My WD External Drive is suddenly "not readable by this computer"

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

I tried to connect my 250G WD Passport to my MacBook Pro today and it makes a musical, three “note” sound and then my computer tells me the drive is “not readable by this computer.” This is the first time it’s happened and last week the drive was dropped, but  I didn’t think it was hard enough to damage it.  I guess it was though, because today I tried to connect and this happened. 

The only way I can describe the sound the WD drive makes when I connect it is like three notes. It’s not a clicking but almost sounds like a programmed error sound.  Not sure if it is or not though. 

HELP!

2

The drive has most likely failed.  If you have data on it that you need, you will most likely have to go to data recovery to retrieve it.

3

The noise that you are hearing *may* be a seized spindle motor bearing. Replacing the motor is a major job. If, OTOH, the failure to spin up is due to stiction, then a little percussive maintenance may dislodge the stuck heads just enough for the motor to overcome the adhesion.

See these Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction#Hard_disk_drives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussive_maintenance

Do NOT be tempted to hit the motor. The bearing in my IBM drive became VERY noisy after I did that. :frowning:

Here are some sound samples from failed drives:
http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

http://web.archive.org/web/20051016010750/http:// www.hitachigst.com/hddt/knowtree.nsf/cffe836ed7c12018862565b000530c74/4b1a62a50f405d0d86256756006e340c?OpenDocument

4

Ummm yea i have encountered the same problem, but i did not drop my passport (WD My Passport For Mac 320 GB). One day, actually today, I tried opening it and it started making that weird 3-note sound. I then proceded to try and “initialize” it but it said my hard drive was a 2TB hard drive. What hapenned? Now it doesn’t work and is constantly making that annoying sound.

Plz HELP!!!

5

i meant My Passport Essential For Mac…Sorry

6

I am having the same problem that my WD 2’5" passport is dropped and making the noise.

Have you have any luck?  and retrieve the data?

I am so worrying about it. thanks xx

7

I just purchased a brand new 750 GB Passport Essential SE, hooked it into my new MacBook Pro and all I get is the “Unreadable” message. I know I havent dropped it. Did I just waste money?

8

Do these drives come preformatted with an NTFS file system? If so, could this be why they are unreadable on a Mac?

9

Even if it’s formatted as an NTFS drive Mac OS X could and should see it and mount it.

10

Hi - I have this same clicking problem. I just bought my external harddrive in Canada a month ago and it worked well. Now it’s not readable but I"m in Africa and not sure how to fix the problem.

11

Mrwoohoo wrote:

I just purchased a brand new 750 GB Passport Essential SE, hooked it into my new MacBook Pro and all I get is the “Unreadable” message. I know I havent dropped it. Did I just waste money?

If, as you say, it’s brand new then simply take it back to the people you purchased it from and get it replaced.

12

annamac wrote:

Hi - I have this same clicking problem. I just bought my external harddrive in Canada a month ago and it worked well. Now it’s not readable but I"m in Africa and not sure how to fix the problem.

Another country, have you checked the obvious?  That is, that the power supply system in your current  location is the same as that in Canada.  Power supply is not the same in all countries. So its possible that it isn’t the voltage and current required for your device. That is a sure-fire thing to cause problems.

13

Yes thanks but the external hard drive is just a USB plug in and it was working great for a week while I was here.