MyPassport: Won’t mount, flashing white light

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

I have a My Passport 4TB, Model Number: WDBYFT0040BBK-WESN that was working great.
Couple days ago, it was plugged into my PC (not my Mac), I drug about 10GB of project folders on to it, it started copying and I went to lunch. Came back to find the PC had ‘gone to sleep’ and the drive light was flashing white. I woke the PC but MyPassport just kept spnning and would not mount. After waiting an hour and seeing no change, I shut down the the PC.

Then I plugged it into my Macbook. Same experience, flashing light and wouldn’t mount. Opening Disk Utility, ‘WD My Passport 25E2 Media’ shows up as the GUID Partition Map, while ‘disk2s2’ (MS-DOS FAT) is underneath it, ‘Not Mounted’. Tried to run First Aid on it but it failed: Could not ready boot block (input/output error)
File System check exit code is 8.
Restoring the original state found as unmounted.
File System verify or repair failed. : (-69845)

Trying to mount the disk withing Disk Utility kicked back error: Could not mount ‘bla bla’ error - 119930868

What can I do to get my data back?
What are my options? Can I retrieve anything off of this? How can I get it to mount?

3

Anyone else have this issue?

4

yes
I usually use this drive on a Mac. I’m traveling and connected it to a macbook pro and am seeing the same behaviour

5

It is possible that your WD My Passport 4TB external drive is corrupted. In this case, you may need to use a data recovery service to retrieve your files. Here are a few troubleshooting steps you can try before resorting to data recovery:

  1. Connect the drive to a different computer. Sometimes, a problem with the USB port or the computer’s drivers can prevent a drive from mounting.
  2. Format the drive. This will erase all of your data, so make sure to back up any important files first.
  3. Utilize a data recovery service. This is the most expensive option, but it is also the most likely to be successful in retrieving your data.

If you are not comfortable attempting these steps yourself, you can take the drive to a computer repair shop for assistance.

6

I have two Macs a MacBook Pro and a Mac Studio and have each has their own external WD HDD and neither no work with their respective Macs. I can get either machine to recognize it’s even plugged in and it just sits there spinning with the white light on. I use these with Time Machine to back up my devices. What is WD doing about this problem. I have invested hundreds of dollars in the external HDD and either want a refund or fix.

7

I am having the same problem. My passport for Mac would not back-up because it changed to read only. I erased the drive but now cannot install the software accept back-ups. TimeMachine doesn’t recognize it. So, I have lost my backup and can’t get started again.

8

There are 3 major issues here.

  1. Verify External Drive Health, Use Disk Utility to check the overall health of the external drive. Look for any warnings or errors related to the drive. You can also use Disk Utility to run First Aid on the external drive. This will check for and repair any errors on the disk.
  2. Change your external drive to read and write. Let me know if you want assistance on this.
  3. Recover your data from any reputable data recovery software.
9

Thank you for your help. And I apologize that I haven’t responded sooner. I haven’t had and still don’t have any internet due to a winter storm. I will address this when I have service again.