Re: Problem with External HDD not being readable

[Philippe Chaperon]

Hi Matt.,

I’m so glad that your data is now safely stored. 

To answer your questions, there are 2 possibilities I can see: 

1. The FW port on the WD MyBook drive has become faulty, as you suggested and/or
2. The FW port on your computer could be faulty
3. I guess that because there could not be a proper connection between the 
MyBook and your computer, the two utilities you mentioned could possibly 
‘detect’ that there was an external device, but being unable to read it 
concluded it was either unreadable or not formatted properly.

I have had to stop using the FW port on my iMac because although it has been 
tested and passed, I do not trust FW anymore. I hope some knowledgeable Mac 
aficionado will come up with an accurate answer to your questions. 

All the best and good night. 

Philippe C. 

Philippe dit la Grenouille ...🐸

On 9 Mar 2020, at 9:47 pm, Matt Falvey  wrote:

Hi Philippe, well the suggestion to try the USB port worked instantly. Thank 
you so much!

To be honest until you mentioned it I had not even looked for a USB port. I put 
the HDD back in the case, connected the power source which for years I though 
had been dodgy, and voila lights on and the HD is on my Mac desktop.

I am now near the end of copying everything onto another EXT HDD.

Raises two questions though:

Are there problems with the MyBook firewire ports? and,

Why couldn’t Disk Utility and Disk Warrior find it and recognise that it was 
indeed formatted as OS X Extended?

Thanks again.

Matt. 
> 
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2020 13:21:44 +0800
> From: Matt Falvey mailto:mmfal...@bigpond.net.au>>
> To: Wamug List mailto:wamug@wamug.org.au>>
> Subject: Problem with External HDD being not readable
> Message-ID: <9e70bd89-29d2-420c-8775-a5fde6957...@bigpond.net.au 
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> 
> Hi, I have a WD 1.5Tb firewire Ext HDD which stores the family videos. 
> 
> Over the course of years I have had many problems with it for some reasons 
> not turning on and on other occasions not showing up on my iMac desktop. It 
> would work in about 5% of the attempts.
> 
> As I knew I was retiring last year and would have more time available, I put 
> off worrying about it.  Last year in the US I picked up a Voyager S3 3.5 SATA 
> drive dock to try to bypass the problem, whether it be, the Mybook power 
> source, the on/off Switch or the WD Case. 
> 
> When I loaded the Ext HDD in the dock I had the following message ?The disk 
> you inserted was not readable by this computer? And it gave me three 
> options:- Initialize?, Ignore, or Eject. Well, the last two were not going to 
> be very helpful and the first one Initialize filled me with dread as it was 
> always formatted as an OS X Extended disc and I believe you can?t initialize 
> without erasing? 
> 
> I have another WD 1Tb Firewire Ext HDD, which loaded into the dock without a 
> problem, is readable and is in the same format OS X Extended as the ?not 
> readable? 1.5Tb was.
> 
> 
> I tried Disk Utility to run First Aid on the 1.5Tb and the Voyager S3 Media 
> shows up under External, but there is no drop down arrow as there is when I 
> use the 1.0Tb.
> It states 1.5TB Unitialized. Then Location - Eternal, Connection - USB, 
> Partition Map - Not Supported, S.M.A.R.T. status - Not Supported, Capacity - 
> 1.5 Tb, Child count -0, Type - Disk, Device -disk1.
> 
> When I ran First Aid on it, I got the Message, ?First Aid process is 
> complete, click Done to continue? The arrow Show Details when activated says 
> - Operation successful.
> The only other options available on Disk Utility are ?Erase? which obviously 
> I don?t want to do and ?Info? which repeats much of the previous information 
> in the last paragraph along with, Volume type - Unknown, File system - 
> Unknown, Writable - No, Owners enabled - No, Is encrypted - no, Can be 
> verified - no, Can be repaired - no, Bootable - no, Journaled - No.
> 
> I tried DiskWarrior. A disk appeared as [Unrecognizable Format] - under 
> Directory but the Rebuild button was greyed out
> 
> Overview - Directory cannot be rebuilt, the partition map may be corrupt.
> -This disk is an external USB disk.
> -This disk is 1.50 TB in size.
> -This disk is not mounted.
> -disk1 
> 
> Directory Optimisation Index - empty
> 
> A Directory Optimization Index could not be calculated for this disk because 
> of a disk malfunction.
> Rebuild this disk as soon as possible to recover your files.
> 
> The disk did not appear under Files or Hardware.
> 
> 
> Any ideas of where do I go from here to try and recover the files?  Are there 
> any alternative strategies that I could try or I might have missed?
> 
> Or should I be looking at a Data Recovery Application or a Data Recovery 
> Store?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Matt.
> 
> 
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2020 14:02:40 +0800
> From: Philippe Chaperon mailto:laut...@bigpond.com>>
> To: WAMUG Mailing List mailto:

Problem with External HDD not being readable

[Matt Falvey]

Hi Philippe, well the suggestion to try the USB port worked instantly. Thank 
you so much!

