I’m going crazy here. My iMac will not start with ‘WD My Book Essential 3.0 3TB’ connected to the USB. It just stays with the white/gray screen until I unplug the hard drive. After that the apple appears in two seconds and the computer starts without problem. If I do not unplug the hard drive it takes about 15-20 minutes for the apple to appear and then the computer starts without the hard drive beeing mounted and discovered. When I then unplug and plug in the hard drive while computer and OS is running it starts and works properly. The only problem is that you can not start the computer with the hard drive connected.
I have four other external hard drives (Two WD and two Seagate) (only the two WD:s connected on regular basis) wich works just fine, and the hard drive with the problem is partitioned and formatted the same way as the others. I have done a "verify disk" on the hard drive and it says something is wrong with it and that I have to repair it. When I do the repair it looks successful, but when I right after do the “verify disk” again the same error still comes up. It actually says something about a problem that may cause the computer having problem starting up. A “verify disk” on the partition, the unit under the actual hard drive in the list, is carried out successfully.
First I thought the hard drive was broken, so I took it back to the store and got a new one, but yesterday when I came home with a new exactly the same disk it had the exact same problem. So it can not be broken. Anyhow something is wrong with it, or that model. All my other hard drives work, both when plugged in via a USB hub and directly into the computer.
Does anyone know what to do about this? Is there a known problem with that disk? I really need this to work now, otherwise I will have to return it again.
Much grateful for help.
