Hit by lightning

My 1 TB WD MyBook was hit recently by lighting, although it was not plugged into a computer at the time, but it was plugged into a surge protected power source.

At first it was just totally dead, but I replaced the power cord with a matching one from Radio Shack and now it powers up. Lights come on, and I can hear the disks spinning. But no recognition from my MacBook Pro.

I replaced the data cable.

Any suggestions?

Have you fired up Disk Utility form the utilities folder in the Applications folder?  It may give you some clues. If you see the drive there you could verify and repair or you could reformat it, that will wipe your data but render the HD usable. (the surging ions may have corrupted it)  One other thing, when you say power cord, I’m presuming you meant power supply, the small black external power supply for the drive. Make sure it is the right voltage (12v DC) and at least 2.5 amps (A).

Good Luck. Regards, Terry.

Sometimes disk utility can detect it, but not be able to do anything about it.

If that happens, you can try repairing it on a windows computer. But chances are, it could be unreadable.

If the firmware was damaged, that would explain why it can’t be detected.

If it’s a hardware failure, the arms and lasers inside may not be moving properly. (listen for some sounds that sound like clicking or sliding).

surge could damage the USB bridge board. and if that happened your drive wont work.

The same thing happened to my 1TB Element . Same circumstance: lightning, Mac laptop, spins, no mounting. Have you found a solution yet? A friend suggested that I consider a new casing bc the USB port was most likely fried. It was plugged into my Xbox 360 at the time of the incident and the only part I had to replace for it was the power supply. I have a 2nd 1TB element that still runs but I see no result even after swapping cables.