Drive No Longer Recognized

#1

This is a recent phenomenon.  I’ve searched the boards, but havent been able to find a solution beyond “your drive is dead.”  Since my livelihood is on this drive, and the reason I plugged the drive in to my laptop (MacBook Pro) was to back up data, here goes. 

My drive was working fine yesterday, until at some time last night when my computer no longer wanted to recognize the drive.  I went through several micro-USB cables (all of which have worked in the past with the drive) to no avail.  I plugged the drive into another computer (Mac Mini) and that computer was able to get to WD SmartWare.  I plugged the drive into my MacBook and noticed that the size of the WD SmartWare on my passport was smaller than that of SmartWare on my other drive.  I’ve got no idea what to do from here.  I can hear the drive spinning with no clicking, so I dont believe it’s the drive itself that’s gone sour.  The USB itself appears to work.  But I still cant access the files on the drive.  Does anyone have any troubleshooting ideas i’ve missed?

#2

wWhat is the model number and type of mac are you useing laptop or desktop?

#3

WDBABM0010BBK

The computer I primarily use is a MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz running Mac OSX 10.5.8.  However, I take the hard drive with me to may different places for convenience’s sake.

#4

Well make sure the external drive is formmated for mac

I would also suggest you contact wd for a power booster cable

#5

The drive has been formatted for mac (it was the only way i could record directly to the drive.  But I’ll take a look about the power booster cable.  I’ve had the drive for at least 6 months, so i can only imagine this being a wear and tear issue.

#6

Let me more fully explain, when I plug the drive into my computer, I am able to get the CD icon for WD Smartware, but nothing else.  And the number of MB for the “CD Drive” of WD Smartware for my passport shows as different for the number of MB for the CD Drive of WD Smartware for my 2TB drive (which works fine).

#7

I also have a problem with my WD external HD model WD3200H1Q no longer being recognized.  IT QUIT WORKING approx 2 mos after i purchased my Imac in 2008.  I gave up on it since I could not get any support on getting fixed.  I upgraded to snow leopard about 2 wks ago, and it did recognize my external HD for about a week.  It now quit.  I then changed to a USB connection and lo and behold it’s back.  Is there a what I can connect via firewire without worrying about this thing crunching on me?

Best $200 i’ve ever spent:(