My Passport - WDBABABW0010BSL - 02 - external disk not mounting on Intel Mac

Hello 

Up until yesterday - all was working fine with this disk. I think it got knocked by something however and since then I haven’t been able to read / write to it, or even see it mounted to the desktop on my Mac.

On booting up it will make an intermittant high pitched ticking noise straight away and if I touch the disk itself it is vibrating / spinning for a while but then after a while (a minute or so) it will make a small bleep sound and stop spinning / vibrating. I guess that this is when the disk stops spinning because it’s unable to mount. The small LED light flashes slowly on and off, while trying to mount. Later on, after it has failed to do that, it is on constantly.

I have ordered another cable but am more or less convinced I will have to go to some place for data recovery. If I do have to send it out, will they probably not be able to mend the disk? Will they have to remove the actual disk from its container to access the data? (I am just interested / curious to know their likely method)

I did try connecting this USB2 disk to my partner’s iMac, but got the very same noise. 

Disk utility (on the Mac) won’t work as my disk cannot mount.

Any suggestions will be gratefully received. I hope it’s not broken now since I have a lot of my photos on it.

UPDATE 1: The disk is quiet and seems to be spinning inside (slight vibration) but still has not mounted to the desktop. The light is still pulsing. Earlier (about 15 minutes ago) it had made three bleeps, then a pause, then two bleeps.

UPDATE 2: I tried to boot the Mac up from cold with this disk attached - but it wouldn’t boot until I had pulled this disk out from the USB port. I guessed it was this that was preventing the computer to start as the chime kept going off in the Mac (like a reset P RAM noise). After I pulled the Passport disk out, it booted up OK, minus this disk.

Best regards

Paul.

Sorry to hear that you cannot access your files. Hard drives are very sensitive to physical shocks. If the data saved in the Passport cannot be accessed through the USB port, a data recovery company can try to disassemble the passport to access the internal hard drive. WD recommends several data recovery companies you can use, also contact WD support by phone or email before sending the Passport for data recovery. For more information follow the links below. 

http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.asp?wdc_lang=en

http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

1 Like

Hi there Ichigo

Thanks for your earlier message offering details of tech support companies.

I called one up and was informed that this service costs £395 + vat by an WD accredited company. I was advised that they heard that some other outfits (non accredited) have been know to charge £90 and then after receiving the disk say that the job is a lot harder than they had originally thought …and then charge something much much higher like £700 + !!  

This was all useful to know and thanks once again for your help, Ichigo.

Best regards

Paul

my 1tb wd my book is doing the same thing not mounting on my mac or my wd live box