To be honest until you mentioned it I had not even looked for a USB port. I put 
the HDD back in the case, connected the power source which for years I though 
had been dodgy, and voila lights on and the HD is on my Mac desktop.

I am now near the end of copying everything onto another EXT HDD.

Raises two questions though:

Are there problems with the MyBook firewire ports? and,

Why couldn’t Disk Utility and Disk Warrior find it and recognise that it was 
indeed formatted as OS X Extended?

Thanks again.

Matt. 
> 
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2020 13:21:44 +0800
> From: Matt Falvey mailto:mmfal...@bigpond.net.au>>
> To: Wamug List mailto:wamug@wamug.org.au>>
> Subject: Problem with External HDD being not readable
> Message-ID: <9e70bd89-29d2-420c-8775-a5fde6957...@bigpond.net.au 
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> 
> Hi, I have a WD 1.5Tb firewire Ext HDD which stores the family videos. 
> 
> Over the course of years I have had many problems with it for some reasons 
> not turning on and on other occasions not showing up on my iMac desktop. It 
> would work in about 5% of the attempts.
> 
> As I knew I was retiring last year and would have more time available, I put 
> off worrying about it.  Last year in the US I picked up a Voyager S3 3.5 SATA 
> drive dock to try to bypass the problem, whether it be, the Mybook power 
> source, the on/off Switch or the WD Case. 
> 
> When I loaded the Ext HDD in the dock I had the following message ?The disk 
> you inserted was not readable by this computer? And it gave me three 
> options:- Initialize?, Ignore, or Eject. Well, the last two were not going to 
> be very helpful and the first one Initialize filled me with dread as it was 
> always formatted as an OS X Extended disc and I believe you can?t initialize 
> without erasing? 
> 
> I have another WD 1Tb Firewire Ext HDD, which loaded into the dock without a 
> problem, is readable and is in the same format OS X Extended as the ?not 
> readable? 1.5Tb was.
> 
> 
> I tried Disk Utility to run First Aid on the 1.5Tb and the Voyager S3 Media 
> shows up under External, but there is no drop down arrow as there is when I 
> use the 1.0Tb.
> It states 1.5TB Unitialized. Then Location - Eternal, Connection - USB, 
> Partition Map - Not Supported, S.M.A.R.T. status - Not Supported, Capacity - 
> 1.5 Tb, Child count -0, Type - Disk, Device -disk1.
> 
> When I ran First Aid on it, I got the Message, ?First Aid process is 
> complete, click Done to continue? The arrow Show Details when activated says 
> - Operation successful.
> The only other options available on Disk Utility are ?Erase? which obviously 
> I don?t want to do and ?Info? which repeats much of the previous information 
> in the last paragraph along with, Volume type - Unknown, File system - 
> Unknown, Writable - No, Owners enabled - No, Is encrypted - no, Can be 
> verified - no, Can be repaired - no, Bootable - no, Journaled - No.
> 
> I tried DiskWarrior. A disk appeared as [Unrecognizable Format] - under 
> Directory but the Rebuild button was greyed out
> 
> Overview - Directory cannot be rebuilt, the partition map may be corrupt.
> -This disk is an external USB disk.
> -This disk is 1.50 TB in size.
> -This disk is not mounted.
> -disk1 
> 
> Directory Optimisation Index - empty
> 
> A Directory Optimization Index could not be calculated for this disk because 
> of a disk malfunction.
> Rebuild this disk as soon as possible to recover your files.
> 
> The disk did not appear under Files or Hardware.
> 
> 
> Any ideas of where do I go from here to try and recover the files?  Are there 
> any alternative strategies that I could try or I might have missed?
> 
> Or should I be looking at a Data Recovery Application or a Data Recovery 
> Store?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Matt.
> 
> 
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2020 14:02:40 +0800
> From: Philippe Chaperon mailto:laut...@bigpond.com>>
> To: WAMUG Mailing List mailto:wamug@wamug.org.au>>
> Subject: Re: Problem with External HDD being not readable
> Message-ID: <0d8c2ab1-51a4-4099-a3fd-35dabafb8...@bigpond.com 
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Hi Matt, 
> 
> So sorry to hear of your dilemma. Indeed if you Initialise  your external 
> drive it will wipe off any of the data it contains. 
> 
> I have in the past used the application Data Rescue successfully in 
> recovering data from damaged USB Camera memory cards, so this may be one 
> option.
> 
> Alternatively, does your WD firewire has also a USB port? If so have you 
> tried to connect it to your computer via USB? I had a problem with an old WD 
> Firewire drive which was not even mounting on my desktop. But I managed to 
> mount it using the USB port and promptly copied it. 
> 
> I have been using a lot of WD exte