so the safety margin is gone. The next bit that cannot be written, or even at the time the safety margin is gone, the drive switched to read-only. This really is to protect the data that you have on the drive currently.

(At least this is what was explained to me when I was first looking at the first generation of SSDs many-many years ago.)
 
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bonji48

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Sep 19, 2017
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So, if that is the case what can be done about it? Do I need to take it somewhere to transfer the data off of it onto a new drive? I have only used 1/3 of the capacity of the drive.
 
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norseman4

norseman4

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Mar 8, 2012
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If what I said is the case, as I believe it to be, the drive will be lock in a read-only state. The data would have to be transferred into a new storage device, then replaced with that new device.
 
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