I have a relatively new Macbook Pro 13" retina display (purchased late summer 2015). I also use a 2TB WD My Passport Ultra used exclusively with my Mac (purchased autumn 2015). Up until last week the external HD worked fine, but when I tried to use it yesterday it was not recognised by my Mac. It is not even showing up in Disk Utilities. I have tried both USB ports and have tried changing the cable, but still the WD HD is not recognised. However, it works OK on my partner’s Mac Air, and my partner’s external HD drive opens with either USB port and with the same two cables!
Any advice would be very much appreciated as I need access to the data on the WD HD.
Thank you Trancer. I’ve sent a support request to WD via email. Hopefully they’ll come back with a response that will resolve this issue! My fingers are crossed!
Unfortunately the technical problem with my new 2 TB WD My Passport Ultra (purchased autumn 2015) has not been resolved. I still cannot access my data. It would seem that the support people at WD do not know what is causing the external hard drive not to be recognised or read by my new MacBook Pro (purchased autumn 2015). For the record, all USB ports on my MacBook Pro are working OK.
What seems unusual to me is the WD My Passport Ultra is recognised by my partner’s MacBook Air (purchased in 2010)! After downloading all the relevant WD software I ran all the tests recommended by WD, but the relevant software cannot find the external hard drive, even though my partner’s Mac is able to read the external drive! (I cannot rely on accessing my partner’s MacBook Air because we don’t live on the same continent - I’m only visiting for a few days before returning to the UK).
I would like to know if anyone else has had similar problems with WD’s My Passport Ultras with MacBook Pros?
Because none of the solutions advised by WD Support have worked, the latest is that they are suggesting I return the WD My Passport Ultra for a replacement as it is still under warranty. Whilst this is obviously something I should consider, I am not pleased that WD seem very blasé about me losing my data! When I raised this as a question I was sent a link to a number of data recovery companies. This means that whilst the fault with the WD My Passport Ultra is clearly with WD, they expect me to pay to have my data recovered!
The bottom line is that I have a faulty WD external hard drive that WD Support are unable to resolve, no matter how many times I check my hardware and download all the necessary firmware updates, etc, etc, and try to run scans, etc, etc. As a result I now face the prospect of losing data unless I pay out. I would suggest that this cavalier approach is not good for WD’s reputation!
As I wrote earlier, has anyone else experienced a similar problem with WD external hard drives with a MacBook Pro Retina Display…?
One of the worst external storages I have used. My first 3 TB is primarily used as a backup with time machine on my mac book pro. All of a sudden it wouldn’t load and makes a clicking noise. WD support replaced it for me with another similar drive. As of yesterday the same exact issue is what I am dealing with. The drive makes a clicking noise and sits there with the LED on and doesn’t mount. Luckily I learnt my lesson from the last experience and back up online parallelly so some date is saved. WHY on earth DOES WESTERN DIGITAL MAKE SUCH bad PRODUCTS?
I can understand your frustration. However, when there is a consistency of failure like this, it’s good to review somethings that may be contributing to multiple drives failing the same exact way.
Make sure you are not laying the drive on its side. It must be standing up in order to ventilate any heat. That will cause drive failure.
Make sure that, once the drive is plugged in and running, you are not picking it up and moving it around. That can make the drive fail sooner rather than later.
Make sure that you are not putting the drive inside any tightly enclosed spaces without ventilation.
Make sure you are not jerking the cable out of the drive when you are done backing up. It could break the cable, break the port, or cause data corruption (if you haven’t safely removed the drive).
Finally, and I know this is obvious, but make sure you’re setting the drive on a solid surface so it can’t get knocked over. One fall is all it takes to cause the drive to fail.
